There is a good reason why PMs do not reshuffle only 6 months after a GE One of the easier predictions I thought I’d made in a twitter string earlier this week was that Theresa May wouldn’t engage in a voluntary major reshuffle of her cabinet this year. Within two hours of me doing so, the political twittersphere was alive with speculation and supposedly informed comment that just such a reshuffle was imminent – talk that Number Ten did little…
This Times story looks like an attempt to rubbish ex-Chief Whip now Defence Sec Gavin ("Private Pike") Williamsonhttps://t.co/ETaqLipzW8 pic.twitter.com/FGzJbzS7TM — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 26, 2017 The Times is reporting this morning that during the intense negotiations to bolster the minority government after the general election the then chief whip Gavin Williams offered the DUP a cabinet post. We all remember how long it seemed to take for the negotiations with the DUP to provide supply and confidence went on….
Why I’ve had a punt on the HealthSec to succeed TMay Yesterday I had a bet for the first time on the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, as next Conservative leader. I got 23/1 on Betfair. I know other PBers have been betting and tipping him at longer odds and well done to them. What convinced me that Hunt might be in the running was that it was he who was sent out to do the Today programme interview only hours…
Every Tory leader since WWII has increased the Tory share of the vote in their constituency in their first general election as leader except Mrs May It appears Amber Rudd’s majority of 346 in Hastings & Rye is seen as a bar on her being Theresa May’s successor as some Tories don’t want the symbolic moment of the next general election to be the Tory PM losing their seat. Nor do they want their leader spending most of the campaign…
.@Jacob_Rees_Mogg on transition deal: “We cannot be a colony of the EU for two years from 2019 to 2021, accepting new laws that are made without any say-so from the British people, parliament or government…that is being a vassal state of the EU” #newsnight pic.twitter.com/PVMWYDnrgB — BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) December 15, 2017 Could JRM be without the Tory whip at the time of the next leadership contest? One of the reasons I’m laying Jacob Rees-Mogg in the next Tory leader/PM…
Scots CON leader Ruth Davidson says she would consider standing to be an MP in future. https://t.co/YVUXkiT7Ts — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 12, 2017 The first step to her becoming leader? The woman who saved TMay’s bacon on June 8th, Scots CON leader Ruth Davidson, has hinted that becoming a Westminster MP might just be a possibility. For a very long time Davidson has figured highly in the betting and in surveys of Tory members. There’s little doubt that it…
The history of the Tory party is that favourites rarely make it The latest betting chart from Betdata.io is above and shows Jacob Rees-Mogg now clear favourite to succeed TMay but a 14% chance is not that strong. He’s the third Tory to have been favourite since the general election and who knows others could follow. My first ever bet as a 16 year old (I went into a bookie wearing my school blazer and yes I was breaking the…
Jacob Rees-Mogg: “I am not a modern man” With all the focus on the Westminster sexual abuse scandal there has been a big change in the Conservative leadership betting. Jacob Rees-Mogg who is not and never has been a minister has now moved above a former Mayor of London and no Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson, and just ahead of the Brexit Secretary Mr David Davis. He’s also a father of six and back in July admitted that he’d never changed…