and why Mark Drakeford might end up being the favourite to succeed Sir Keir Starmer Like Pip Moss, I’ve been laying Andy Burnham as next Labour leader for a while, I don’t think he’s as good as he thinks he is, which is a rarity for for an alumnus of the University of Cambridge. Looking at this YouGov poll from 2014 his accent might be a hindrance. If he is hoping his job might change his accent, the Mancunian accent…
Sir Keir Starmer might be a symptom not a cause of a long term Labour malaise. Sir Keir Starmer attracts a lot of criticism for his failure to perform better against Boris Johnson, looking at the polling figures (both voting intention and leadership metrics) it appears at the next general election Sir Keir is set play the role of Khalid bin Barghash to Boris Johnson’s Harry Rawson. I have a bit of sympathy for Starmer, one because of the toxic…
It is often said that Labour has no route to Downing Street without retrieving its former solid bloc of seats north of the border. Or winning back those “Red Wall” seats in the north-west and north-east of England. What is less often remarked upon is that it will not be enough – unless it can also do something about the Midlands. The part of the country which was until recently packed with marginals is fast moving them into safe Conservative…
There’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before the next general election. The future of Scotland and potential boundary changes are just two issues that would change the dynamics. Nevertheless, this piece assesses the potential for opposition parties and their voters working together to deny the Conservatives a majority at the next election. The data behind the analysis can be found here. Tactical voting is an established part of our first past the post electoral system. For the most part it is done by those…
Should this go down as a LAB miss? Overnight we have had the result of the Airdrie and Shotts by-election which was held following the resignation of the former SNP MP to run for the same seat at last week’s election for the Scottish parliament. The general assumption was that this was always going to be an SNP hold and it has attracted little attention. The big interest comes in the actual result in the Wikipedia table above. As can be…
A reminder of the atrocious legacy Corbyn bequeathed Starmer & Labour Today is Sir Keir Starmer’s first anniversary as Labour leader and I thought it would be worth remembering the position Starmer inherited. Only three Leaders of the Opposition have made over 100 net gains at at next election, Attlee, Blair, and Cameron, so Starmer will be joining stellar company if he achieves it. My own opinion is that Labour probably needs to only make around 40 net gains from…
Boris Johnson isn’t the only British politician experiencing a vaccine boost The voting intention section of the YouGov polling of Wales was quite disheartening for Labour. Regular readers of this website are aware that leader ratings and other related supplementaries are often better pointers of electoral outcomes than headline voting intention figures ergo there is a bit of hope for Labour. As we can see in the second tweet Mark Drakeford’s ratings show he is the first Welsh Prince of…