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Author: David Herdson

That’s whose prerogative?

That’s whose prerogative?

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The government’s just introduced another constitutional time-bomb Rather quietly, the government announced this week the death sentence for the unfairly unloved Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. In truth, it was not that bad a piece of legislation; one which took a power away from the executive and handed it to parliament, at least in small measure. However, two snap elections in a row – one of which came about by circumventing the Act’s provisions – undermined any sense of a new state…

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Rebuilding a Nation: Unionists need to engage in a battle of both hearts and minds

Rebuilding a Nation: Unionists need to engage in a battle of both hearts and minds

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But it’s a task singularly ill-suited to Boris Johnson TV used to be so much simpler. When I was growing up, there were only three, then four channels (though Channel 4 didn’t start up until mid-afternoon). If you wanted On Demand, you had to use a Video Recorder. Viewing was entirely through the box (and TVs were boxy) and the only thing resembling an internet was Ceefax and Oracle. They were also almost entirely passively consumed: no ‘e-mail, text or…

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Trump’s Plan D – it’s all about the Electoral College

Trump’s Plan D – it’s all about the Electoral College

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He won’t give up until all the votes are cast and counted “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”. So once said American Football coach Vince Lombardi. It is a philosophy Donald Trump takes to heart – though his record is somewhat patchier than Lomabrdi’s. Trump has a pathological, visceral fear of being seen to fail, to lose. Any other presidential candidate would have given up weeks ago, particularly as Trump has already set the narrative…

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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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