The Big Society

I've just seen the third Conservative PEB. In it David Cameron talks about the Big Society that he wants to create, and how Labour passing laws doesn't change anything.



An excellent broadcast, in my humble opinion. Great work by CCHQ.

JR

Vote Clegg, Get Brown

It's a weird thing, these opinion polls. They tell you so much, but yet so little all at the same time.

Today's poll by YouGov for the Sun has the Conservatives on 33%, Labour on 28%, and the Lib Dems rocketing up to 30%. However, despite Labour being in third place they would still be the largest party (in a hung parliament) when these figures are fed into a uniform swing calculation. The Conservatives would be around 10-20 seats further back and the Lib Dems another 120 seats away!

Effectively what you have is if you vote Clegg you get Brown.

Of course there isn't really such a thing as uniform swing, and a number of local factors could see the Conservatives as the largest party, even on these national shares of the vote; but there's still two more debates and the best part of three weeks of campaigning before polling day.

JR

On Your Marks ...

So now we know for certain. The general election to choose the next government of the United Kingdom will be on ... Thursday 6 May!

Well we knew that anyway, but the next month may seem like an age while we're in it, and but a moment once it has finished.

With the vast majority of returning officers now conceding they will start the counting of votes on the election night, the result should be known at around 3 or 4am on the Friday.

The polls have been up and down like the proverbial yo-yo, but they've been moving back towards the Conservatives over the last week or so; now showing around a 9-10 point lead, translating to the cusp of a Conservative majority.

At this stage, the only result that doesn't look to be likely is an overall Labour majority, that would require a Labour lead of 0-1 points (the maths of which are very odd depending on exactly what the percentages are). However, adding another cliché to this blog, a week is a long time in politics, and if my maths are correct that means there's four times that amount of a long time for things to change.

There's no point going to the cinema for the next month; stay in and watch the election campaign instead (just don't answer the door, cause it'll just be someone trying to get your vote)!

JR

Fire Up the Quattro

I know it's well after the event, but here it is anyway ...


As you probably know, this poster is a great parody of the disaster that Labour put out as the winner of their people's poster competition.

The Labour poster has widely been seen as an own goal. There are many reasons for this; that it features David Cameron (arguably the Conservatives best asset) as a young, dynamic, man of the people ... all the things that Labour are trying to avoid.

The Ashes to Ashes reference will be lost on most people (as it was to me when I first saw the poster) but even if it isn't, the character that Cameron is representing (Gene Hunt) is the most popular character in the show.

As an aside, I got a piece of direct mail from Labour yesterday which proclaimed, "Andrew Hartley, Do you want to help David Cameron into power?" To which I obviously answered yes. "He's hoping you'll vote Lib Dem in South Manchester"! What a good idea.

Clearly I'm not about to vote Lib Dem any time soon, but you can see my point here!

Not a good weekend for Labour.

JR

NUS Block Candidates Announced (2010)

This article is about the block elections in 2010. For the list of candidates in 2011 see this post!

In a shock move, I have decided to run for the block! It was a race against time to get the nominations in, but I made it!

So here's a full list of those running;

Mark Bergfield - University of Essex
Lynne Brown - Chichester College
Christopher Clark - Bucks New University
Fiona Edwards - Birkbeck College London
Thea Graham - Leeds College of Technology
Thomas Graham - Edinburgh University
Danielle Grufferty - Liverpool University
Andrew ‘JR’ Hartley - Manchester Metropolitan University
Sophia ‘Phi’ James - Leeds University
Owen Jones - University of Leicester
Fatima Junaid - University of Cambridge
Matt King - Aberystwyth University
Chris Marks - Hull University
Joshua McKenzie - Harrow College
Pete Mercer - University of Newcastle
Emily-Ann Nash - Brighton University
John Peart - NUS National Executive Council
Chris Peel - Loughborough University
James Lee Pickin - Queen Mary’s College
Liam Preston - Canterbury Christchurch University
Amer Reza - De Montfort University
Anil Joshua Sachdeo - Sandwell College
Javed Anjum Sheikh - University of Middlesex
Ryan Wain - Kings College London
Rachel Wenstone - University of Leeds

So that's 25 validly nominated candidates! It's going to be fun!

JR