As most people will know I am a Lib Dem and that I live very close to the mid Bedfordshire constituency where there will be a by-election. What is intriguing about the current contest is that you can make out a case for Labour, the Tory or the Lib Dems to come out on top. I cannot recall a by-election in modern times which was effectively a three horse race. Given the proximity of the General Election then all the…
Wikipedia notes: The former MP, Chris Pincher, a former Deputy Chief Whip, was involved in a controversy following allegations of sexual misconduct. Pincher resigned as Deputy Chief Whip on 30 June 2022, and he was suspended as a Conservative MP after allegations arose that he sexually assaulted two men. Further allegations were made in July, which pre-dated his appointment by Boris Johnson, and Johnson originally denied that he knew of the complaints. It was later revealed Johnson had been aware, and many…
Above is the latest Scottish poll from R&W and as can be seen the SNP are now running neck and neck with LAB. Given the proximity of the general election, this could be highly significant especially as Scotland could provide a major source of LAB gains in its effort to form the next government. To put this into context currently just one of the constituencies north of the border was held by Labour at GE2015 In the aftermath of the…
Probably the biggest Westminster by-election shock of recent times was the failure by LAB to take Boris Johnson’s old seat at Uxbridge in the July contest. What we saw there was a foretaste of how the Tories will play the general election. They’ll have different versions of a local issue like ULEZ each day over the five weeks. My main conclusion is that marginal seat by marginal seat the Tories are going to be harder to beat than current polling…
One of the biggest challenges about forecasting the next election is the very high proportion of 2019 Conservative voters who are now saying don’t know. What’s important about this group is that they are not saying they will not vote in the next election but only a relatively small proportion of them have actually switched to Labour. If the polls do get it wrong next time then it will be the Tory don’t knows who are responsible. Mike Smithson
This morning sees what are probably the worst front pages for the Tories for a month or so. At the same time the latest R&W poll has just about the biggest “best PM” lead for Starmer that we have seen. The Tories start to look like a party that is tired of being in power and is preparing for opposition. The big question that will increasingly dominate the political conversation is when the general election will be? My view has…
We are starting to hear calls for the Labour and Lib Dem parties to agree on a single Anti -Tory candidate for the mid-Beds by-election. This, of course, has been created by the resignation of Nadine Dorries On the face of it this seems a logical suggestion but it is hard to see Labour and the LDs agreeing on a deal. Starmer’s party would argue that it came second in the seat at the general election and would therefore stand…