Monthly Archives: April 2010

Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat

How the 2010 Election Gap has Narrowed in Red, Blue and Gold

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There’s a brilliant web site, independently run by YouGov political analyst Anthony Wells, called the UK Polling Report.  Along with lots of other election data is brings together all the opinion polls every day.  It also has data going back to the last election.  There is perhaps no better representation of what has happened in the last couple of weeks than this graph taken from the site.  Between 2005 and 2008 the Labour and Conservative shares were much of a muchness, whilst the last two years saw unbroken Tory dominance, albeit with a steady narrowing of the gap since last summer. Then wham bam thank you mam the three parties collided after the first TV debate and that look very much like where we’ll be in just over a week’s time.

Conservative

Is Tory Spin Doctor Henry Macrory Telling the Whole Story?

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Henry Macrory the Head of Press at the Conservative Party posted a tweet today with a link to the picture (above) of Jack Straw talking to an empty square in Wolverhampton this week.  He had uploaded the picture himself and it appears today on the Conservative Home blog stating – No one is listening to Labour, John Prescott couldn’t attract a crowd last week and Jack Straw has the same problem this week.  But the scene below was caught on video by the local Express and Star newspaper and shows Straw wrapping up his soapbox address to a fair size crowd.

It seems the new generation of political spinners are adept at using the web to twist a tale, but the web is getting adept at catching them out.
Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, TV Debate

Was YouGov’s Flawed Leaders’ Debate Poll Deliberate or Merely Inept?

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Since we posted on the Leaders’ Debate Poll conducted by YouGov on Thursday there has been an extraordinary revelation.  YouGov says their internet poll on the TV debate was conducted between 9.27pm and 9.31pm, so the majority of responses were taken during the debate not after it.

This is critical because it means the poll was taken during the summing up speeches.  The speeches took place at the following times:

Brown          9:26:30  – 9:28:05

Cameron     9:28:08  – 9:29:17

Clegg            9:29:18  – 9:30:47‬

That means that over half of the polling would have been done before Clegg summed up in the debate.   It also meant that up to half the responses were taken whilst Cameron was summing up and had sole command of the floor and the cameras.  That’s a serious flaw in the process and is either incompetence or intentional distortion.  You decide which you think it was.

Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, TV Debate

Did Leaders Debate Damage YouGov Brand Value?

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The YouGov/Sun poll gained an enormous amount of exposure on Sky TV last night when it appeared minutes after the TV debate wrapped up.  It put Cameron clearly in the lead and fired up an already excitable Kay Burley.   When other polls appeared the tale was somewhat different as ITV/ComRes, the Guardian/ICM and The Mirror all put Clegg first, with The Mirror even reporting that Cameron had come last.  So what was going on.   A quick look at twitter confirmed a broader sense of astonishment at the YouGov findings.  The tweet…

YouGov Poll: Earth round 23% Earth flat 64% Earth other-shaped 13% #LeadersDebate

..was posted by hundreds of voters. A Twitpic that has been viewed over 18,000 times suggests that YouGov has been polling on behalf of  either the Tories or Labour to elicit voter fears in the event of the Liberals gaining a big share of the vote.

Twitter posts also pointed to the extraordinary fact that the founder and (until the start of the campaign) CEO of YouGov is a Conservative candidate. It isn’t much of  stretch to question the independence and therefore reliability of a polling organisation that may be commercially and politically aligned to one of the major parties.   In this game value and reliability are very closely linked.

General, International, Social web

Politics, The Social Web and the End of Secrecy

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There are few groups as secretive as the Bilderberg group, the axis of politicians and industrialists that meet in secret every year and have been credited by some as the secret power behind the European Union and US administration.   It is likely that both Peter Mandelson and George Osborne will be amongst the 130 or so attendees just as they were last year but there will be no discussions about Bilderberg during the election debates.  The CEO of Google attended too in 2009.

It is unclear how influential this group actually is, but clandestine cabals run counter to the ideas of democracy.   Their ability however to operate under the radar is being unravelled by the social web. Although it doesn’t appear to be published anywhere (official or otherwise) this blog reveals where the next meeting of the Bildergroup will take place.  It took ten minutes to find out.  Here’s how.

