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Month: May 2015

Looking ahead to who will be the Tory London Mayoral Candidate

Looking ahead to who will be the Tory London Mayoral Candidate

In less than a year Londoners will elect the successor to Boris Johnson, but who will be the Tory candidate? I suspect the candidate will someone with a high profile, and the ideal choice, would be Lord Coe, but it is believed his future is focussed upon the IOC, so who then? Zac Goldsmith is the current favourite, but the value in him has gone now. One of the reasons, I’m no longer backing any current Tory MP is given…

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Apathy and the older voters might be the key for Out winning the referendum

Apathy and the older voters might be the key for Out winning the referendum

Not many people seem to view the EU as an issue – For Out it maybe that a low turnout referendum/differential turnout is the route to winning. Looking at this month’s Ipsos Mori issues index above, as usual, the  EU isn’t in the top 10 issues, whilst I sympathise, with those that say that Immigration is a proxy for the  EU, when we look at the specific EU tracker below, by Ipsos Mori, the EU isn’t a priority as it…

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David Herdson says that the Battle of Skinner’s Seat is only the beginning

David Herdson says that the Battle of Skinner’s Seat is only the beginning

Salmond: the new Parnell in Westminster The House of Commons can be a pretty rowdy place at times but it does at least have rules and conventions to which its members are expected to adhere. At one time, it had far fewer rules and rather more conventions (as the Lords still does). The reason why the change came about can be credited to Charles Stewart Parnell, the dominating Irish politician in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He astutely…

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PB/Polling Matters Podcast: What does Labour do next?

PB/Polling Matters Podcast: What does Labour do next?

Polling Matters is an independent, non partisan podcast providing, in conjunction with PB, expert polling news and political analysis in the aftermath of the 2015 General Election. This week, host Keiran Pedley discusses why Labour lost and what’s next for the party featuring interviews with Lord Foulkes and Professor John Curtice and analysis from regular Polling Matters contributors Rob Vance and Leo Barasi. Keiran tweets about polling and politics at @keiranpedley

Richard Tyndall on “Laying the groundwork for an ‘Out’ vote”

Richard Tyndall on “Laying the groundwork for an ‘Out’ vote”

. The three challenges for those who want a NO vote It has been generally accepted that the ‘Out’ side currently face an uphill fight to try and win the referendum which will be held at some point over the next two or so years. Whilst there is overwhelming support in the country for reform of the EU and strong, but minority, support for leaving, unless the ‘Out’ side can produce a convincing argument as to why life will be…

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How Scotland and the LD collapse almost completely reverse the bias in the electoral system

How Scotland and the LD collapse almost completely reverse the bias in the electoral system

The dramatic shift in Britain’s political landscape As we all know one of the constants in British politics over more than a quarter of a century has been that the electoral system has been “biased” towards Labour. Essentially for a given vote share the red team will have more MPs than the blue one. Well the big news from May 7th is that that is all over and now the Tories will get more seats for an equal vote share…

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Looking back to those final GE15 phone polls one thing stands out about LAB backers…

Looking back to those final GE15 phone polls one thing stands out about LAB backers…

There were more non-GE10 voters in the LAB totals than in CON The British Polling Council inquiry into what went wrong with the GE15 is well under way and no doubt many will be putting forward theories about what caused them to be so wrong. One of the factors that I believe was partly responsible for the overstatement of LAB shares is featured in the chart above – a larger part of its support according to the surveys was coming…

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