Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

The Daily Politics was interesting. All the commentators in the studio agreed that Cameron would be PM after the election.

or

Today's Guardian

Ed Miliband's carved pledges could sink like a stone

In several thousand years’ time, an archaeologist will uncover a 2.6 metre (8ft 6in) piece of stone that had been lying buried for hundreds of years. Scholars will spend just as long thereafter trying to interpret its meaning. Was it the epicentre of a hitherto unknown civilisation based around the Sun-God Ed? Will future transport ministers pledge billions of pounds of public money to build an underpass to protect this national monument?

Of all the stunts, in all the towns … In one of the tightest elections in 50 years that looks set to be won by the party leader whom the public mistrust the least, Ed Miliband has just raised the stupidity bar still higher. What possessed him to imagine that carving a series of election pledges into an enormous slab of limestone that would be placed in the Downing Street garden were he to become prime minister on 8 May was a good idea? There isn’t a single sentient being with connecting synapses anywhere in any planet in any universe who could think that was a good idea.

Even the title is a hostage to fortune. A Better Plan. A Better Future. This stone Ed, I’m sorry to say, is symbolic of a totally Crap Plan. Or worse, No Plan. Then there are the pledges. 1. A Strong Economic Foundation. When some future Arthur Evans sees this battered, broken foundation stone, his first thought will be: “Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”Shelley will last far longer than this. As for the rest … they read more like focus group findings than serious electoral promises. A country where the next generation do better than the last. Archaeologists will be snigger at that. How sweet! They all say that, don’t they?

There’s not a single part of this stone that doesn’t say brain-dead. If Miliband does become prime minister then it will stand unseen by anyone in the Rose Garden until the next prime minister knocks it down. And if he doesn’t, it’s history by Friday morning. The best hope is that he might be able to flog it off cheap to the Lib Dems to be recycled as a gravestone for their party.

Labour imploding and coming up with even more stupid ideas.

what has fred to say about the latest ashcroft poll giving the tories a 6 point lead?

IG betting is that the tories will have a 25 seat advantage over labour
really?

Max.

Would you prefer an alcoholic for a leader?

what has fred to say about the latest ashcroft poll giving the tories a 6 point lead?

Or perhaps a liar?




or

Polls
T L ld uk
Survation Mail on Sunday 2015-05-02 00:00:00 31 34 8 17 4
YouGov Sunday Times 2015-05-02 00:00:00 34 33 8 13 5
Survation Daily Mirror 2015-05-01 00:00:00 33 34 9 16 3

cynic
Looking at Ashcroft's site, it looks like the 6 point lead was the 20 April poll. I don't think there is a more recent overall poll, just recent marginals.

thanks hays .... i thought i saw that it was very recent, like within the last 2 days ... i'll check

this must be what i saw ... i now need to read it :-)

Mixed fortunes in my final round of marginals
Friday, 1 May, 2015 in Marginal seats

By Lord Ashcroft

After more than a year and nearly a quarter of a million telephone interviews, we have reached the final round of my general election constituency polling. The last ten surveys contain mixed news for all parties and some noteworthy results.

Perhaps the most striking of these is in Croydon Central, where in a poll completed yesterday I found a four-point Conservative lead over Labour. This compares to a four-point Labour lead in March, and a six-point Labour lead last October. The UKIP share in the seat has nearly halved, from 19% to 10%, since the October poll.

There is also better news for Esther McVey in Wirral West, where Labour’s lead is down from five to three points since last month. This small narrowing of the gap comes as both main parties have increased their vote share, again at the expense of UKIP.

I found Labour two points ahead of the Tories in Norwich North, only a very slight change from the one-point Labour lead recorded in the seat in February. In Pudsey, where two previous polls have been tied, neither party has broken the deadlock – the one-point Tory lead leaves the seat still too close to call.

In this round I also polled three new Conservative seats at what must be the bottom end of Labour’s target list to see if any surprises could be in store. I found the Conservatives two points ahead in Margot James’s Stourbridge seat, and a comfortable 12-point Tory lead in Battersea. But Labour were leading by two points in Peterborough, where Stewart Jackson is defending a majority of 4,861.

I looked again at North Cornwall, where I twice found ties last year, followed by a two-point lead for the incumbent Lib Dems last month. The margin remains the same this time, leaving the race very close indeed.

In East Renfrewshire, Jim Murphy has narrowed the gap from nine points to three since my previous poll earlier this month. This seems largely down to Conservative voters – the Tory share is down five points, and Labour’s up five, since my last survey, and remaining Conservatives are less likely to rule out moving to Labour than in most seats. Nearly a quarter of those who voted Conservative in the constituency in 2010 now say they plan to vote for Jim Murphy.

Unfortunately for the Tories, Labour voters seem unwilling to return the favour in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale, where the SNP have extended their lead from two points to eleven. Only 7% of 2010 Labour voters have switched to the Tories, and 82% of current Labour supporters rule out doing so.

Taken together, the results show that there can be late movement on the battleground as the election approaches and voters’ minds are concentrated, and there is still room for more in the final week. That is why even these polls remain snapshots, not predictions.

Manuel,

Go and help him at the table:

"That's a question I put to the prime minister.

Q: If you go back into No 10 on Friday, aren't we guaranteed two years of uncertainty about Britain's most important economic relationship - our membership of the EU? If that isn't chaos and instability, what is?

A: "Well the right thing to do with Europe is to have a strategy and a plan for securing Britain's future and that is what I have. I'm saying let's renegotiate, get a better deal that's put to the British people in an In/Out referendum… We've had so many treaties, we've had so many powers passed to Brussels, it's now time to make a change, have a better approach for Britain in Europe and for the British people to decide."

I suggested that "we've seen this movie before" in the 1990s when John Major was PM and there was a war between John Redwood and Ken Clarke. The Tory leader told me that this time would be different because the row then was about whether to have a referendum at all.


John Major and Kenneth Clarke in 1993

John Major and Ken Clarke's stance on Brussels was challenged by Eurosceptic John Redwood

What, though, is his Plan B if he can't persuade EU leaders to give him the better deal he says he wants, or if the British people reject it? It's a question I've asked him before - at last year's Conservative Party Conference - but he is no nearer to giving an answer.

If you don't get the deal and you don't get the referendum? What's plan B for Britain?

Help him out!