Comments on: ComRes too show a double digit Tory lead

By: Noel

Noel — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:25:36 +0000

Tony Blair passed the poisened chalice to GB withou a whimper.
Do you think he knew what asw going to happen.???
I do
Clever bloke

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:28:33 +0000

Just looked further,
I think this poll has rather a high others, and is a bit low for Labour.
But other polls seem to show the general trends.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:25:34 +0000

This could be a bit of an outlyer, but it does indicate that the government is going to struggle politically when it’s back to the domestic grind on the economy, as opposed to that period from September onwards where the banks were the lightning conductor.

By: James

James — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:34:09 +0000

Hi Marcia,
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the SNP’s local income tax (currently better understood as a national salary tax), it’s not the same as the Scottish Variable Rate. The latter covers the basic rate of income tax payable in Scotland, and would be received (or paid for) by the Scottish Government were it ever to be used, and the former is a tax to support local council spending.

James

By: Frederic Stansfield

Frederic Stansfield — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:47:10 +0000

This poll seems to tie in with the Ian Dale observatioon you are reporting : the C2s have gone back to the Tories. The recession has gone on from the financial sector crisis to hurt this group.

It seems that there is a group of about 5% of the electorate which is readily prepared to change voting intentions almost at whim according to its economic interests. When, as most of the time, these people are going for the Tories we get, as before, polls similar to this one. When they go for Labour we get results like last Autumn. Except for quick transitions, we don’t get many polls in between.

This observation tends to confirm in my mind an observation I posted toward the end of last year. We should think not so much of steady swings in voting intentions, but discontinous changes in the state of these intentions, which mathematical catastrophe theory should help us understand.

it is difficult to see what Labour can do now to get the C2s back.