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Although you might not have noticed it if you follow the national media there is a by-election on Thursday which has the potential to cause shockwaves. Chesham and Amersham is the first such contest since Brecon in 2019 where the LDs think they are in with a shout and have been throwing everything at the campaign. Leader Ed Davey has been there almost every day and hundreds of activists from all over the country have been working on the campaign….

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The mood music has changed. It seems that Step 4 – the lifting of the remaining legal restrictions – will no longer be happening on June 21st. Indeed, there are some advisors (mostly health professionals of some kind or other) who seem to think that these (social distancing, in particular) should continue indefinitely and for all sorts of reasons: to deal with flu, the backlog in cancer care, other respiratory diseases etc. Quite what sort of society or life they…

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The picture above isn’t a photoshop but from the official MOD twitter account, see here. Whilst I don’t want to turn this article into an episode of Father Ted it is clear from past evidence that Rishi Sunak is shorter than most politicians, something which he tries to hide which leads to weird photos. Appearances matter in politics, this is why it has been discussed being bald is bad for party leaders. Back in 2001 one newspaper ‘suggested that a…

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Andy Burnham is riding high at the moment. The latest Ipsos MORI polling on who “has what it takes to be a good PM” had the Mayor of Greater Manchester with better net ratings than either BoJo or Sunak. He was on a net plus 11% with Sunak on a net plus 7% and Johnson on a net plus 2. Ladbrokes currently have former LAB MP and now Mayor of Greater Manchester as 7/2 favourite for next LAB leader. On…

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On July 1st LAB go into their second difficult northern by-election defence at Batley & Spen and following the loss of Hartlepool on May 6th the Tories are strong favourites to take the seat. Generally, government parties have trouble with by-elections like this where the main opposition party is defending a seat held at the previous general election. Until LAB lost Copeland in 2017 this was almost something that just about never happened. But it says something about current UK…

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But YouGov continues to have the best blue ratings I always like to look at recent polls in context by using the Wikipedia table above. As can be seen YouGov continues to find the biggest leads for the Tories with most other recent polls having the margin in single figures. Opinium, the top pollster at GE2019 is due to report next on Saturday night. The challenge for the Greens under FPTP is that it is hard to convert a 9%…

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BoJo’s predecessor takes on the government on the key issue of the day In all the years I have been following and writing about politics I cannot recall a speech from an ex-PM like the above one from TMay. Remember she was not attacking another party but the current Tory government for maintaining the rigid travel bans when other countries are loosening up. All the evidence is that the vaccination programme has been a great success in protecting the vulnerable…

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Viewing this by-election through the prism of Hartlepool could be a mistake While almost all the media focus has been on the July 1st Batley and Spen by-election there’s been hardly any coverage of the Tory defence in Chesham & Amersham where they are defending a 29.1% majority. It is as though the lessons of Hartlepool are being applied in this part of southern England where so many things are different. There’s a good analysis of what’s going on and…

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