Ben Walker in the New Statesman has a piece on a subject we are going to hear a lot about in the coming months – when will Sunak decide to call a general election? Since the law changes brought in by Johnson the decision on the date is now one for the PM and the PM alone so history can blame the incumbent who made the decision if he gets it wrong. This is the core of Walker’s analysis: If…
All we seem to hear from the PM are the efforts to curb immigration. Based on the news coverage it appears as though this is by a big margin the government’s top priority. Yet is Sunak’s approach in keeping with the public mood? Earlier in the year YouGov carried out a mega poll (see chart above)l with a sample of 36k to establish what voters saw as the big issues. As can be seen for all segments including the red…
I suppose that it should not come as too much of a surprise to look at the Opinium poll table above with the party split on views of climate change – an issue that has been in the news following the Tory by-election campaign in Uxbridge. As it will be recalled the Tories managed to hold onto the seat by running a highly focused campaign raising concerns about ULEZ whereby drivers of older cars face a financial penalty in parts…
This looks very damning for Team Trump Increasingly the big issue dominating the WH2024 race is what happened nearly three years ago. These comments from former VP Pence are going to make it much harder for Trump. This is a very brave move by Pence because he’ll surely get attacked for making it. But those who have been fearful about the future of democracy should be supportive. In January 2021 Pence made a big step that probably saved democracy in…
The veteran Labour MP Chris Bryant thinks he has found a way that could force Dorries to do what she announced on June 9th when she said she was resigning with immediate effect. He is calling for the restoration of an obscure parliamentary rule from 1801 stating that “no member do presume to go out of town without leave of this House”. Nadine of course announced her resignation in the expectation that she would be elevated to the House of…
Could we see another GE1992? The Tory hold of Hillingdon in the by-election is a reminder that the party of Sunak is not dead and has still got the ability to pull off surprises. We all know the scale of the LAB leads the polls have been showing and I just wonder whether we might wake up like we did on that Friday in March 1992 and discovered that the Tories are still in power with a majority albeit a…
The chart shows the changes in the WH2024 betting and as can be seen the money has been going on Trump following the latest developments with his various criminal cases. It is certainly at this stage difficult to see anything other than the WH2020 nominees being the same for next year. My one big caveat is that all can change very rapidly when the primaries start. At the moment the polling is really all about name recognition and it is…
How the Scotland-only polls have been moving On the Smarkets exchange punters have a SLAB gain as an 87% chance. It is hard to disagree. SLAB is my shorthand for Scottish Labour. Mike Smithson