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Will Labour win a majority at the next election? One potential barrier that has been much cited here is the party’s poor performance in 2019, which means that it faces a steep climb to win a majority. But others have argued that we should be thinking of its challenge not in terms of the additional seats it needs to gain, but the absolute number of seats it needs to win (326, although de facto fewer). To formalise the discussion, suppose…

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Best for Britain published the results of another MRP poll on Tuesday, which had the Conservatives winning 129 seats at the next General Election. This was for 28.8% of the vote (excluding don’t knows and non-voters).  That MRP poll was a considerable improvement for the Tories compared with the previous one conducted by Focaldata. In the autumn of last year, they found that the Tories would win just 64 seats. This was with the Tories winning 22.7% of the vote. …

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Last year a woman in a castle died. Rumors and notes moved to black cloth and whispers and then the word: she had died and was succeeded by her son. She had been appointed when young by God to be Queen and she had been diligent, as the girl became a woman became frail and she and the years wore away. She had died and the duty passed to the man, and a strange period began. Life is a succession…

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Division Two Derbyshire Derbyshire did much better than most predicted last year, which was good to see. They may have lost Shan Masood, their leading run scorer in cricket last season, but they have retained Mickey Arthur and brought in an interesting young batsman from his other side (Pakistan) in Haider Ali, who averages 70 in first class cricket, to replace Masood. With Leus du Plooy replacing Godleman as captain the latter will hopefully find a few runs again and…

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Ballymore Novices Hurdle (4000m): Just 10 go to post and only four are from the home side. That said, this isn’t the penalty kick for the Irish it might first appear. HERMES ALLEN won the Challow at Newbury, the credential middle distance novice hurdle at Christmas and is clear second favourite at 3s. Favourite is IMPAIRE ET PASSE, but he hasn’t been seen since winning the Moscow Flyer at Punchestown on heavy ground in mid-January. I wasn’t that taken with…

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Weather & Going (according to MoonRabbit) the week will be wet and windy at times, if you are going your wind resistant waterproof is essential. Put some heatpads in pockets too. The course and famous hill are always a stamina test, wet tracks add jeopardy, but will rain actually make for much soft going – just not been business as usual under turf all winter after last summers heatwave, what falls just absorbs so quick. With thirsty water table despite…

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It’s very rare indeed for any polling company to admit to making an error that has skewed a published poll. So rare indeed that we might speculate that whenever a polling company itself discovered an error in the past, the company concerned kept quiet and hoped that no-one else had noticed other than to assume that any unusually rogue result was down to sampling error or the like. Better to keep quiet than to suffer reputational damage by admitting an…

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The Ukraine war is one year old. Here’s the scoreboard from a year of madness.  The Human Cost : over a third of a million deaths, 200000+ Russian military,  an estimated 100000 Ukrainian military and tens of thousands of civilians – many just executed. Given the uncertainties the figure quoted is on the conservative side. Over 5 million Ukrainian refugees living in host countries and a further 7 million are displaced in their own country. Nearly a million Russians –…

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