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Month: October 2010

How should oppositions respond to what seems like good news?

How should oppositions respond to what seems like good news?

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What should Labour say about the GDP figures? It’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves that for thirteen of the last thirteen and a half years Labour has been in government. Being in opposition requires a totally different skill-set and the party is only just learning how to make best use of the limited number of communications opportunities that are available to it. This morning was a particular challenge. The Q3 GDP increase at 0.8% was far higher than most had expected…

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Is Labour making the Mrs Thatcher “Oct 1990” mistake?

Is Labour making the Mrs Thatcher “Oct 1990” mistake?

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Remember when the “Dead Parrot” struck back Next month we’ll see the twentieth anniversary of what for me was the biggest earthquake in UK politics of my life-time – the ousting of the Conservative party’s three times election winner, Margaret Thatcher. A few weeks earlier, on Friday October 12th 1990, the leader had received her biggest applause from her party conference in Bournemouth in response to a joke based on the famous Monty Python sketch which she linked to the…

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It’s almost no change with ICM

It’s almost no change with ICM

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Poll/publication End date CON (%) LAB (%) LD (%) ICM/Guardian 24/10/10 39 36 16 ICM/NOTW 22/10/10 40 36 16 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 07/10/10 38 34 18 ICM/Guardian 29/09/10 35 37 18 ICM/Guardian 15/08/10 37 37 18 ICM/Guardian 25/07/10 38 34 19 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 24/06/10 41 35 16 ICM/Guardian 20/06/10 39 31 21 ICM/Guardian 23/05/10 39 32 21 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 13/05/10 38 33 21 Opposition to the cuts doesn’t seem to be affecting voting intention The first of two telephone polls that…

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BBC apologises for the EdM results cock-up?

BBC apologises for the EdM results cock-up?

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But will they ever learn – WE WANT THE FECKING NUMBERS The BBC has this afternoon apologised for the total Horlicks it made of its spacial programme on Saturday September 25th when the results in Labour’s leadership election were being announced. It will be recalled that some cretin decided it was smarter to have Nick Robinson talk over the announcement of what was a complex set of numbers coming, as it turned out to entirely the wrong conclusion. Robinson should…

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Should Clegg have confessed to…being a smoker?

Should Clegg have confessed to…being a smoker?

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Has he broken what’s become the ultimate taboo? Extraordinarily one of the most covered political stories this morning is the “confession”, if that is the right word, that Nick Clegg made to Kirsty Young on Radio 4s Desert Island Discs that he likes to smoke. The “revelation” came at the end of the programme when he revealed that his “luxury on a desert island” would be “a stash of cigarettes.” I like Nicholas Lezard’s article on this in the Guardian…

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Is talk of a post election coalition premature?

Is talk of a post election coalition premature?

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Could Old & Sad upset the good relations? After a week in which the coalition has broadly withstood what has probably been its biggest test it’s inevitable that speculation has resumed over the partnership continuing after the next election. This has been fuelled by comments said to have been made in private by Francis Maude suggesting that the coalition should continue even if the Tories won a majority. Ex-Tory front bencher and now ConHome writer, Paul Goodman, has made his…

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Did Labour lose “The Cuts – Week 1”?

Did Labour lose “The Cuts – Week 1”?

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“Who’s to blame for the cuts?” (YouGov) All voters CON voters LAB voters LD voters CON-LD coalition 17 1 39 5 Last Labour government 47 93 6 65 Both 20 3 29 13 Neither 11 2 24 11 “Last Labour government bears most responsibility” (ComRes) All voters CON at GE LAB at GE LD at GE Agree 59 87 32 56 Disagree 36 12 63 40 Will EdM’s party floundering on the “blame” issue? As I have been arguing during…

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Boost for Tories in first post CSR phone poll

Boost for Tories in first post CSR phone poll

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Poll/publication End date CON (%) LAB (%) LD (%) ICM/NOTW 22/10/10 40 36 16 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 07/10/10 38 34 18 ICM/Guardian 29/09/10 35 37 18 ICM/Guardian 15/08/10 37 37 18 ICM/Guardian 25/07/10 38 34 19 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 24/06/10 41 35 16 ICM/Guardian 20/06/10 39 31 21 ICM/Guardian 23/05/10 39 32 21 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 13/05/10 38 33 21 And the LD total is sharply in contrast with YouGov There’s a new ICM poll just out for tomorrow’s News of the World…

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