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.

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!

Labour plans to take us back to the stone age!

Is Galloway the nu, nu labour guru?

Labour faithful worshipping the monolith created by their beloved leader

The Right wingers have finaly flipped!

I wish his father had used one:


==-=-==

while the icon to NEW Toryism is a stand by in waiting!

Haze,

Can you pop down to Party Central Office and asked for the official information on any deals of Cameron and Lynton Crosby:

Tory election chief Lynton Crosby's firm planned to expand role of private healthcare in UK

Labour writes off three quarters of Scottish seats after SNP surge
Labour is now focusing on just 12 seats in Scotland as it faces electoral wipeout north of the border


By Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor4:34PM BST 03 May 2015
Labour has written off nearly three quarters of its seats in Scotland because of the rise of the SNP and is now focused on saving the careers of the party's leadership.
The party is now focusing on just 12 of its 41 seats in Scotland as polls suggest that Labour is facing electoral wipeout north of the border.
According to reports activists are now being focused on the constituencies of Jim Murphy, Labour's Scottish leader, Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary and Margaret Curran, the shadow secretary of state for Scotland.
The approach has provoked fury among Labour MPs, who have accused the leadership of "abusing" the machinery of the Labour party as part of an anti-decapitation strategy.


According to the Sunday Herald, Mr Alexander is getting two Labour party staff organisers in Paisley Renfrewshire South, where he is defending a 16,614 majority.
A poll last week suggested that the SNP is on course to win every seat in Scotland amid concerns that Ed Miliband, the labour leader, has become politically toxic north of the border.


Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, this week described the potential chaos of a Labour government propped up by the SNP as "Ajockalypse now".
He told The Sunday Times that it would lead to a "chaotic and tense arrangement" as Mr Miliband is held to ransom by Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP.
Several polls have suggested that the Tory message of the risks of a Labour government supported by the SNP are helping sway undecided English voters.


David Cameron, the Prime Minister, reiterated the warning. He told the BBC: "I'm saying that the best way to save the country is to have a government that would work for the whole of the UK, that is not reliant on nationalists from one part of it, and that is a Conservative majority government. I am fighting the SNP with everything I've got. I totally disagree with them about their plan to break up the UK.
"This potential alliance of people wanting to break up the country, of people wanting to bankrupt the country, is incredibly dangerous for our country and that's why I'm warning so vigorously if people have got four days to stop it. I've got the answer: If you vote Conservative, it won't happen."

Max,

Does you wife know you are posting pictures of her?

I suppose it is what turns you on!

Stop being a fuddy duddy Fred, you know it's a good laugh.

Anyway, the blessed Nicola would kill for a bod like that :-)