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Month: March 2016

Tonight’s local by-elections saw

Tonight’s local by-elections saw

Moriah (Lab defence) on Caerphilly Result of council at last election (2012) : Labour 50, Plaid Cymru 20, Independents 3 (Labour majority of 27) Result of ward at last election (2012) : Emboldened denotes elected Labour 698, 543 (54%) Plaid Cymru 420 (30%) Independent 363 (16%) Candidates duly nominated:Peter Bailie (Ind), Mervyn Diggle (Ind), Nigel Godfrey (Con), Ian Gorman (UKIP), David Harse (Lab) Embasy with Eastby (Con defence) on Craven Result of council at last election (2015): Conservatives 20, Independents…

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Wisconsin next Tuesday looks like the last primary where Trump can be stopped

Wisconsin next Tuesday looks like the last primary where Trump can be stopped

The 42 “winner takes all” delegates look set to be crucial One thing that is becoming increasingly clear in the battle for the Republican nomination is that Donald Trump will need to have enough delegates on the first round by the time he gets to the GOP convention in Cleveland in July. If he fails to have reached the magic threshold 1,237 then all the media talk is of efforts being made at the convention to stop him being the…

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This week’s PB/Polling Matters TV show looks at the Sanders threat to Hillary Clinton and the current state of Labour

This week’s PB/Polling Matters TV show looks at the Sanders threat to Hillary Clinton and the current state of Labour

Another top political discussion on the issues of the moment After all the focus on the GOP race and BREXIT this week’s show examines the potential threat to the Clinton campaign by the 74 year old, Bernie Sanders and the state of Labour six months after Corbyn became leader. Keiran Pedley is joined in the studio by Stephen Bush of the News Statesman and YouGov’s international director, Marcus Roberts – who previously worked with Labour. The link for the audio…

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The woman Farage sacked is 6/4 favourite to succeed him as UKIP leader

The woman Farage sacked is 6/4 favourite to succeed him as UKIP leader

A big political story before the Easter weekend was the suspension for six months of leading UKIP figure, Suzanne Evans, who for a few days last May was acting leader of the party. She stood in after Farage carried out his promised resignation on the Friday after the general election only to return as leader the following week. Evans, a former BBC journalist and CON councillor, had become one of the most effective communicators for her party and had hopes…

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Trying to work out who will turn out in the referendum of June 23rd

Trying to work out who will turn out in the referendum of June 23rd

New study tries to explain why phone and online polls are giving different EUref results As we get closer to the referendum there’s a lot of effort going on to try look at the polling more closely so we don’t end with another GE2015. The results of a Populus/Number Cruncher Politics study on the difference between the online and phone surveys was looked at on Newsnight last night and I’m hoping it will be possible to link to the actual…

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The referendum polling is getting much tighter. Gone are the double digit phone poll leads

The referendum polling is getting much tighter. Gone are the double digit phone poll leads

After a months of very large REMAIN leads in the phone polls we’ve now had three in the past week which are all showing that the race is getting much tighter. Ipsos and ComRes have 8% REMAIN leads while Survation has it at 11% – all very similar. At the same time there hasn’t been much movement in the online polls so we are, perhaps, seeing a level on convergence as we get closer to the day – on 12…

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New Ipsos Referendum phone poll has the REMAIN lead down to 8%

New Ipsos Referendum phone poll has the REMAIN lead down to 8%

Ipsos-MORI chart of latest referendum phone poll showing remain with 8% lead pic.twitter.com/2nDahRcxE3 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 29, 2016 By 48% to 44% those polled by Ipsos-MORI say Cameron should resign if the referendum results in a LEAVE vote pic.twitter.com/MW3dfZQpK2 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 29, 2016 The pollster has changed its methodology which I will write about later

Cameron, surely, is more vulnerable at the moment than Corbyn

Cameron, surely, is more vulnerable at the moment than Corbyn

Betting on which leader will go first In the picture above are the latest William Hill odds on which of Cameron or Corbyn will stand down first. As can be seen the LAB leader is 4/6 to go first which I think is wrong. Firstly the rules of the Conservative party make it far easier for a challenge to be mounted and, indeed, recent history has seen both Mrs Thatcher and Iain Duncan Smith being voted out by the party’s…

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