The Dolce Sitges is fully booked for all those dates, although every other hotel in the town has rooms.  The Dolce is also away from the main town, on a cliff to and accessible via a single, easy to secure, road.  Call us conspiracy theorists if you like but if you encounter Osborne or Mandelson on the campaign trail ask them if they’re planning a trip to Spain together this summer.

General

Today is the Final Day Yon Can Register to Vote

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If you are not yet registered to vote in the UK general elections today is the very last chance that you have to do so.  There is a fantastic website provided by the Electoral Commission called About My Vote, which

will show you how to register to vote.  Entering your postcode on the site, and they will provide the forms and show you where to take them . They can usually be faxed or hand delivered.  Do it now.  The deadline is 5pm today.

Liberal Democrat

Get the Lib Dems Into office! Facebook Group Hits 100,000 Fans

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The LibDem bandwagon stepped up another gear today with perhaps the most effective voter inspired social media initiative of the campaign to date.  It’s a Facebook  Group called “We got Rage Against the Machine to #1, we can get the LibDems into office!”  It cleverly echoes, or should I say explicitly refers to, the Facebook campaign that upset the X-Factor dominance of the pop charts at Christmas. 

It has grabbed the post leaders debate mood and membership has rocketed in the days since, with it passing the 100,000 fan mark this afternoon.  A week ago and before the debate took place it had just 10,00o fans.   It has become an online rallying point for supporters and activists. and a place to share irreverent campaign collateral, like the image above.

Election Date

Last Chance for Voters to Register for May 6th Vote

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You need to be on the electoral register to vote in the UK general elections. You are not automatically registered even if you pay council tax, so you should check to see if you are on the list of everyone who is registered to vote.

You need to register with your local authority, but there is a great website provided by the Electoral Commission called About My Vote.  It will show you how to register to vote and once you’ve completed your form, you’ll need to print it off, sign it, and send it back to your local electoral registration office. You can get their address and other contact details by entering your postcode on the site.

Don’t hesitate.  The deadline is tomorrow.

Labour

Roger Godsiff MP and How the Web Roots Out Dirty Tricks

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After the TV debate turned the election into a three way contest it was widely predicted that the campaign would enter a tougher phase.  Step forward Roger Godsiff, Labour MP for Birmingham, Sparkbrook & Small Heath MP.  It appears that the MP defending a three way marginal seat is not averse to a dirty trick or two.  

Birmingham blogger Anthony Herron revealed that since the TV debate Godsiff’s campaign has descended into accusing the LibDems of promoting the interests of a series of paedophiles and murderers. This leaflet is so breathtaking that one can only imagine it to be fake, but if we turn to the really rather brilliant TheStraightChoice.org a website that publishes election leaflets on the web, nearly all of them in fact, it publishes the same leaflet with details showing it was delivered today.  

So who is this MP, that is so desperate to take the gloves off?   Well the web tells us that too and if we look at his entry on They Work For You we’ll discover that he had the 2nd biggest expense claim of the 2008/09 session at a whopping £189,338.  Nice chap.

Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat

Mail on Sunday Poll Puts LibDems First

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A poll in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday puts the Liberal Democrats in poll position with two and a half weeks to go before May 6th and the real vote.  The breakdown of the BPIX – Mail on Sunday is as follows:

Liberal Democrats 32%
Conservatives 31%
Labour 28%

The other polls published in the national press tomorrow have the Tories in first place but with a much reduced margin and the LibDems are second in one with Brown’s Labour party hanging on to second place in the Telegraph/ICM prediction.

The Sunday Mirror/Independent on Sunday/ComRes poll has the Conservatives on 31% (-4), Labour on 27 per cent (-2) and the Liberal Democrats on 29 per cent (+8).  The Sunday Telegraph/ICM poll puts the Tories on 34 per cent (-3), Labour on 29 per cent (-2) and the Lib Dems on 27 per cent (+7).  YouGov and the Sunday Times have the Conservatives at 33%, Labour 30% and Liberal Democrats 29%.