With the Cummings Commons Committee starting at 0930 – the former advisor Tweets a pic of pre-lockdown Number 10 strategy white board
The first premise was no vaccine in 2020
Now we have the build-up to the Cummings appearance before Commons Health and Science Committee
Local lockdowns by stealth – it is all looking rather chaotic
A big problem with bringing in new lockdowns is that so many people are now vaccinated and don’t feel the same risk or believe that they could be spreaders. The major fact needs to be repeated that in terms of hospitalisations the pandemic has just about been stopped. I live in one of the affected areas and my reading is that it is going to be very difficult to impose and maintain travel bans on a voluntary basis. Many people…
Choosing Jo Cox’s sister might just be enough to save Labour’s bacon in Batley and Spen
So far we haven’t got a date for the Batley by-election but everything is getting ready for the starting gun to be fired. After Labour’s debacle in Hartlepool, the assumption on the betting markets is that the Tories will find it easy to overhaul be 3.5k majority that Labour had at GE2019. Currently, the Tories are rated as a 66% chance. What could make a difference here is the choice of the Labour candidate, Kim Leadbeater, who is the sister…
Can Dom’s Commons committee appearance on Wednesday possibly live up to its billing?
Or will it end up a bit of a damp squib? Over the weekend there has been an increasing build up to the appearance on Wednesday morning by Dominic Cummings before the Commons select committees on Health and Science. This has been reinforced by a series of Tweets from the former advisor to Boris Johnson and all the indications are that he is going to try to “spill the beans” in some form about the government’s handling of the pandemic….
In just three weeks there’ve been CON leads ranging between 1% and 18% in the published national polls
At least we know the pollsters aren’t “herding” Above is the Wikipedia table of the latest voting intention polls and as can be seen there is a huge variation between the polls. In fact the gap when looking at them from the CON lead perspective is as great as anything I have seen since establishing PB in March 2004. What is not included in the list is the regular monitor from Ipsos-MORI – the one firm that still carries much…
The Boris vaccination poll “bounce” will evaporate unless those who’ve had both jabs start to see some benefit
Undoubtedly the government’s vaccination progress has been a great success and clearly has had a big impact on curbing the spread of COVID amongst the most vulnerable. All the signs are that the vaccines pretty are robust with the new variants as Johnson was boasting about at PMQs on Wednesday. On top of that the real-life efficacy of AZC jab has proved to be far in excess of that achieved in the early trials. So why oh why are those…
The LDs have a better than 6% chance of taking Chesham & Amersham
On the betting exchanges the LDs are currently rated as a 6% chance of winning the Chesham and Amersham by-election which takes place on June 17th. I think this is a value bet. The above rather cheeky Tweet by the party President, Mark Pack, reflects a degree of confidence that follows a period of heavy campaigning and the party’s success in the constituency on May 6th when they took control of Amersham Town Council from the Tories as well as…