Thanks to Cyclefree most PBers are well aware of the industrial scale miscarriage of justice involving the Post Office and the prosecution of the subpostmasters and subpostmistresses, with the ITV series on the Post Office scandal airing this past week the scandal is entering the wider public consciousness as a few of us predicted. This has led to difficulties for Sir Ed Davey who was Post Office Minister and dealt with some of the victims who were unimpressed with his…
This is part of a series about measuring political concepts. This one is about classification of parties. Introduction In May 2022, SNP MP Mhairi Black said that the Government was “sleepwalking closer to fascism”. This engendered discussion about whether she was right, and that conversation fell into distinct grooves. Events since then have kept this discussion fresh, with various bodies being characterized as fascist or not, reaching its zenith or nadir in the recent essay by former PB contributor @SeanT…
Hardly a week goes by at the moment without news of more CON MPs announcing that they don’t plan to defend their seats at the general election. Given the polls this is hardly surprising and I guess that we will see many more Tory MPs not wanting to defend their seats. Some might quit before the election thus causing by-elections. Others will just announce that they are not standing. Being a Tory MP fighting to defend your seat in the…
Just a quick reminder that entries for PB Predictions Competition 2024 must be posted by 23:59 on Saturday 6th January at the latest. Most of you will know that TSE has generously offered a prize of £100 in Amazon vouchers to the winner at the end of the year, in addition to which someone will win the kudos of being the Supreme PB Prediction Guru of 2024! We have had had a great response so far, with 65 entries at the…
Coupled with the by-election in Wellingborough this by-election in Kingswood could be the events which could hasten the end of Sunak. At the time plenty of people did say the Tories took all the wrong lessons from the Uxbridge & South Ruislip result. The other day I observed that Starmer is a lucky general, Sunak is the antithesis of that. I’m expecting a Labour gain here. TSE
I love studying history and past polls is a particular area that brings unbridled joy is when we are looking for evidence of swingback. Based on precedent Labour’s lead at the general election could be as low as 4% which make those people betting on no overall majority rather happy. My two key takeaways is that Starmer isn’t doing as well as Cameron & Blair, the only two people in the last forty four years to make the transition from…
I think that Labour has to look again at its messaging here on the election date. The system that was in place for all the Labour majority governments has been that it has been left to the prime minister to decide when general elections are held. Inevitably Sunak is going to hang on until he sees the polls give some indication that things might not be as bad as they appear at the moment. My guess is that he’ll wait…
Last week I advised Sunak to rule out a May election as soon as possible lest he falls into Labour’s trap and be labelled a bottler, as we can see from the above tweets he has just done that. Also he has ruled out a January 2025 election as only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would hold an election that straddled Christmas and the New Year period. The question is when in H2 of 2024…