Ballots & Bullets

Image by David Spencer

Yesterday’s post detailing how Labour perceived David Cameron’s debating skills before the 2010 leaders’ debate was a bit of a success.  Several people asked if I’d seen the material about Nick Clegg or Gordon Brown. Indeed, I had.  And so, again with the permission of its author, Theo Bertram, here is Labour’s pre-debate briefing on …

Image by World Economic Forum

When doing qualitative research, people are sometimes willing to talk to you or to show you material but only on a background basis; that is, that it can inform what you write, but you cannot quote from it.  Amongst the many documents that Dennis Kavanagh and I were shown when writing our book on the …

This is the twenty-third in a series of posts that report on the state of the parties as measured by opinion polls. By pooling together all the available polling evidence we can reduce the impact of the random variation each individual survey inevitably produces. Most of the short term advances and setbacks in party polling fortunes are nothing more than …

TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING!

AND WHEREAS most people on Monday were interested in press regulation, we were interested in Conservative rebellions on press regulation.

AND WHEREAS the vote would have been very tight anyway, the chances of a Conservative victory in the division lobbies had become impossible once a half-decent number of Conservative MPs declared …

This post originally appeared on Emily Robinson’s personal blog.  

Ken Loach’s new documentary The Spirit of ’45 is a romantic tribute to the achievements and ideals of the 1945 Labour government, with a clear political message. It cuts from an idealised social democratic nation celebrating the Festival of Britain (with no mention that within months Churchill would be …

This blog post originally appeared in The Guardian‘s Comment is free.

The general election of 1945 is one of the key turning points of modern British history. Labour won a thumping Commons majority and used it to introduce the welfare state, nationalise key industries and guarantee full employment. You have to have a heart of stone – or …

This is the twenty-second in a series of posts that report on the state of the parties as measured by opinion polls. By pooling together all the available polling evidence we can reduce the impact of the random variation each individual survey inevitably produces. Most of the short term advances and setbacks in party polling fortunes are nothing more than …

Ten years ago today, a record-breaking rebellion took place in the House of Commons. It was the largest backbench revolt, by members of any political party, on any subject since Sir Robert Peel’s administration repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, at a time when the franchise was enjoyed by just 5% of the population, and before anything which resembled today’s …

Hugh Gaitskell by Judy Cassab

It’s now exactly fifty years since Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party from 1955 to 1963, died of a mysterious illness.

The Labour Party tends to revere those leading lights that have been prematurely taken away from it. Since their respective deaths in 1963 and 1994, both Hugh Gaitskell and John Smith have now …

This is the twelfth of a series of posts that report on the state of the parties as measured by opinion polls.

By pooling together all the available polling evidence we can reduce the impact of the random variation each individual survey inevitably produces. Most of the short term advances and setbacks in party polling fortunes are nothing more than …