Tim Montgomerie is right about this Sunak Tweet
Have the continuing LAB leads impacted on Sunak’s judgment? When you get the CONHome founder, Tim Montgomerie, raising concerns about a Tory PM’s Tweet then Number 10 should take this seriously. This is unbecoming for a PM. I can only conclude that Sunak’s consistent failure to turn the polls around has started to get to him. His Tweet above was a disgrace and he should delete it and apoligise. Mike Smithson
The polling that should worry LAB majority punters
The above breakdown from the latest Opinium poll looks at what those who voted CON at GE2019 are now saying. As can be seen the Tories are holding onto just 39% of their general election vote with the next biggest segment being “Won’t vote/Don’t Know”. This is quite different from those polling breakdowns that just focus on those who have a current voting intention. My judgment is that this is nothing like the big endorsement for LAB that Starmer’s party…
Speculation is starting to mount on the election date
Could Sunak get a better result going early? The last possible time for the general election to be held is mid-January 2025 but few pundits believe Sunak will wait that long. The consensus at the moment is that he’ll wait until next year’s party conference and call the election for late October or early November. The one thing the PM has is that this is a decision for him and him alone. History suggests that PM’s often wait too long….
Why the best value Mayoral bets are now on the Tories
In all the discussions over next year’s London Mayoral election hardly anybody is noting that things are very different because of changes Johnson made to the mayoral voting system when he was PM. The old system effectively gave voters two choices with their second preference coming into effect if their first choice did not make the top two on the first count. Now thanks to the Johnson changes all mayoral and similar elections will be decided by first past the…
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of political parties
What should worry supporters of Rishi Sunak is that since the low point of the Truss leadership experiment the net ratings on 9 out 10 these brand metrics have become worse under Sunak’s leadership. It would be easy to blame Sunak for these ratings but I think it is a cumulative effect of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Brexit, and the wider cost of living crisis destroying the Tory brand. Changing leader before the next general election is likely to be…
Could Jeremy Corbyn hand the Tories the London mayoralty next year?
In current circumstances the Tories winning the London mayoralty next year seems as likely as Boris Johnson telling the truth however Jeremy Corbyn might just make the former possible if he stands in next year’s London mayoral election. Normally I would think a Trump supporting, Liz Truss backing candidate would do very badly in London but the Tories shamefully changed the London mayoral voting system from supplementary vote system to first past the post from 2024 onwards, so it is…
Losing your deposit no longer the negative it was
It used to be that losing your deposit in a parliamentary by-election was seen as a bad sign for the future of party. To save it a candidate needs to secure 5% or more of the overall vote. In Thursday’s by-elections the LDs lost their deposits in two of the seats but in the one that mattered they won with 29% swing over the Tories. They came out of Thursday looking strong. Meanwhile, Labour lost its deposit in Somerton but…