Getting inside voters' minds is not always a straightforward business, as Ben Page knows all too well.

Ipsos Mori's chief executive understands that what the public want can often be very complicated indeed. Part of the problem is what Page has termed 'cognitive polyphasia' - the ability of the general public to want more than one thing. Border controls should be toughened up, they think, but those lengthy queues at borders are completely unacceptable. Global warming has to be tackled, it's agreed, but measures to enforce recycling are simply unacceptable.

Then there's the basic mechanics of coming up with trustworthy numbers. Polling is grounded in science; take a random sample of "1,000 sentient beings in the universe" and you'll get a reflection of their views to plus or minus three per cent. "The problem is we never achieve a random sample," Page says. That's where the art comes in: going to find people, knowing who you're talking to, is what matters as efforts to 'weight' data

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By Carl Miller

"I come from cyberspace," Grateful Dead lyricist and cyberpioneer John Perry Barlow famously wrote 16 years ago, "the new home of Mind". In his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace the "weary giants of flesh and steel" were warned to "leave us alone". He added: "You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."

This was an early shot across the bows in a struggle that has gripped the internet since its earliest days: does the internet exist within or outside of governmental control? A powerful and self-consciously revolutionary ideology has existed that has regarded the internet as a precious and fragile opportunity for humankind to evolve beyond nation-states towards post-territorial, self-governing communities; to literally re-draw the social contract. The internet today reflects these founding principles; its universal language — the TCP/IP protocol — embraces an open architecture that distrusts centralised control, allows any computer

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However much David Cameron may swat at the Balls bluebottle, he will never be able to squash the superbly annoying shadow chancellor.

Ed Balls is not supposed to play a big part in prime minister's questions. This session is supposed to be about Cameron asking questions from Ed Miliband and other MPs, and nothing whatsoever to do with opposition frontbenchers.

Yet such is Balls' capacity for winding up the prime minister that he has succeeded in getting a rise out of Cameron for the second time in six months.

It is the consistency of the shadow chancellor's drip-drip approach that proves so infuriating. If someone tapped you with a pencil on the shoulder for half an hour you would probably end up punching them in the face. Balls deploys the political equivalent every PMQs.

His excellent technique is composed of a combination of hand gestures and barbed comments which are barely audible above the throng. In this respect his tactics are not dissimilar to those frequently employed by

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A century of failure on Lords reform isn't putting off Peter Facey, the director of campaigning group Unlock Democracy.

Yes, the coalition is putting forward a bill which, if successful, will turn the House of Lords into an 80% elected second chamber.

Unfortunately its chances of succeeding are being assessed by some constitutional experts in very gloomy terms. Peers are vowing to fight to the bitter end. Tory backbenchers are preparing to scupper the bill in the Commons. Cross-party unity without a referendum looks elusive.

Despite all these headwinds, Facey refuses to be downcast. "I'm an optimist," he tells me. We're sat in his office at Unlock Democracy's new headquarters. The place has a slightly scruffy feel - exactly what you'd expect for an organisation which spends its time pursuing constitutional reform. Half academic and half campaigners, this earnest bunch are looking to wrap up the unfinished business that began 101 years ago.

Facey doesn't accept that a referendum on

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By Dr Matthew Ashton

One of the great things you can do in your first year in government is endlessly pass the buck. When things go wrong you can point your finger at the previous administration and say "it was all their fault". However these opportunities slowly ebb away as time passes. For instance, after 2001 you rarely heard Tony Blair make reference to 17 years of Tory misrule, which had almost become a mantra in his first term in office.

Likewise whenever you see anyone from the current government being interviewed, it's only a matter of time before they trot out the excuse that, "we're having to clear up the mess that the previous lot left behind". That would be fine, as far as it goes, but this claim fails in two very important respects.

One is that I've yet to hear anyone from the Conservative benches give a coherent explanation of what they'd have done particularly differently that would have averted the current crisis. If you look at their spending plans, as set out in the

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This week, Mitt Romney asserted that “marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman”, which is reassuring from a politician whose religion tolerates polygamy.

His decision to position himself on the side of traditional American family values is part of a culture war deeply woven into the fabric of American politics. Issues such as gay marriage will be a key influence on voters in November’s presidential election, and figures suggest Romney has much to gain here.

A Gallup poll revealed that 23 per cent of independent voters, whose ballots are expected to be decisive in November’s general election, were now less likely to vote for Barack Obama, while 11 per cent said that they were more likely to back him.

So, given this, it is perhaps surprising that Romney has stayed relatively quiet on the issue. But there are two main reasons.

The first is that Romney is, in the eyes of many Republicans, inconsistent in his opinion towards homosexuality.

He supports “domestic partnerships”

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There was a subtle but important shift in David Cameron's political message today. For the first time, he set himself up as a war leader. It's the beginning of a new storyline, one which is connected to, but different from, the austerity message we have seen thus far.

Making a major speech on the economy, the prime minister said: "We are living in perilous economic times. Turn on the TV news and you see the return of a crisis that never really went away: Greece on the brink, the survival of the euro in question. Faced with this, I have a clear task: to keep Britain safe. Not to take the easy course - but the right course... That is why we must resist dangerous voices calling on us to retreat... It's not an alternative policy, it's a cop-out."

Cameron's speech was the first moment in a gradual moving of the goalposts. Soon, the function of the government will not be to improve economic performance, but merely to protect Britain from the eurozone crisis.

This change in narrative has five

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No-one had much appetite for a fight, but they did their best to pretend.

David Cameron was already red faced when he stood up, his hair so impeccably ordered it seemed on the verge of disciplining someone. Too much gel perhaps. For his part, Miliband has grown more comfortable with the PMQs slot. Everyday, he looks more like a party leader and less like a school prefect.

The Labour leader started with Francois Hollande, the new French president whose relationship with Cameron will have been somewhat damaged by the prime minister's decision to throw his lot in with Sarkozy during the election.

"It's a shame he didn't see the French president months ago," Miliband said, "but I'm sure a text message and LOL will go down very well." The reference to Rebekah Brooks' testimony about the prime minister, and his inability to distinguish between 'lots of love' and 'laughing out loud', had clearly been prepared for in Downing Street.

"I must admit I have been overusing the mobile a bit," he

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