Campaign Week 4: No Consensus Among Pollsters

This election is going to be very difficult to predict.  We have three parties going from practical obscurity in 2010 to national prominence in this campaign, and it's very difficult to tell how spread out or concentrated their newfound support will be.

This alone makes coming up with a seat projection difficult enough.  What makes things even more challenging is the fact that polls are, quite simply, inconsistent with each other.

Campaign Week 3: The Manifestos

Ah, manifesto week.  The week where we see all of the parties making pledges for the people of this country, telling us where the priorities for our very scarce resources lie.  It's a welcome, even if temporary, break from the usual mudslinging that goes on during the campaign.

So whose manifesto was most convincing to voters?  Well, it's a bit surprising what the pollsters are finding.

Campaign Week 2: Labour pulls ahead (slightly)

This week saw two major events on the campaign trail.  The Scottish party leaders attended not one, but two debates, hosted by STV (Tuesday) and BBC Scotland (Wednesday).  More on that later.

On Wednesday, we saw the biggest policy announcement of the campaign so far, as Labour leader Ed Miliband announced plans to end the controversial non-dom tax status.  In theory, this status is supposed to allow, for a fee, those who consider their true home to be outside of the UK to pay no tax on any income that has nothing to do with the UK (for example, moneys that are earned in Canada and stay there), though there are many people who live in the UK who probably shouldn't have this status.  While it is disputed whether or not it will bring in more money into the Treasury, the fairness argument has surely has resonated with voters.

Week 1 of the 2015 Campaign

Over the last week, we saw the public react to Channel 4's Jeremy Paxman interviewing Ed Miliband and David Cameron.  Despite the initial excitement when the first two polls came out, we have seen a bit of an overall shift over the last seven days.

Average of polls released as of Saturday evening