A Lost Decade

A Lost Decade

Scandals and misconduct do not come out of nowhere. When people misbehave there is usually a clue, often more than one, usually ignored (even if carefully collected and correctly filed) or hand-waved away as unimportant (see the Angiolini Report on Wayne Couzens, for instance). The same applies to scandals involving organisations and actions (or a lack of action) by many people. There were warnings; there were whistleblowers; people were told. Coupled with this is a failure to take this information…

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A new dawn has broken has it not?

A new dawn has broken has it not?

It is astonishing to think that as we approach the tenth anniversary of when the wise Scots rejected secession and division we have the first proper* YouGov poll since before the referendum to show Labour ahead of the SNP in Westminster voting intentions. Labour used to dominate Scottish politics like a dominatrix whose client didn’t have a safe word and I still maintain the most astonishing election result this century in the UK was in 2015 when Labour went from…

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Trigger points for Sunak

Trigger points for Sunak

Last week it was announced that the Blackpool South by-election will take place on the same day as the local elections and I wonder if the by-election is what, rather than the locals, triggers a vote of confidence in Sunak. If the Tories finish behind Reform that might spread blind panic amongst Tory MPs that this is happening so close to a general election. As far as I can see only Smarkets have a betting market on the by-election but…

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Welcome to Gilead

Welcome to Gilead

For most people The Handmaid’s Tale is a book/film/tv show but for the Republican Party is seems to be an instruction manual which is why I believe Biden will win in November in part thanks to abortion. This hard hitting advert from Biden shows the cruelty of the changes to the abortion laws in America and I expect it will get even Biden sceptic Dems out voting in November when he reminds them of Trump boasting about the changes he…

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Sunak’s legacy

Sunak’s legacy

If as expected Sunak leads the Tories to a record breaking defeat, say a 1931 in reverse, he will be pilloried for that but as Professor Curtice points the real architects of the defeat are Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. As Margaret Thatcher, Sir John Major, and Theresa May can attest you really cannot mess around with the mortgages or houses of the voters, Liz Truss found out that during her brief tenure, and as for Boris Johnson only his…

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Why it’s not the economy, stupid

Why it’s not the economy, stupid

There’s a poll by YouGov for The Times which shows that even an improving economy will not help the Tories avoid an electoral armageddon which was Sunak’s hope. Voters also expect Labour to increase their taxes but for me the most striking figure from this poll was roughly the same number of people expect Labour to cut taxes than the Tories. It shows how badly the Tory brand has been contaminated that like on defence, Labour are seen better than…

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Scotland wants change

Scotland wants change

I’ve have previously noted that two of out of the three MRP polls this year shows the SNP winning a majority of Scottish Westminster seats at the next general election which seems hard to reconcile with Labour winning 400 plus seats this polling does give some potential explanations. A net negative 53% says the Tory government doesn’t deserve to be re-elected in Scotland a net negative 14% say the Scottish government doesn’t deserve to be re-elected, so there’s less intensity…

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Transhumanism

Transhumanism

INTRODUCTION On May 15 2023 Mary Harrington gave a keynote address at the London National Conservatism Conference. She expanded on her work on transhumanism, doing her audience the courtesy of believing that they could understand her thesis. The NatCon audience work more by gut than thought (with some notable exceptions) but those that did have the wit to follow her were treated to a clean delineation of one of the political issues of our time: the transhumanist axis. SUMMARY OF…

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