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Month: June 2018

Michael Bloomberg to spend $80m helping the Democrats in key races at the November midterms

Michael Bloomberg to spend $80m helping the Democrats in key races at the November midterms

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https://youtu.be/pPyzZjeH1d4 Could this help turn the tide? For nearly a year the betting markets have made a Democratic party House win in November’s midterm the favourite. These, of course, are the key elections that come up half way through a presidential term when the whole of the House is up for election as well as about a third of the Senate. The Democrats margin has narrowed very sharply on Betfair but the blues are still just ahead. From the betting…

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NEW PB/Polling Matters podcast: NHS funding, ‘Brexit dividends’ and UK drugs policy

NEW PB/Polling Matters podcast: NHS funding, ‘Brexit dividends’ and UK drugs policy

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On this week’s PB / Polling Matters podcast, Keiran Pedley and Leo Barasi look at public opinion on the NHS as it hits 70 years old in light of the government’s promise to pump in extra cash. Keiran takes us through what the public think of the policy and whether they would accept tax rises to pay for it alongside data on how perceptions of the quality of care provided by the NHS have changed over time. Later in the…

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Kirsty Wark heads the betting for the next QuestionTime host

Kirsty Wark heads the betting for the next QuestionTime host

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Several bookies have now got odds up who is going to succeed David Dimbleby as the host of the long running BBC series Question Time. Most of them showing a similar assessment to Ladbrokes which features in the panel above. My understanding is that the program is made by an independent production house which clearly will have a view about who should take over from Dimbleby. So this is not going to be a sole BBC decision. The Producers will…

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Losing today’s Brexit vote could prove fatal for Mrs. May’s premiership

Losing today’s Brexit vote could prove fatal for Mrs. May’s premiership

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Can the rebels be curtailed yet again? After the Brexit bill defeat for the government on the in the Lords on Monday the issue is now back in the commons and there’ll be a big vote on whether to accept what the Lord’s decided. The stakes are very high indeed because if the measure goes through it will have a huge impact on the way that ongoing negotiations on the deal take place. Essentially if it passes Mrs Mays hands…

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Trump’s hardline policy on immigrant children has become a testing time for the White House

Trump’s hardline policy on immigrant children has become a testing time for the White House

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Maintaining Republican party support looks challenging The polling is not good for the President. According to a CNN poll two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the practice of taking undocumented immigrant children from their families and putting them in government facilities on US borders, Only 28% approve. Among Republican voters 54% support the policy but 34% don’t. This all comes in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet

Older voters more likely to back legalisation of cannabis for medical use than the young

Older voters more likely to back legalisation of cannabis for medical use than the young

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The Sajid Javid move is in line with public opinion The big news from Westminster this afternoon is that the Home Secretary has announced a review on the legalisation of cannabis for medical use – something that has become a big issue because of the Billy Caldwell case. The main recent poll on this comes from a YouGov survey last month and I illustrate the age splits in the chart above. What I find really interesting is that the older…

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On Betfair 2018 is once again favourite for TMay’s exit

On Betfair 2018 is once again favourite for TMay’s exit

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Is she going to be able to survive? Over the past year I’ve had a pretty good record with my political bets which have come to fruition. I was on the Democrats in the Alabama and Pennsylvania special elections and, of course, backed the LDs to beat the Tories in last week’s by-election. I lost on the Arizona special election and my long-shot for the Tory leadership, Damian Green, fell by the wayside earlier in the year. My other significant…

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And so the “meaningful vote” issue gets put back into the bill by the Lords

And so the “meaningful vote” issue gets put back into the bill by the Lords

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New Lords defeat for government on Brexit 'meaningful vote' amendment https://t.co/QfOQmitOuC — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 18, 2018 The problems for TMay mount I have to say that I haven’t been following politics tonight but the battle of Stalingrad. The problem here is that the ex-CON Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve, thought he had a deal last week when the bill was before the Commons and he didn’t push his original amendment. That ministers appear to have reneged on that arrangement was…

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