A dangerously illiberal idea

A dangerously illiberal idea

Politico are reporting that Opinion polls are inaccurate, distort political debate and should be banned during the final weeks of an election campaign. That’s the view of the strategist who led the British Conservative Party’s operations in 2024 and 2019.   In an interview for a new book on this year’s U.K. general election, Tory campaign director Isaac Levido slammed the “unhealthy” dominance of polling in the media coverage of the campaign, which his side lost to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party…

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How not to a-tractor floating voters

How not to a-tractor floating voters

One of the reasons I think Kemi Badenoch will fail as Tory leader is that she lacks judgment and I agree with the views of Dan Hodges. As somebody who is going to be negatively impacted by Labour’s plans to charge VAT on school fees I know sympathy for people in my position is so small it could easily fit in a matchbox and not touch the sides. I expect once the public becomes fully aware of the millions of…

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A promising start for Kemi Badenoch

A promising start for Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch’s challenge is convert those don’t knows into positives. Sir Keir Starmer’s inauspicious start continues, his net favourability is minus 29%, whereas David Cameron’s net satisfaction* four months into his premiership was 24%, Nick Clegg’s was a net 17% at the same point. TSE *A slightly inexact comparison due to the wording of the questions

The Chancer of the Exchequer

The Chancer of the Exchequer

The story about Rachel Reeves and her curriculum vitae is one of those stories that can be so debilitating for a politician and the government when things are going sub optimally. That said successive Tory Prime Ministers were happy to have Andrea Leadsom in their cabinet after she admitted to misleading claims on her CV so I cannot see her resigning or getting sacked over this. I cannot see any markets on Rachel Reeves quitting/get sacked but right now I…

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This explains so much

This explains so much

I think the nicest thing that can be said about Sunak is that he wasn’t as bad as Truss or Johnson. The Northern Leg of HS2 was scrapped to keep Sunak positive and lift him out of his funk. By the end of June, Sunak was in a deep funk. A senior adviser said: “At that point, Rishi was punch drunk. He spent a lot of his time in a very bad place. He goes through long periods of just…

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The Conservatives are the 1/10 favourites to win the next general election

The Conservatives are the 1/10 favourites to win the next general election

Next year one of the major elections will be the 45th Canadian federal election which has to be held on or by the 20th of October 2025 and the betting from Ladbrokes shows the expected trend of incumbents getting clobbered senseless. If you can spot any value in this market then share your wisdom in the comments. TSE