Under Giulia's leadership, the aim is to enhance and broaden the reach of the existing Behavioural Science capabilities within Public Affairs in the UK.
Electoral volatility and low turnout are plaguing politicians, pundits and pollsters as the 'real' election is about to begin. With voting day just a month from Thursday, reports of huge differences between one poll and another based on the 'gap' or 'lead' between Labour and the Conservatives disguises small changes between one poll's findings and another. But comparing the same organisation's polls over time, it is clear that public opinion is moving towards the Conservatives.
Recent general elections have thrown up shorthand terms to characterise the key voters of the minute, whose decisions are expected to decide the result and on whom the campaigning efforts will be most concentrated. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher won elections by successfully appealing to "Essex Man". More recently Worcester Woman and Mondeo Man have been the shorthand terms of choice.
Although the Conservatives have pulled to within two points of Labour in the most recent MORI poll, this would still suggest Labour's majority in the House of Commons would be nearly 100 seats over all other parties. The voting intentions of the 53 percent of the British electorate who say they are 'certain' they'll vote when the election comes is 39 percent for Labour, 37 percent for the Tories and just 18 percent for the Liberal Democrats, a swing of 3.7 percentage points from Labour to Conservatives since the general election.
There's more gloom and doom for Michael Howard, the Leader of the Conservative Party, in this month's MORI poll, carried out just a few days ago exclusively for the Observer. There is unhappy news for the Prime Minister as well, as the poll shows that the British now prefer Gordon Brown as Prime Minister to Mr Blair, and many more people say they trust the Chancellor than say the trust the PM.
While the general election is the more immediate political event on the horizon, generally expected to take place on 5th May to coincide with the local government elections, the debate on the Euro Constitution referendum in 2006 is already in play.
The American Presidential Election is over… I think. Senator Kerry has conceded to President Bush, but then so did Senator Gore, in 2000. As I write, on 'screaming deadline', there are still three states which haven't been decided, Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico. By 3:30 am on ITN's election night programme I had called Iowa and New Mexico for the President, but Ohio was still too close to call in our view (although Fox, and then NBC, had done so) by the time we went off air at 6:00 am.
