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Author: Mike Smithson

Johnson is next CON leader favourite – but only a 14% one

Johnson is next CON leader favourite – but only a 14% one

But at the moment there is no vacancy I have got a feeling based on absolutely nothing that the Tory leadership will come up again before the general election. Somehow I don’t see Sunak hacking it and I have been less than impressed by his performances at PMQs. Big problem he has is that his only being an MP for about 7 years and sometimes this shows. What Sunak that failed to do so far is get the polls turning…

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The strikes: The Tories are struggling to win public support

The strikes: The Tories are struggling to win public support

The above sets out some of the latest YouGov polling on public attitudes towards the various sets of industrial action within the public sector. As can be seen the nurses and ambulance staff are highly regarded and it is going to take more than the current efforts by ministers to win public backing. What has been particularly pathetic has been the effort to try to blame Starmer for what’s happening with at least one cabinet minister regularly producing Tweets to…

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Trump slumps to a new low in the WH2024 betting

Trump slumps to a new low in the WH2024 betting

Immediately after the midterms last month former President Donald Trump made his formal announcement that he will be a candidate for 2024. As the betting chart shows he moved up shortly upwards but since then the story has all been downwards. This has been mostly down to the polling and the response to his “run again” plan. Now it is just an 11% betting chance that he’ll get his old job back. In just over a year will see the…

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Is this good for Sunak or bad?

Is this good for Sunak or bad?

As they say – taking on nurses is “brave” What is very clear is that people are likely to die when in normal circumstances they would have received help earlier. Quite who will get the blame for what is happening hard to say at this stage but this is a real test for Sunak. His hardline approach is fine from one perspective provided it is not your loved ones who will be affected. People who lose a close family member…

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Who will the GE2019 Tory don’t knows end up voting for?

Who will the GE2019 Tory don’t knows end up voting for?

Above is from the dataset for the December 14th Opinium poll which I feature to highlight one of the big uncertainties of the next election which I have referred to before – what GE2019 Tory voters are saying now. CON 49% : LAB 12% : LD 3% GRN 1%: REF 8%: DK 22% From the table above the number to focus on is the 22% saying DK. What is significant is that they are planning to vote but just this…

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Sunak’s Ipsos ratings down less than 2 months after becoming PM

Sunak’s Ipsos ratings down less than 2 months after becoming PM

The PM who had no honeymoon Normally the reason that parties in government change their leader is in the hope that the new person will actually improve their position in the polls. Well as the latest Ipsos poll just out shows that simply isn’t happening with Sunak it is hard to envisage a challenge at this stage or any pressure for a replacement leader but all sorts of things can happen in politics when hundreds of government MPs can see…

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The best election bet – LAB NOT to get a majority

The best election bet – LAB NOT to get a majority

If you look through the latest polls and the reporting of them you would assume that has been a massive switch of Conservative voters to LAB. So the 12% CON lead at GE2019 has now become LAB ones of 15% or more. This points to scores of gain by Starmer’s party at the next election. WRONG. This is because of the widespread polling practice of netting off and just reporting the views of those who give an indication of which…

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