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Author: David Herdson

Cummings going opens up a little UK-EU trade window. But only a little one

Cummings going opens up a little UK-EU trade window. But only a little one

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The odds should still remain on No Deal Coincidence? Maybe. Dominic Cummings’ departure from Downing Street has been a long time coming. Ever since that fateful dash to County Durham during the first lockdown was revealed to the media, he’s been a man living on borrowed time. But then he always was. Cummings claimed in a blog at the start of the year that he wished to make himself largely redundant to Number 10 by the end of the year….

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My tip for the US election 2024: Pete Buttigieg at 50/1

My tip for the US election 2024: Pete Buttigieg at 50/1

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It’s never too early to look forward 2020 is all over bar the shouting, though there’ll be plenty of that yet. The next two and a half months may not be pretty but their essential course is set: Joe Biden will become president of the United States on 20 January next year. He may not quite be assured of victory in any of the outstanding states but he’s favourite – very strong favourite in some – to take Arizona, Nevada,…

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The great vacillator: Starmer needs to find some backbone

The great vacillator: Starmer needs to find some backbone

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He appears far too scared of Tory criticism There has been a minor infectious outbreak in Westminster. Not Covid-19 in this instance, where recent case numbers remain much lower than in the Spring, despite Jacob Rees-Mogg’s efforts. No, in this case the infection is rebellion. On the Tory side, Chris Green – formerly PPS to the Leader of the Lords – quit over the government’s Covid-19 policy. Labour, by contrast, suffered a more substantial set of resignations, as two junior…

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Trump’s money troubles: cutting advertising spend in key states points to problems

Trump’s money troubles: cutting advertising spend in key states points to problems

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Biden is out-spending him and Trump can’t find a killer line Donald Trump is famously so poor that he only paid $750 in federal income tax in 2016. His campaigning in 2016 was similarly economical. In that election, Trump raised and spent only just over half the total of his opponent: Hillary winning the funding battle by $1191m to $647m. In the end, of course, that didn’t matter; Trump won the election. He did so partly because Hillary was just…

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LET’S TALK LANDSLIDES

LET’S TALK LANDSLIDES

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Everything points to Biden winning big. Believe it. Why do we not believe the evidence in front of us? Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to accept the bad news it reveals; sometimes it’s because we daren’t believe the good news for fear of jinxing it; it may be that we had our fingers burnt by believing something similar in the past which then turned out differently; or maybe the outcome is so far from our experiences that it feels…

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Why there won’t be a President Romney

Why there won’t be a President Romney

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Sometimes it’s worth asking a QTWTAIN even when you know the answer The ancient Greeks gave us many things. Democracy. Really long poems. The kebab*. Proof by contradiction. Let’s combine two of them now, in a manner of speaking, to look at where the US election might be going in the light of Donald Trump contracting Covid-19. Everyone should be wishing Donald Trump well right now. Those who want him to win, for obvious reasons; those who want him to…

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2022 for Johnson’s departure looks good value at up to 9/1

2022 for Johnson’s departure looks good value at up to 9/1

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Tory MPs often act, but rarely quickly Boris is gone. Not in body, obviously. The frequently dishevelled occupant of Number 10 remains in post and will in all likelihood be there for some time to come yet. No, it’s the spirit which has run dry: that bundle of energy and character which enabled him to become a first-name-only politician in the first place. If there was one iconic image of the man before he became PM, it was him dangling…

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Ruthless: RBG’s death has given Trump a Black Swan to exploit

Ruthless: RBG’s death has given Trump a Black Swan to exploit

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The whole nature of the 2020 campaign has just changed. For all her liberal views, one of the most significant legacies of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – via the happenstance of when she died – might be to embed a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court for a generation. Time is short. The Republicans have only six weeks to secure a replacement if they are to be able to go to their voters and claim the achievement of having delivered…

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