A week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson reportedly said. This last week has been one such. On Sunday Michael Gove refused, explicitly, to say that the Government would abide by any law passed in Parliament to rule out a disorderly Brexit, describing such a law as “a pig in a poke”. During Tuesday’s debate when Gove’s pig in a poke – or the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill – made an appearance, Johnson confirmed that he…
Boris Johnson says that if MPs vote for an extension tomorrow an election will be the only way to resolve things and that he’s tabling an election motion under the FTPA — James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) September 3, 2019 AND: @BorisJohnson confirms that the Government is tonight tabling a motion under the Fixed Terms Parliament Act to hold a general election. — Darren McCaffrey (@darrenmccaffrey) September 3, 2019 https://twitter.com/rhodri_jones/status/1168995934719684611 Jeremy Corbyn confirms Labour will not vote for Boris Johnson’s General Election…
One of the features of current polling is that we are getting very different findings for the best Prime Minister question as the chart above shows. While the Starmer figures are in a narrow range of 31%-35% the Johnson numbers have a spread of 30%-48%. Could it be the pollsters’ formats that impact on this. While YouGov has Starmer ahead and Opinium has it very close the most prolific pollster, Redfield and Wilton, consistently have Johnson with substantial leads. I…
Do voters have second thoughts when faced with him on the ballot paper? Back in 2001 the fledgling YouGov polling company first came to our attention with its survey of CON members ahead of the leadership ballot. There was never any doubt that IDS would beat the pro EU Ken Clarke but this new polling company uniquely then using the internet scored a spectacular success by getting the result within one percent. Four years later it was DDavis versus Cameron…
Yesterday’s announcement by the Prime Minister that there will be a Queen’s speech in mid October meaning that the number of parliamentary days available for debating Brexit has been drastically reduced has led to to a lot of betting. The current busiest market in terms of money traded is the Betfair one above on whether article 50 will be revoked. Currently that’s rated as a 25% chance but things are developing all the time and this could move up or…
More ex-ministers expected to join the Tory rebels It is worth reminding ourselves that for all but two days of its life the Johnson government has been able to operate without the need to face parliamentary scrutiny. It has been able to control the media narrative and dominate the headlines. That all changes next Tuesday when MPs return after the summer recess. One thing that will be different is that the parliamentary arithmetic, already very tight, will be even less…
There is a widespread assumption, based on what happened with Theresa May two and a half years ago, that prime ministers still have the power to the name election date in spite of the FTPA. This is because it is said that the main opposition party will always have to back holding an election or else it will look weak. But given today’s “anti-no deal” agreement between the opposition parties I wonder if that still holds particularly if Johnson/Cummings want…
One of the really great things about Opinium polls for the Observer is the way they present their data including crossheads that other pollsters don’t manage to produce. One set of these is the source of the chart above. How 2017 Conservative Remainers are responding to the different questions as well as 2017 Labour leavers. In each case from the firm’s regular approval ratings I have deducted those giving a negative answer from those giving a positive one. I have…