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Author: TSE

The 2016 elections do not bode well for Labour

The 2016 elections do not bode well for Labour

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Corbyn is set to do worse than Ed Miliband in his first major electoral test. In the Sunday Times (££)  Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have analysed the 60 local council elections since Jeremy Corbyn became leader. The best way to measure what is happening, however, is to look at the changes in those places where a post-Corbyn by-election reprises a contest previously held on general election day earlier this year. There are 27 such cases where Labour fielded a candidate…

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How the United Kingdom is changing almost without comment

How the United Kingdom is changing almost without comment

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Alistair Meeks on the “Secret Federation” On Wednesday, John Swinney stood up to deliver his draft budget for Scotland.  The consensus was that the event was a damp squib.  With no changes to income tax and only copycat changes to stamp duty on second homes, it was less of a fiscal fiesta and more of a monetary mundanity.  The SNP showed themselves to be a party more intent on not risking re-election than in demonstrating a different Scottish way of…

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Pulpstar on the Republican Nomination

Pulpstar on the Republican Nomination

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The GOP race for the White House is utterly fascinating, and represents a proper betting contest rather than the 1-10 shot Hilary Clinton is in the Democrat race. I look on as an outsider, with no particular knowledge of US politics outside of resources available to anyone else – Wikipedia, 538 and real clear politics. How should we start to analyse such an interesting contest – well past performance is no guarantee to the future, but there are quite a…

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Immigration might be the most important issue facing the country but it isn’t the only issue

Immigration might be the most important issue facing the country but it isn’t the only issue

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If UKIP and Leave want to make further progress and win the referendum they need to talk about things other than immigration. We see in the Ipsos Mori issues index (and in other polling) on a regular and consistent basis immigration/immigrants as the most important issue facing the UK yet if immigration/immigrants really was the most important issue then UKIP would have picked up more than one seat in May as David Cameron’s spectacular failure to cut net immigration in the…

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This is not America

This is not America

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Alastair Meeks looks at the politics of statistics Every few days, a twitter account run by the Guardian called @thecounted tweets the cumulative total of deaths at the hands of the police.  The number is shocking.  As at 10 December, the total stood at 1061 for the calendar year 2015.  As often as not Guardian News retweets this information to its predominantly UK-based followers.  The impression given, presumably deliberately, is of a police force that is too trigger-happy by far….

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The Labour share of the vote in 2020

The Labour share of the vote in 2020

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Ladbrokes have a market up on whether Labour’s share of the vote will rise or fall at the next general election. My initial reaction was to back ‘fall’ because of the appalling personal polling figures that Jeremy Corbyn has, but to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there’s quite a few known unknowns about the next general election that might have an impact on this bet, they are, inter alia, We don’t know who will be leading the Conservative Party (whomever it is…

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The latest PB/Polling Matters podcast looks at whether Donald Trump can really do it

The latest PB/Polling Matters podcast looks at whether Donald Trump can really do it

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On this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast Keiran talks Trump with Ariel Edwards-Levy of the Huffington Post USA. His recent comments on Muslims have caused an international furor and yet his popularity (at least in the GOP) seems undiminished. Should we start getting used to the idea of President Trump? Why might Iowa and New Hampshire not hold the same significance in this race that they usually do and if not Trump then who? Ariel Edwards-:Levy is a reporter and polling…

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Turning on taxes. The tectonic plates of Scotland’s politics are moving

Turning on taxes. The tectonic plates of Scotland’s politics are moving

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The changes in the way Scotland is taxed We have heard a lot in the last few years about the desire for Scottish independence.  This has often been couched in general terms as a desire for a fairer and more prosperous Scotland based around a social democratic consensus.  Specific large scale points of difference from current UK policy, however, have been largely elusive.  While the Scottish Parliament has substantial powers, so far the Scottish government has been quite tentative about…

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