That’s it from the blog today. Have a good weekend, all. Thanks for all your comments.
A blog post on the British Election Study website has some interesting analysis on the impact of party leaders on vote switching.
Despite recent negative headlines, Nigel Farage has the potential to boost the electoral prospects of the party he leads to a greater degree than any other leader. In addition, however, support for UKIP is flimsier than the other parties, with many voters switching away from UKIP regardless of Farage’s appeal. UKIP increased their support over the past year despite losing larger proportion of supporters than the main parties to a fair degree because of him, so if he stopped attracting new supporters, their support would start to decline. That means that Farage will need to outperform the other party leaders – in terms of winning votes based on his popularity – if UKIP are to maintain their support going into the election.
The analysis also implies qualified good news for David Cameron: the Tory leader can be effective in winning votes, though if he slips up he can lose them too. He’s a modest asset in this respect. However, Ed Miliband’s appeal is unlikely to help Labour’s chances of success at the ballot box. He’s a slight net drain on Labour’s support and may well turn more voters off when he is in the spotlight as the General Election campaign gathers momentum. Nick Clegg, is certainly not toxic as some have implied, and is unlikely to reduce the popularity of his party – but he probably won’t increase it either – which given the erosion of their support is cheerless news for the Lib-Dems.
Something sweet for a Friday. Paul Waugh of Politics Home has revealed Labour’s latest online advert.
Exclusive. Labour's latest online advert. http://t.co/t9pPcWkp6u pic.twitter.com/9PwE2LsSGS
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) February 13, 2015
A local council by-election round up, courtesy of AnatolyKasparov.
Time for a (post) lunchtime reading list.
- Helen Lewis writes about the ‘pink bus’ controversy, wondering whether crucial issues are being overlooked amid the mockery.
Much as it pains me to defend a party stupid enough to have a pink women’s campaign bus, the only reason that female representation in parliament has reached its current dizzying heights - 22 per cent! - is because of Labour. And at least the party is trying to talk about the burden of care, equal pay, rape and domestic violence during the election campaign instead of repeating “long term economic plan” like their lives depend on it.
The pink bus was a terrible idea. But still, on balance, I’d rather be mildly patronised than totally ignored.
- My colleague Matthew Weaver has reported on the Metropolitan Police’s troubling refusal to police a protest in central London next month. The Met have been warned that their refusal could contravene the European convention on human rights.
- The Resolution Foundation has posted some interesting analysis on Nicola Sturgeon’s anti-austerity speech from earlier this week.
Updated
The latest Populus poll shows Labour with a 3 point lead.
Latest Populus VI: Lab 34 (-), Con 31 (-2), LD 9 (+1), UKIP 14 (-1), Others 12 (+2). Tables here: http://t.co/C5Z02V9r1d
— Populus (@PopulusPolls) February 13, 2015
Populus have also posted analysis of voter profiles, as one commented has noted. Last week, they profiled those intending to vote for the Green party. This week, it was the turn of Ukip.
Compare and contrast UKIP and Green support: http://t.co/JHE481lSEc http://t.co/LuhJf5ZwRn pic.twitter.com/PiYVeBdkwX
— Populus (@PopulusPolls) February 13, 2015
Updated
Apologies for the lack of updates: I’ve been otherwise engaged. Fortunately, I have had time to put together this week’s politics quiz. Do let us know how you got on.
Updated
Let’s start in the traditional Friday manner: a poll flagged up by refitman.
Morning all. Labour lead at 3 points on Yougov:
Latest YouGov / Sun results 12th February -
Con 31%, (-1)
Lab 34%, (+1)
LD 7%, (nc)
UKIP 15%, (nc)
GRN 7%; (nc)
APP -23 (-1)
Update: Labour lead at 3 - Latest YouGov / Sun results 12th Feb - Con 31%, Lab 34%, LD 7%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7%; APP -23 http://t.co/nOCECK0c2k
— YouGov (@YouGov) February 13, 2015
Andrew is not writing his usual Politics Live blog today but, as an alternative, here’s Politics Live: readers’ edition. It’s intended to be a place where you can catch up with the latest news and find links to good politics blogs and articles on the web.
Please feel free to use this as somewhere you can comment on any of the day’s political stories - just as you do during the daily blog. It would be particularly useful for readers to flag up new material in the comments - breaking news or blogposts or tweets that are worth passing on because someone is going to find them interesting.
As we’re now in a general election year, there’s plenty to talk about. With this in mind, we are going to update the readers’ edition throughout the day, with polls, talking points and material flagged up by readers.
All today’s Guardian politics stories are here, and all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here.
Three local council by-elections yesterday:
Cambridgeshire CC - Tory hold of a safe division which, as on this occasion, they have easily won facing a split opposition. Despite a share little changed from 2013, they had a swing of 4% from second placed UKIP as the latter fell back and were almost caught by the LibDems who advanced on last time (though were down on 2009 when they came second and even more so compared with 2005) and overtook Labour whose share was almost unchanged. Greens last, but taking nearly 12% and up on their previous two showings here.
Harlow DC - Labour gain from UKIP with a swing of around 10% since last May, when the latter stormed to victory in their first contest here at this level - taking both seats in a double vacancy. This ward had voted a full slate of 3 LibDem councillors back in the 2002 "all outs" and apart from a Labour win in 2004 when an ex-LibDem stood as an Independent and split their vote, they won here every time subsequently until 2010 when Labour won by a handful of votes (the Tories not far behind in third) This time round the Tories were third again (with a former LibDem councillor who later in her term defected to them before losing in 2006) but their share also up since last year which will give them some comfort in this traditional "bellwether" constituency. Greens stood here for the first time and scored a modest 4%, but that was enough to beat the LibDems who fell to a new low having seen their share plummet at every election since 2010 - the times (both in the 1970s and 90s) when they provided the sole opposition to Labour on the council seem very improbable now.
Shropshire - Tory hold of a ward which split 1Tory/1Independent in 2013 (the latter coming out on top) with Labour narrowly missing out; they held it easily this time with a double figure swing. This is partly explainable by their being no Indy candidate this time and the sitting member throwing their weight behind the Tory, but also due to the fact both the Greens and - rather unusually - the LibDems stood on this occasion having not bothered to do so in either last time or in 2009 (when the Tories took both seats here) Not just that but they took over a third of the poll between them, the Green candidate narrowly coming out on top (and, indeed, not finishing far behind Labour) One of the more quixotic results that we have seen recently, all told.
Just one (Welsh) contest next week.