politicalbetting.com

I really like Sir Geoffrey Howe, as Margaret Thatcher’s first Chancellor of the Exchequer he helped change the economy, shattering the policies that helped make the United Kingdom the sick man of Europe despite a lot of opprobrium at the time. By making his resignation about our relationship with our European neighbours and thus Mrs Thatcher’s ousting about that led to an emotional melodrama that affected the Tory party for decades and as a result the country too given the…

Read More Read More

Because the Home Secretary is also responsible for supervising The Metropolitan Police the ban on mayors concurrently serving as a member of parliament doesn’t apply to the Mayor of London, a loophole Boris Johnson exploited. Angela Rayner is about to close that loophole, the fact that causes problems for Sadiq Khan, a potential rival to succeed Sir Keir Starmer is mere happenstance. I am assuming the next general election will be in 2029 and Sir Sadiq’s current term ends in…

Read More Read More

TSE

I suspect MPs who use ChatGPT to reply to their constituents will be seen as not caring about their constituents and that never helps with re-election. TSE

The Telegraph report that [Diane Abbott] told an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival: “There were people around Jeremy encouraging him to set up a new party, and I told him not to. “It’s very difficult under first-past-the-post system for a new party to absolutely win. “If it wasn’t first-past-the-post, then you can see how a new party could come through, but I understand why he did it.” I agree with Diane Abbott but anything possible if we end up…

Read More Read More

Whilst other governments have had poor ratings a year after winning an election (for example John Major’s Tories after the 1992 election) but that is usually due to a major event such as Black Wednesday but this feels different for Labour, given they have been in power for just a year. These are not ratings of a party that I expect to be re-elected in 2029 if they don’t improve. TSE

TSE

Back in 2012 when Mike Smithson first asked to be guest editor during his holiday one thing he told was one of the perks of the job was choosing the picture to accompany the articles and he was right. Apologies for the lack of a proper thread, I am exceedingly busy at work today. TSE