Poll Watch: A Tale of Two Polls

Two new opinion polls suggest the general election will conclude with a hung parliament, although the polls are interpreted as conflicting stories.

A YouGov tracker for The Sun shows the Coservative lead boosted back to seven points, wit changes from the YouGov poll in The Sunday Times.

Conservatives 39% (+2) | Labour 32% (-3) | Liberal Democrats 17% (n/c)

Meanwhile a ComRes for The Independent, with changes from their last poll in mid February, give the Conservative lead at five points.

Conservatives 37% (-1) Labour 32% (+2) Liberal Democrats 19% (-1)

This suggests that Labour would remain the largest party.

This weekend, I was in Brighton, for the Conservative spring conference, at the Hilton Brigton Metropole. I had a really good time - and the general mood seemed to be much better than at Manchester, where a gloom reigned, as we recognised the scale of the task ahead, last autumn - but doubtlessly not because of the front page of The Sunday Times, which was outside my bedroom door as I emerged for breakfast; it read: "Gordon Brown on course to win election".


The Sunday Times had a poll which narrowed the Conservative lead to just two percentage points, with changes from the previous weeks poll.

Conservatives on 37% (-2) | Labour on 35% (+2) | Liberal Democrats 17% (n/c).
Because of the way our electoral system works and the way constituency boundaries have been drawn this would bizzarly give labour the largest number of seats if repeated at a General Election - ado those who say that changing the voting system is the answer to making it fairer, under the proposed Alternative Vote method Labour wound notfind themselves as a minority administration, they would likely as not have a majority.

In the end Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report concludes:

"It appears from this that the weekend poll was most likely an outlier, and that the Conservatives had a lead of about 6 points or so all along. Polls on the fringes of the margin of error are unavoidable, the benefit of daily polling is at least that we only have to wait 24 hours to identify them.

"Of course, in theory it is possible that Labour did narrow the gap before the weekend, but that David Cameron pulled it back over the weekend (or perhaps more likely, that it was a mixture of the two with a genuine narrowing of the lead, exaggerated by random sample error) – the reality is that we’ll never know."

He is probably right, together with the fact that Politics Home's Eletoral Index suggests that the swing at the next General Election is not going to be uniform. Time will reveal all.

GE2010: General Election Summary Day #2

Conservatives could spend twice or even three times as much as Labour. The Times had the story of the day with speculation that the Conservatives might be able to spend two to three times as much as Labour on the election campaign. Expect Labour to accuse the Conservatives of 'buying' the electorate.

There was renewed speculation about Gordon Brown's position as Labour leader. There is probably a majority of Labour MPs who accept that Brown is a loser but no majority behind an alternative candidate. We are now too close to an election unless one Labour figure can have a Michael Howard-style coronation as leader. Otherwise the electorate will look at a leadership contest with disdain, even disgust.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat's Leader refused to be drawn on coalition thinking. In his most important intervention of the campaign so far the Liberal Democrat leader wrote that there would be

"no backroom deals or under-the-counter “understandings” with either of the other two parties."

A key message for the Conservatives in Lib-Dem/Con marginals is that a vote for Clegg might keep Labour in by the back door.

Greg Clark and Nick Herbert were the Conservatives stars of the day. Nick Herbert got good coverage this morning for his pledge to create a supermarket ombudsman to prevent large retailers from abusing their market position and Greg Clark has got big coverage all afternoon for riding the cold weather stories with a dire warning about dangerously low gas reserves.

The Conservative poster campaign, launched on Monday, continues to get lots of attention. The Daily Mail says it is costing half a million pounds. The Times was reporting that Mrs. Cameron approved the photo. The Times' Sam Coates explored whether the image of the Conservative Party's leader was airbrushed.

Alistair Darling refused to rule out increasing VAT to 20%. It had been reported that Labour planned to frighten voters with allegations of secret Tory plans for a VAT hike. That will be impossible if they can't rule it out themselves.

