Ministers in trouble have always been a great source of profit and comment in the history of PB. So Dominic Raab’s appearance today (for an hour) at 2pm before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee gives him an opportunity to recover his position or make it much worse. The indications are he is likely to throw his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence and Home Office under the bridge something he has started to do with his comments in the few…
Public concern about climate change, the environment, and pollution doubles to a near record level Given recent events but (going back further) I’m not surprised to see pollution/environment/climate change so high on the issues index. What I love about the Ipsos MORI issues index is that is based on the unprompted responses of the respondents. With the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) taking place in Glasgow between the 1st and 12th of November I suspect concern about climate…
Should the government be worried about a backlash? This might sound like wooly thinking when it comes to alpacas but I wonder the state sanctioned assassination of Geronimo today might lead to problems for the government. Last week I was genuinely shocked by the result of this poll from YouGov where 40% of the public said human lives are worth the same as animal lives coupled with 3% said animal lives are worth more. I expected to see those who…
Apart from Tony Blair’s first term it always felt during my lifetime come midterm the governing party becomes unpopular especially one that has been in power over eleven years. Yet as we can see in the above chart the government seems to have a healthy lead, this isn’t indicative of a polling screw up as the leader ratings also have Boris Johnson well ahead of Sir Keir Starmer. When you factor in the likely boundary changes and the potential for…
To be honest I’m cutting Michael Gove some slack, firstly it has been a hell of an eighteen months, secondly he’s getting divorced, speaking from experience they really do hurt, and thirdly I’m so delighted to know that I’m not the worst dancer in the country. TSE
When the final word on Brexit is written I think the greatest blunder(s) were committed by the Democratic Unionist Party, first off by backing Brexit, which many warned would place Northern Ireland’s place in the Union at risk, and then rejecting Theresa May’s deal, the latter is something which they now regret after Boris Johnson politically cuckolded them by placing a border in the Irish Sea. There’s been a reckoning for the DUP judging by this latest poll which sees…
This chart from the NY Times & the MIT Election Lab is quite the eye opener and seems to back the other analysis that Republican voters in America are shunning the vaccines because of the previous rhetoric of Trump and other GOPers. This has a major impact on American politics and betting. The problem for Trump and the GOP leadership have realised that dead voters cannot vote, pace Northern Ireland, but sadly for Trump and the likes of Mitch McConnell…
The optics look very bad from the Chancellor. Much attention has been focussed on the triple lock but another area which may cause the government trouble is the forthcoming cut to the universal credit uplift. The optics of cutting universal credit in October whilst giving pensioners an 8% increase (or any increase) really look at best unfortunate and at worst callous. Ed Miliband will attest that opposing austerity isn’t a vote winner but this time it might be. Unlike the…