The Lord Ashcroft has made the Press Association with his commentary on the effect of the Cameron speech.

Based on a recent private poll, he concludes that the speech "has cheered Conservative supporters, but done little to improve the party's chances of success at the next general election". It has not, he says, "unleashed a desire for an overall Conservative majority".

Thus, Labour is still in the lead, on 38 percent, the Tories get 33 percent, the Lib-Dems 11 percent, UKIP nine and "others" nine. A small increase in the Tory vote is attributed to an increase in those who voted Conservative in 2010, coming back to the fold.

As regards "Europe", the noble Lord observes that the upsurge in debate about the EU in advance of the high-profile speech appears to have bolstered pro-European sentiments.

View full article here

Electoral Calculus predicts a Labour majority of 96 on current showings, and a comfortable labour win seems about right.

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

A few months back Ashcroft commissioned a report on voting intentions and motivations which showed that the EU was not the sole reason for the leaking to UKIP, so policy on the EU was not the complete answer.

http://conservativehome....oft_the_ukip_threat.html

And so it turns out. Cameron's speech has cheered the faithful but hasn't done much else.

Cameron's personal popularity is curious. He's certainly the reason a lot of Conservatives are drifting away.

I wonder if it's comparative, Miliband being a nonentity.

As for the upsurge in propaganda, it looks to be directed at killing the idea of a referendum, which on current showing, even with a clear Conservative win, would be a diluted and rigged affair.

With the two main political parties and the whole establishment in favour of continued EU membership, it's always been my belief that this will be steeered largely by events outside the UK.

I don't think there's much evidence of the counts being corrupt. There was an election where a BNP candidate apparently won (it may have been Solihull) but after several recounts it was decided they hadn't. There was a Vote Early, Vote often culture in Northern Ireland.

It's more subtle than fiddling the counts. Postal vote fraud

http://www.dailymail.co....ction.html#axzz2JgU5Tx6z

The electoral boundary question.

Dodgy donations e.g.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/...it-by-fresh-dodgy-756274

Where the Lib Dems were in receipt of £2.4 million which were the proceeds of a fraud, but they refused to pay it back (they would have ceased to exist) and they weren't forced to by the courts.

Political manipulations done entirely for electoral advantage, such as the devolutionary settlement.

The "bubble effect" should never be discounted. And seeing things from within the bubble heavily distorts their perceptions.