Guardian Tip Edward Leigh in Speakership Challenge

The Guardian is tipping local parliamentarian Edward Leigh MP for a possible Speakership bid following the General Election, expected on Thursday 6th May 2010.

It is well known that the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow MP, who replaced Michael Martin MP - who was forced to resign last year over the MPs Expences scandal - has always been a centrist in the Conservative Party's ranks; whilst the Catholic, Member of Parliament for the Gainsborough Constituency - which covers Gainsborough, Caistor, Market Rasen and the Lincoln fringe (villages like Cherry Willingham, Nettleham and Welton) - has always been on the right flank of the Conservative Party.

The Guardian reports that:

"Tory MPs are pushing for the removal of the Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, should their party win the next general election, with the right of the Conservative party beginning to mobilise for the backbencher Edward Leigh to take over the role...

"Conservative MPs have remained uncomfortable with Bercow since he was elected amid much fanfare last May. Although a Tory, Bercow won the position largely with Labour support and he has irritated MPs with his muscular style of chairing Commons debates.

"Tory MPs also feel that a decision by Bercow's wife, Sally, to criticise the Conservative leader, David Cameron, and run as a Labour candidate in this May's local elections has politicised his position and made it untenable."

Mr. Leigh is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (The Guardian mistakenly attribute Mr. Leigh as Chairman of the Public Administration Committee in reality chaired by Dr. Tony Wright) and president of the rightwing Cornerstone group.

The paper suggests that senior backbenchers believe supporting him would placate the right of the party in the period immediately after coming to office, when Cameron's initial steps might not allow him to make many inroads into tax or Europe policy.

The article suggests that the Cornerstone group represents around 30 - 40 parliamentarians, and if the Conservatives win the General Election with a majority of that order they would demand an election for the role of Speaker in return for their voting bloc.

The Times yesterday reported that CCHQ has made it clear to members in Bercow's Buckingham constituency that any one helping Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Unied Kingdom Independence Party who plans to challenge and want to unseat Mr. Bercow would be ejected from the party, apparently following concerns expressed by the local Conservative Association.

The Guardian predict that the issue is likely to break into the open when the Procedure Committee reports and calls for a fully contested election for the position of Speaker and Deputy Speakers.One of the committee members, Christopher Chope MP, Conservative (Christchurch), is known to be mobilising against Mr. Bercow's Speakership.

Names of other possible challengers have included veteran Mr. Frank Field MP, Labour (Birkenhead), who is not universally popular with his own side and who would serve as a 'reverse Bercow' as it is believed that sufficient number of Conservative member sof parliament would support him.

The Morning After the Pre-Budget Report Before.

If the chancellor had a pound for every negative verdict on his budget plans in this morning's papers, the United Kingdom's finances might be in better shape!

The Times says Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report is the latest instalment in a farcical but unfunny comedy series it dubs 'Carry On Spending'. Whilst The Daily Express reports a 'furious backlash' over an epic election spending splurge.

'Pain postponed' is the view of the Independent front page.

A Guardian editorial suggests the chancellor 'did enough... to secure a few not-entirely-awful headlines'. But that prediction is only really backed up by the Daily Mirror, the front page of which offers in tabloid style: 'Bank you Darling!'

"Some early Christmas cheer"

was delivered, it says, by a tax on bonuses

"bashing the bankers who dragged us to the brink of economic meltdown".

More typically, the Daily Telegraph brands it a 'political survival plan' not an 'economic recovery plan'. The Daily Mail suggests that it was a time for:

"acutely painful and inevitably unpopular measures necessary to pull Britain back
from the brink of bankruptcy".

But the chancellor

"shut his eyes to the reality of our plight"

Amid

"the biggest economic crisis of our lifetimes"

Mr Darling's answer is replacing old boilers, jeers The Sun.

And finally The Daily Star offers its readers 'one silver lining', pointing out that:

"Darling's likely to be unemployed himself by next summer!"