Word: icm
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...leaderless limbo - the ideal conditions for conspiracies against the heir apparent, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, 55. After a clunky conference speech, plenty of delegates worried that his dour Scottish solidity would pale against the fresh-faced ease of David Cameron, the 39-year-old Tory leader. An ICM poll shows voters already think Cameron will make a better Prime Minister, and that Labour is out of ideas and more divided than the Tories. One Labour delegate brushed all that away: "Voters will see the Tories are stealing our ideas and don't have our substance." But that...
...prepared for the onslaught of interest," says Hermann. "Everyone with two nickels to rub together wants to be the next Sol Hurok." Many of those would-be impresarios may be disappointed, however, and it is harder to make a profit from touring companies today. Says Lee Lament, president of ICM Artists, which once presented many of the Soviet troupes: "With the rising cost of travel, hotels and union help, you just can't make the profit of 25 years...
...show, it may be working. Faced with polls showing Labour still gaining, Conservative leader Michael Howard redoubled his emotional appeal to "ordinary, decent folk, who know that things are wrong but are being intimidated into silence" by Blair's crowd of trendy metropolitans. Nick Sparrow, head of the pollster ICM, pointed out this was awkward turf for the Tories, "banging on about second-order issues," while Labour, though tarnished, "focuses on the economy, schools and hospitals people care most about." Dull and worthy, it would seem, still have their place...
...crunch time for Howard, the third Tory leader to inherit the big problem of digging his party out of the rubble of huge losses to Labour in 1997 and 2001. Right now the Tories have 162 seats in the House of Commons to Labour's 408, and an ICM poll two weeks ago showed Labour leading 40% to 32%. Couple these numbers with the vagaries of the British first-past-the-post voting system, and Howard is staring at one big mountain to climb by election day. And last week, a few medium-sized boulders thumped down onto his path...
...next year. He appears to be in a position to win another term in elections expected in May, which could provide momentum for the yes campaign he promises to lead. It won't be easy. A January Eurobarometer poll had 30% opposed, 20% in favor, but a more recent ICM poll showed the public split 39% to 39% when presented with the exact wording of the referendum. Yet the same sample said they would ditch the constitution, 54% to 26%, if they had to vote tomorrow. Those numbers make both sides nervous. The British public is "more skeptical and hostile...