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Two things are for sure – Cummings is not going to go away and he’s become BoJo’s biggest, most powerful and dangerous critic. He played such a crucial part in the 2016 referendum and arguably it was his finely tuned approach to messaging that won the day for Leave. He is the one who is credited with the slogans “Take Back Control” and also the “Get Brexit Done” from GE2019. In many many ways it was his political skill that…

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Undoubtedly today’s big political event will be the broadcast by the BBC of the Laura Kuenssberg interview with Dom Cummings. As part of the build-up some choice comments are being circulated. The ones that stands out are these reported in the Sun: Undoubtedly Dom wants BoJo out and the veracity of his assertions need to be judged against that but it does appear to have the potential to damage. As the YouGov analysis of GE2019 above shows the Tories owe…

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The Tories have been ahead in the polls for months now and by significant margins. Sure, they lost Chesham & Amersham and failed by a tiny number of votes to win back Batley & Spen, both disappointments and, in the case of the former, a possible warning sign. But even so the polls are stuck with the Tories hovering around the 40% mark, sometimes up to 43% and Labour around 30%. Why might this be? Some suggestions: – Boris got…

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The Smarkets exchange where Shadsy is now running the political markets, has just put up a new bet – when will LAB next get a poll lead? The rules are dead simple: This market will be settled as a winner for the relevant year if any of the following polling companies publicly report a headline voting intention lead for the Labour party: Opinium, YouGov, Redfield & Wilton, Savanta ComRes, Survation, Deltapoll, Kantar TNS, Ipsos Mori or BMG. The qualifying date…

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The big plan was that today would be dominated by Johnson’s big speech to the nation with all the Churchillian undertones to celebrate how the country had got through the COVID crisis and now, thanks to the vaccination success, we could look forward to a new future. Even the name Freedom Day fits in with the wartime references. Unfortunately, COVID is still with us with huge numbers of new cases each day. There is some consolation to be had by…

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Savanta/ComRes has carried out a quickie poll today on the story that’s been dominating UK politics – the apparenty effort, since abandoned, to dodge the isolation rules. The poll of English adults had 60% saying that the plan by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to not self-isolate having been a close contact of a positive coronavirus case was unfair. Just 33% say that the original plan for the Prime Minister and Chancellor to instead be part of a pilot…

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At least they had the nouse to U-turn For months it seems we have been hearing from ministers about July 19th which has been dubbed Freedom Day to mark the end of the COVID restrictions. This was going to be a big moment for Johnsson and his team and a time to celebrate yet again the success of their vaccination programme. Then HealthSec Javid contracted COVID prompting the multi-billion pound NHS test and trace service to pin the two men…

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Punters make it a 67% chance that restrictions will be re-introduced before the year end With so-called Freedom Day scheduled for tomorrow, several of the papers are leading on the fact that this is going to be nothing like what BoJo had declared not so long ago. It is not helped by the fact that HealthSec Javid has now contracted the virus. This is how the S Times is reporting it: Britain faces disruption to food supplies, transport networks and…

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