We are starting to hear calls for the Labour and Lib Dem parties to agree on a single Anti -Tory candidate for the mid-Beds by-election. This, of course, has been created by the resignation of Nadine Dorries On the face of it this seems a logical suggestion but it is hard to see Labour and the LDs agreeing on a deal. Starmer’s party would argue that it came second in the seat at the general election and would therefore stand…
Each month David Cowling, ITN’s former Head of Political Research, issues his polling averages table and as can be seen seen it is hard to discern any real change. This stability is helped, of course, by the fact that this is an average Perhaps this is why voting intention polls are getting so little attention and why hardly anybody talks about “the polls”. I cannot remember when a poll was featured on the front page of a paper but things…
Back in July Jeremy Corbyn refused to rule out running for Mayor of London next year and I speculated this could potentially hand the London Mayoralty to the Tories and this recent polling from YouGov makes me think Corbyn really could do one final service to the Tory party. With the election now first past the post rather than the supplementary vote system Corbyn standing could hand the Tories the election, he could take enough votes from Khan. Those ratings…
Rishi Sunak’s main selling point was his competency yet the way the government have handled the RAAC story is pretty bad such as not disclosing the schools impacted but probably the worst blunder is hiding the Secretary of State for Education from the media today. The government need to reassure the public on this and releasing a video (atop this thread) that seems to be have been produced & directed by Chris Morris isn’t the way to go. This is…
You would have thought that someone who has risen to the top in politics would have a greater sense of self-awareness than that which we see from Sunak week after week after week. His constant boasting about how well he and his government are so out of kilter with what the public actually thinks that he is doing himself a huge amount of damage. It is not helping his party electorally and it is hard to see him having any…
What’s happened to the “Brexit Glue”? We have gone on for so long seeing the referendum vote as the great divider that it comes as something a shock to see polling like that in the Tweet above that was published during the week. Terms like “Red Wall” have entered the political vocabulary and it is going to be hard to accept that this doesn’t matter to the same extent anymore. It is important to recall that GE2019 took place before…
On Smarket it’s a 7% betting chances that Johnson could be back as Tory leader at the next general election. Could such a development really be possible? Let’s remember that he quit as an MP in June 2023, days before the Privileges Committee unanimously found that he had lied to the Commons on numerous occasions. It is very difficult to workout a pathway for a return and how would the Privileges Committee react to such a move? But many Tory MPs will…
From a betting perspective the by-election in Mid Bedfordshire looks set to be the most intriguing contest of recent times. You can make a case for the Lib Dems, Labour or the Tories and this is reflected in the odds above. The betting movement has been away from the Lib Dems who were trading at about a 67% chance earlier in the week. I would still make them favourites if only because the party has a long history of winning…