Browsed by
Month: April 2012

Will Number 10’s delaying tactics work with Hunt?

Will Number 10’s delaying tactics work with Hunt?

Ladbrokes now make Jeremy Hunt the 4/5 odds on favourite to be next cabinet exit. bit.ly/c5gpH6 — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) April 28, 2012 Could there be surprises in the Sunday papers? So far, at least, the Cameron tactic of say they must wait for Leveson. not expected for some weeks, has managed to hold in the Jeremy Hunt affair. The problem Dave’s got is that Leveson won’t be ruling on the affair – that’s for the PM. There’s also the…

Read More Read More

Is Greece about to blow the Eurocrisis open again?

Is Greece about to blow the Eurocrisis open again?

What will the elections do to the bailout settlement? It’s unsurprising that with the Republican primaries, the French presidential election, the London mayorality and local elections in Britain all taking place within April or early May, there’s not been much coverage given to another legislative election taking place next week. Perhaps we should. Elections in that Greece have rarely carried as much import to the rest of the world as they do now. There are two simple reasons for this,…

Read More Read More

Does Boris hanker after Dave’s job?

Does Boris hanker after Dave’s job?

What’ll a victory next week do to his leadership ambitions? If both the national and London polls are reflected in next week’s London and national elections then Boris Johnson will be one of the few prominent Tories with something to smile about a week today. On a night that’s likely to see huge Tory losses, including possibly to their coalition partners the LDs, Johnson will have held on completely against the mid-term national trend. The message from City Hall will…

Read More Read More

Which pollster will win the 2012 London Mayoral polling race?

Which pollster will win the 2012 London Mayoral polling race?

Is Ken’s deficit -2% or -11.2%? Pollster Ken deficit on first preferences YouGov online -2% ComRes online -9% Survation online -11.2% Make no mistake real elections where real results can be compared to real final polls are absolutely critical to the pollsters’ concerned. These are moments when reputations can be won and lost and can have big impacts on their commercial success. Next Friday three pollsters will be waiting in eager anticipation for the declaration of the results in the…

Read More Read More

PB NightHawks – looking ahead three weeks

PB NightHawks – looking ahead three weeks

Have you any suggestions for PB online polls? On May 20th Jacky and I are heading to Barcelona, Cadiz and Ronda for two and a half weeks. Unlike my previous holidays there will be not be the same level of posting on PB. We will put up open threads and a number of pre-prepared guest slots. I’m hoping that we’ll get the latest voting intention poll details up. One daily feature which we can set up in advance is a…

Read More Read More

Be careful about second preferences

Be careful about second preferences

Their impact will be far less than might appear The two pollsters who are carrying out regular London Mayorals surveys, and ComRes and YouGov are both issuing two sets of numbers when they publish their results. These are the first preferences of those interviewed and then their estimation of what the final split between the top 2 will be. The media is tending to focus on the latter which might be misleading. My view is that we should put our…

Read More Read More

Ken drops 5pc in new ComRes Mayor poll

Ken drops 5pc in new ComRes Mayor poll

Should you be taking the 12/1 bet on Jones for 3rd There’s a new London Mayoral poll just out from Comres which is showing a very different picture from that reported on Monday by YouGov. The first preference figures are with changes on the firm’s last Mayoral poll published on April 10th – Boris 45%-1/Ken 36%-5/Jones 6%+2/Paddick 5%-1/Benita 3%+3/UKIP 2%+1/BNP 2%+1 It was inevitable, as the race gathered pace, that the top two would see some shrinkage as other candidates…

Read More Read More

Was the Sun’s endorsement really so helpful to Dave?

Was the Sun’s endorsement really so helpful to Dave?

How come that afterwards there was such a big poll decline? So much has been talked about this week of the political power of the Murdoch empire that I thought I’d that it might be useful to reflect on the period before the last election. Look at the table of pre-election ICM polls above. By September/October 2009, the time of the Sun’s endorsement, the blues were in the 40s with a solid 17% lead and looked all set to be…

Read More Read More