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TheTimes is reporting that the Tories could be facing three by-election defences as a result of Johnson’s resignation honours in which he is nominating the current incumbents in the seats above for the House of Lords. We had known about Dorries and Mid-Bedfordshire for some time. The former PM had been hoping that the elevations to the Lords should take place just before the end of this parliament to avoid by-elections but that is not going to be possible. As…

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They are talking about Iowa again Next year’s White Race will be the sixth such contest since PB was established in March 2004 and, indeed, it was the prevailing narrative that caused me to launch the site. Then Howard Dean was seen as a sure-fire favourite for the Dem nomination which I thought was rubbish and I had made a name for myself on the Betfair forums by setting out this view. At the weekend we heard a reference to…

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Is he really an electoral asset? This weekend we have seen a new Conservative organization hold its first meeting in Bournemouth and it is widely believed that the aim of it is to get Boris back at number 10. Yesterday on Twitter I found myself having a long argument with some pro-Johnson supporters about the electability of the man they are backing and I was rather amazed by their persistence. The real problem they’ve got is that Johnson looks like…

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Now that the legal stand-off between Ms Cherry and The Stand has been resolved with the latter accepting that it had unlawfully discriminated and reinstating the event, it is worth considering what this issue tells us about attitudes to free speech and Equality Act rights. First – and very importantly – it goes without saying that if a venue discriminates against someone with views wholly opposed to Ms Cherry’s (a transgender writer, say) on the basis that some staff disapproved…

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What I know about Turkish politics is only matched by what Boris Johnson knows about honesty or fidelity to his wives but this intervention from Elon Musk’s Twitter is effectively helping the President of Turkey censor his opponents, the day before the Turkish general election. Democrats around the world should be outraged and worried about this intervention from the so called free speech champion Elon Musk, if this can happen in Turkey then it can happen anywhere and impact general…

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What happens if there’s no improvement in the polls for the Tories or the polls gets worse for the Tories? The reality is Rishi Sunak isn’t very good, he lost to Liz Truss, who lost to a lettuce, only her implosion led to Sunak become Prime Minister, he only looks good because his two immediate predecessors were so bad there isn’t an adjective in the English language to accurately describe them. Alastair Meeks makes this observation (before last night’s Opinium)…

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