Browsed by
Author: Editor

House effect. The Polish presidential election

House effect. The Polish presidential election

Comments 0 Comment

Not Europe again?  I’m afraid so.  Fortunately, this time it’s for an election: the Polish presidential election.  The health of Poland’s democracy has been in question for some time, with the government going down the Hungarian route of controlling the media, packing the courts and using chicanery to exploit the advantages of government to the hilt. The Polish public have the opportunity, should they so choose, to change this on Sunday.  The second round of the presidential election takes place…

Read More Read More

Tonight’s Keiran Pedley Ipsos-MORI podcast: Assessing the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson

Tonight’s Keiran Pedley Ipsos-MORI podcast: Assessing the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson

Comments 0 Comment

This week Kieran Pedley is joined by former Deputy Chief of Staff to David Cameron, Baroness Kate Fall and by Asa Bennett, Brexit Editor at the Daily Telegraph. Interspersed with insights from Ipsos MORI polling, they look at the state the Conservative Party finds itself in now; how it might differ from the party led by David Cameron; and the challenge posed to the future of the Conservatives in government by the election of Keir Starmer as leader of the…

Read More Read More

Starmer is the most popular leader of the opposition since Blair – so why isn’t LAB ahead?

Starmer is the most popular leader of the opposition since Blair – so why isn’t LAB ahead?

Comments 0 Comment

From Keiran Pedley – now of Ipsos-MORI It is fair to say that Keir Starmer has made a positive start to life as Labour leader. Our latest figures from the Ipsos MORI political monitor show that 51% of the British public are satisfied with the job Starmer is doing, 20% are dissatisfied and 29% don’t know.  Starmer’s net satisfaction score of +31 has never been beaten by a leader of the opposition in the 40+ years we have been tracking…

Read More Read More

The case for betting on a Trump victory in November

The case for betting on a Trump victory in November

Comments 0 Comment

A guest slot from Mr. Ed on Why he thinks the President will be re-elected If you don’t want Trump to win in November (which I think is most people on this site), then there is plenty of data out there to give you hope. The RCP national polling average has Biden’s lead over Trump at +7.1%. In key swing states, the RCP average also shows Biden leading in all 5 (FL, PA, WI, NC, AZ) and polls have suggested…

Read More Read More

The boys who cried sheep. The politics of the end of lockdown

The boys who cried sheep. The politics of the end of lockdown

Comments 0 Comment

Baby it’s cold outside. And don’t the public know it. The government’s Stay Home, Stay Safe campaign has been stunningly effective. A large chunk of the public is now firmly committed to Staying Home and Saving Lives.  They aren’t going to stop doing that just because a mere Prime Minister tells them otherwise. They’re having the mother of all duvet days. This is now becoming a problem. The government needs the economy to revive as soon as possible. It can only do so…

Read More Read More

How steep is Starmer’s mountain?

How steep is Starmer’s mountain?

Comments 0 Comment

Since the last election resulted in a substantial Conservative majority, many have said that Labour has a mountain to climb to win the next one.  The implication is that the result this time significantly influences the result next time.  The results in 2024 are influenced by the results in 2019.   But is that true?  In the jargon, do general election results suffer from serial autocorrelation – that bane of second year graduate students in statistical fields?   Serial autocorrelation defined If…

Read More Read More

28 Weeks Later: The Coronavirus Aftermath for the NHS and its Political Implications

28 Weeks Later: The Coronavirus Aftermath for the NHS and its Political Implications

Comments 0 Comment

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”  The NHS has come through the first phase substantially intact, but with considerable losses, and a mixed performance at best, as ably outlined by Cyclefree in a previous header. Moving to the next phase is a challenge across all the domains of economics and society, but my thoughts turn to the next phase for the NHS….

Read More Read More

The Index Case. Dealing with Covid-19 inside our care homes

The Index Case. Dealing with Covid-19 inside our care homes

Comments 0 Comment

A longstanding PBer tell his story Regular readers of the comments on this site will know that over the weekend, my father died after contracting coronavirus in his care home. The index case (colloquially, ‘patient zero’, but more accurately, the first documented patient in a disease outbreak within a particular population), was a patient recently discharged directly from hospital, into the care home. In the ten days which marked the period of my father’s infection, I understand that somewhere just…

Read More Read More