Last weekend I did a piece on who will be the next Chancellor and my central premise was that Boris Johnson would leave Jeremy Hunt at King Charles Street lest he adds another malcontent on the backbenches so dabbling in this market didn’t really interest me as I might end up tying up my money for a long time. The events in the Strait of Hormuz probably ensures Boris Johnson decides to keep Hunt there for continuity reasons alone. However the…
Occasionally I have planted a gorgeous looking plant; it has flowered briefly then died. On digging it up I find the dreaded wine weevil or roots which have made no attempt to spread into the soil and find nutrition. It is a reminder that nourishing the hidden roots is by far a gardener’s most important task. A plant not strong and well anchored will be blown away by the winds, destroyed by frost or succumb to malicious bugs and parasites….
I come to bury Theresa May. She leaves the highest political office in the land with no achievements to her name. The country is more divided than when she took office. Its economy is faltering. She has found no resolution to Brexit, the task for which she was appointed Prime Minister. She has completely failed. Mrs May might reasonably argue that the task was immense. So it was. She has made it worse. The tragedy is that she understood part,…
Five of the past 7 male Tory PMs were educated there Within minutes of Boris being declared leader on Tuesday morning expect new betting markets on who will succeed him as CON leader, who’ll be his successor and how long will survive at Number 10. When considering a factor to remember is that the form book shows us that Tories liked to be led by someone who was educated at Eton. Going back to 1955 of the seven men…
Parliament won’t be able to repeat Cooper I: only nuclear options remain Rarely can there have been such a disparity between the apparent dullness of the procedural minutiae of an amendment to a technical Bill about Northern Ireland, and the breathless attention paid it by the political commentariat as there was this week. Wrongly. They might as well not have bothered. In trying to find processes to avoid the government proroguing parliament in late October (processes which might not work…
LAB members falling out of love with Jezza pic.twitter.com/56VBigfGco — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 18, 2019 While all the focus has been on the Tory battle things have not been going well for the Labour leadership. The latest crisis follows the sacking off a senior party figure in the Lords and there is talk of a confidence motion. The polling above by YouGov suggests that Corbyn no longer has the same magical hold on the membership as might have been…
Tories complaining in Brecon & Radnor by-election that their posters are getting vandalised https://t.co/oDswR6rgOH pic.twitter.com/hztA92wyTK — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 19, 2019 The Brecon and Radnor Times is reporting that the local Tories are complaining that their poster boards for the August 1st by-election are being vandalised by their opponents. See the Tweet above for an example. The by-election, the first in a CON held seat this parliament, had been triggered by the successful recall petition against the incumbent Tory…
Betdata.io chart of Betfair Exchange On Betfair a 2019 exit is just a 39% chance We’ve seen in the latest defeat for the government in proroguing parliaments that the parliamentary situation is going to make it very tough for Johnson. There simply aren’t the MP numbers there and now rebellious remain ministers are acting in unison in the same manner as the ERG hardliners. The latest news that at least three cabinet ministers are ready to resign also adds to…