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Month: March 2017

Welcome to Article 50 day as the UK steps into the unknown

Welcome to Article 50 day as the UK steps into the unknown

https://twitter.com/JananGanesh/status/846863305218183169 https://twitter.com/youngvulgarian/status/846830241075093504 The big day arrives So we are here and Theresa May will meet her self imposed target of formally invoking the extraction process from the EU before the end of March. The signed letter invoking Article 50 will be delivered to the president of the EU in Brussels in a few hours. At home Mrs May is said to be planning to call on the nation to unite behind her and the government as it goes about the…

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If indeed GfK is part of a conspiracy against Corbyn then how come other pollsters have similar numbers?

If indeed GfK is part of a conspiracy against Corbyn then how come other pollsters have similar numbers?

There’s a fierce attack in the Canary on GfK and its research director known well to PBers, Kieran Pedley. The chart says it all and shows all three sets of published leader ratings in March. And you know what – all the numbers are very close – the Canary favourite Corbyn is doing appallingly however you look at the numbers. So if there is a conspiracy against Labour’s bed-blocker leader then Opinium and Ipsos MORI are involed as well. The…

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Remember when the BBC’s Woman’s Hour asked David Cameron and David Davis what sort of underpants they preferred?

Remember when the BBC’s Woman’s Hour asked David Cameron and David Davis what sort of underpants they preferred?

With all the fuss today about the Daily Mail’s “legs” front page let us not forget that the BBC can sometimes stray into what could be described as sexist. In November 2005 when David Cameron and David Davis were slugging it out for the Tory leadership the two of them appeared on Woman’s Hour and were asked at the end what sort of underpants they preferred. Another question was whether they preferred blondes or brunettes. David said the former while…

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At the last Gorton by-election the Tories, led by the visionary pro-European Ted Heath, came within 557 votes of victory

At the last Gorton by-election the Tories, led by the visionary pro-European Ted Heath, came within 557 votes of victory

How will the BREXIT Tories do now? After their extraordinary gain of a by-election seat from LAB in Copeland we have heard very little of the blue team’s prospects in Manchester Gorton which is expected to take place on May 4th. Yet as the panel shows the Tories got very close to victory in the seat in 1967. No one is suggesting that the Tories have any chance whatsoever. The result from 1967 and what we know about the area…

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Gloomy polling news for Mr. Corbyn from the pollster that’s returning to GB politics after 12 year absence

Gloomy polling news for Mr. Corbyn from the pollster that’s returning to GB politics after 12 year absence

A new poll conducted by GfK, the first published GB political survey since GE2005 when it operated as NOP, has  Corbyn as unpopular among Brits as Trump. GfK surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,938 GB adults between March 1st and March 15th, 2017 and found: Prime Minister Theresa May is more popular than the Government overall. 46% of GB adults approve of the job she is doing as Prime Minister (just 33% disapprove) while 40% approve of the way the…

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For first time since being sacked after getting GE2005 spot on NOP (now GfK) is back doing UK political polls

For first time since being sacked after getting GE2005 spot on NOP (now GfK) is back doing UK political polls

UK Polling Report Welcome back – you’ve been missed One of the great jokes whenever people interested in polling have met in recent years is that is the person from NOP (now GfK) popping up to remind to remind us that the firm in its last published political poll got the outcome of the 2005 general election absolutely right. For whatever reason the Independent, which had commissioned the firm decided, to switch pollsters after 2005 and since then GfK has…

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If they hadn’t have gone into coalition the LDs would likely have been favourites in Manchester Gorton

If they hadn’t have gone into coalition the LDs would likely have been favourites in Manchester Gorton

But at GE2015 the yellows came in 5th losing their deposit Although the arrival of George Galloway in the Manchester Gorton race has caused a tightening of the Lib Dem odds the position is nothing like as strong as it would have been if the party had not gone onto the Coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. The chart above shows the extraordinary strength the party had in ward elections in the constituency in the period between the Iraq war…

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Politics in a democratic one party state

Politics in a democratic one party state

  Aged 69, Seneca the Younger had spent many years in the service of the Emperor Nero, but suspecting him of treason, the Emperor ordered him to commit suicide.  Seneca cut open the arteries of his own arms and the veins of his legs and knees, but his blood flowed slowly and his death did not come quickly.   To hasten the process, he drank poison, but still death eluded him.  Finally he was carried into a hot bath and suffocated…

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