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Category: Guest slot

This is not about Trump (except of course it is)

This is not about Trump (except of course it is)

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A guest slot by Richard Tyndall Trump’s second to last tweet before he was banned permanently from Twitter began with the sentence: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future.” “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future.” Ignoring for a moment the fact that Trump…

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Defence review

Defence review

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The Integrated Review: Fighting the Last War But One Rather than actually deliver the 2020 Strategic Defense and Security Review the government took the innovative view that the nation’s strategic goals and security needs could be better met by delaying it a year and giving it the pithy title of The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Foreign Policy and Development. The review has now been scheduled, with a high degree of precision, to be delivered in ‘early 2021’. Part of…

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Lesson from the Veepstakes

Lesson from the Veepstakes

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A guest slot from Pip Moss on what they’ve learned from betting on Joe Biden’s running mate With Biden’s search for a running mate being the focus of endless media speculation for several months now, it is tempting to be grateful it is over and move on. But before we do I am spending a moment coming up with my strategy for the 2024 Veepstakes, and I think you should too. Four years is a long time, and while it…

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Polling Analysis: Amongst likely voters Opinium has Starmer with 4% lead over Johnson as best PM

Polling Analysis: Amongst likely voters Opinium has Starmer with 4% lead over Johnson as best PM

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A guest slot from Wulfrun Phil on latest Opinium poll Published responses to supplementary polling questions are not routinely filtered to limit responses only to those likely to vote in a General Election. That can distort interpretations of “Best PM” polling, because only the responses from those who will vote are ultimately relevant.  Helpfully, Opinium provide so much rich detail in their data tables here that we can apply the filtering ourselves. In their latest poll, the full unfiltered sample…

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Paying the way

Paying the way

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Christo (who died earlier this month) and Jeanne-Claude were two of our age’s most haunting artists.  Their life’s work – because we can fairly see it as a single piece – entailed the planning, project management and execution of the wrapping of ever more unlikely items.  Balloons, trees, islands, the Pont Neuf, the Reichstag and the gates of Central Park were all subject to a series of superficially short-lived installations.  As one critic said of their work, “to seek ‘the…

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Why Dominic Cummings Should resign (from a fan)

Why Dominic Cummings Should resign (from a fan)

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A guest slot from Richard Tyndall First a declaration of my view of Dominic Cummings.  I am a huge fan both of the man himself, of what he has tried to achieve over many years, and of his successes as a political advisor and brains behind the Leave campaign. So it should be clear that my views on the Durham-gate affair are not based on personal antipathy towards him. In an ideal world I would want nothing more than for…

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28 Weeks Later: The Coronavirus Aftermath for the NHS and its Political Implications

28 Weeks Later: The Coronavirus Aftermath for the NHS and its Political Implications

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“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”  The NHS has come through the first phase substantially intact, but with considerable losses, and a mixed performance at best, as ably outlined by Cyclefree in a previous header. Moving to the next phase is a challenge across all the domains of economics and society, but my thoughts turn to the next phase for the NHS….

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Can anyone stop Sanders – looking at the contenders one by one?

Can anyone stop Sanders – looking at the contenders one by one?

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Bernie Sanders is rightly the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. RIght now he leads in national polling, delegates, popular votes cast and has gone 3 out of 3 (Including a blowout delegate win in broadly representative Nevada) for states that have thus far cast their votes. Who can challenge him though ? Examining the candidates officially still in the race and those with odds of less than 1000.0 on Betfair. So in broad order of plausibility… Tom Steyer – He…

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