Charlie Whelan will be wanting his money back: the once McBride/Draper controlled website now under new management has gone way off message tonight. Advised by Labour supporting YouGov pollster Peter Kellner, the website is using various statistical methods to forecast the May 6 result. Using polynomial trending (no, Guido doesn’t understand it either) they are forecasting a 9% lead for the Tories on polling day. In other words, a comfortable Tory majority…
The first Twitter based new media gaffe of the campaign is a revelation. PPCs and activists of all colours have been out in force today, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats invited them to speeches by their leaders and press released the whole thing as just that – speeches to the party faithful.
It was only Gordon that felt the need to attempt to create a “spontaneous” Potemkin Village of support. The news channels are reporting Gordon being “cheered off” by the public who were shouting “good luck Gordon” as he departed St. Pancras station. Funny then that there is a remarkable similarity between the crowd below and the one leafleting for Labour at tube stations earlier this morning. It seems no one has bothered to check that this “crowd” was in fact a group of Young Labour hacks and Labour Students.
In what will, Guido suspects, be a recurring theme this election, Twitter lets slip what really happened. Notice how the party activists, (including PPC Emily Benn, the President of the National Union of Students Wes Streeting, the chairman of Young Labour Sam Tarry and über-spinning totty Ellie Gellard) aren’t wearing their Labour T-shirts in order to appear like a random gathering of ordinary voters. As if genuine members of the public would cheer Gordon…
It was a media circus this morning. ITN, Sky and the BBC had cameras at College Green, Millbank, County Hall, Downing Street and of course in the air. They have now retired to the adventure playground structure erected overlooking Parliament. Despite the obvious focus today on the Prime Minister, the other parties have fought hard to get attention. The Tories were savvy enough to slot Cameron’s speech into the coverage when they knew Brown would be on the move, but Clegg hasn’t had a look in.
Other attention seeking efforts didn’t go so well…
Above is the Guy News poll of polls from the last seven days. The expanded Guy Newsroom will over the next few weeks bring Guido Morning TV, Guidorama and Guy News with Harry and Emily. Fun, frolics and frills from the campaign frontline…
Just last week the Labour Party website was proudly displaying dozens of class based attacks on their “People’s Poster” section. Charlie Whelan has been doing the media rounds this morning, not only is he the sponsor but clearly becoming the mouth-piece too. On what authority exactly is the union official, who was cc’d in on the Smeargate emails, speaking on behalf of the Labour Party? He claims that Labour’s election battle “would not be dirty” and that David Cameron’s background won’t be part of Labour’s campaign…
Something tells Guido that won’t quite be what happens.
The Downing Street twitter feed will be silenced shortly, the website will be mothballed, SpAds will have already handed in their Blackberries. The Civil Service is now running the country…
