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Category: General Election

Next month it’ll be the 50th anniversary of GE1970 – the ONLY election in modern times when a party with a working majority lost to another with a working majority

Next month it’ll be the 50th anniversary of GE1970 – the ONLY election in modern times when a party with a working majority lost to another with a working majority

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Next month we will see the 50th anniversary of the most extraordinary general election of modern times – 1970 when Edward Heath led the Tories to victory. His party came to power with a working majority beating Harold Wilson Labour which also had a working majority. For there to be a change of government in such circumstances was actually quite unique. For at no other election in modern times has a party with a working majority taken over from another…

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New COVID19 polling finds two thirds of Brits saying that the government acted too late

New COVID19 polling finds two thirds of Brits saying that the government acted too late

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But fewer are concerned about the individual threat Whenever this is all over, and who can predict that, it is clear that the events of the past three months and the actions of ministers are set to have a big impact on domestic politics. Pollster Ipsos-MORI has been asking tracker questions and we can see from the two charts above how things have moved. The worrying one for Team Boris is the growing percentage who think that action was taken…

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Conducting elections with the great unwashed during and after a pandemic

Conducting elections with the great unwashed during and after a pandemic

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I’ve seen the future and it’s a world with mostly digital campaigning and only online voting As someone who expects Covid-19 and variants to be with us for at least the near future our lives we will have to adapt to prevent other pandemics and peaks and for election geeks like ourselves that means changes to how campaigns and voting are conducted, because the relentless optimist that I am I fear pandemics are here to stay. Campaigning – Like the…

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David Cowling examines Cobyn’s claim that LAB would have won GE2017 if it hadn’t been for PLP “coup” move the year before

David Cowling examines Cobyn’s claim that LAB would have won GE2017 if it hadn’t been for PLP “coup” move the year before

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The fact that Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour Leader despite the majority of the party’s MPs voting against him, was certainly a problem throughout his tenure. However, it seems we have a new twist to the saga: Mr Corbyn now appears to believe this was the principal reason why Labour failed to win the 2017 election – a victory that he was otherwise “absolutely confident” that Labour would have won “because it was all absolutely going our way”. What does…

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After the ice. The Lib Dems’ prospects for 2024

After the ice. The Lib Dems’ prospects for 2024

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Nemesis followed hubris so quickly for Jo Swinson, they were able to pass the relay baton in the exchange zone. No sooner had she mooted the possibility of her being the next Prime Minister than she found herself dumped out of Parliament. It is a short step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Lib Dems also went backwards in the seat count. They held 21 before the election, having won 12 in 2017 and benefited from a clump of defections. After the general…

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Starmer needs a net gain of 124 seats at the next GE to win a majority, here’s that in context

Starmer needs a net gain of 124 seats at the next GE to win a majority, here’s that in context

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As Alastair Meeks pointed out this morning Sir Keir Starmer and Labour need a net gain of 124 seats at the next election for a majority so I thought it would be interesting to see how man net gains each Leaders of the Opposition have made at each general election from 1945 onwards. Only three LOTOs have made over 100 net gains at at next election, Attlee, Blair, and Cameron, so Starmer will be joining stellar company if he achieves…

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Starmer gets his LAB victory with 56% of the votes on the first round

Starmer gets his LAB victory with 56% of the votes on the first round

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In the end it was all a bit down beat. The Labour Party announced at 10:45 a.m. that Starmer had become the next leader at having secured 56% of the votes in the first round thus easily beating Rebecca Long Bailey and Lisa Nandy. As expected Angela Rayner has won the deputy race But instead of making a victory speech to a packed special conference as had been planned the party issued a short video statement from Starmer he had…

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Tuesday is the 54th anniversary the last time a Labour leader other than Tony Blair won a working majority

Tuesday is the 54th anniversary the last time a Labour leader other than Tony Blair won a working majority

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As we approach the end of the Corbyn era I thought it would be look at what winning the argument actually looks like. This is not meant as an attack on Corbyn or Labour per se because winning a working majority is bloody hard. Prior to Boris Johnson’s victory last December in the last 49 years no Tory had won a working majority other than Margaret Thatcher. It shows the difficulty of Corbyn’s successor, whoever that may be, winning a…

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