Several of the papers this morning lead off on a strike by junior doctors – something that takes us into uncharted territory. Quite where this is going is hard to say and my sense is that the doctors will have a fair bit of public support the fall back on. Whatever as the Guardian points out we are getting a closer to the general election and we are only a few weeks away from the May local elections which could…
The polling that should worry the ex-President It won’t be long before WH2024 starts in earnest and the big question is whether it will be between 78 year old Trump and 81 year old Biden. These are the ages the two men will be on election day They are both strong betting favourites to be their party’s nominees though I have serious doubts about them and the above polling is hardly going to help Trump who is facing criminal charges…
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives Douglas Ross has been wrapped on the knuckles by the party’s London bosses for suggesting that voters north of the border should tactically vote Labour in certain seats in order to keep the SNP out. He’s been forced to withdraw comments following the intervention of the national party. Ross is right here and the Sunak leadership is wrong and have shown that they simply don’t understand Scottish politics. For ever since the huge rise…
As a callow and innocent teenager I will alway remember April the 9th 1992 with a lot of fondness for it was the first general election I followed with a keen interest and actually stayed up all night to see the results come in. As a normal thirteen year old at the time I was very interested in politics, the (in)famous Sheffield rally took place in my home city, so you couldn’t avoid politics during the campaign if you lived…
Could Sunak’s net ratings soon outperform Starmer’s ratings? I feel like the ancient mariner reminding PBers of two things in particular, firstly that Jeremy Corbyn’s legacy to Sir Keir Starmer is that Starmer would need to make 124 net gains to win a majority of 2 and secondly leader net ratings are often a better predictor of electoral outcomes than standard voting intention polls. Recent events in Scotland has the potential to make Starmer’s task easier but this recent finding…
The GE2019 CON “don’t knows” are moving back I always like looking at voting polls in a group and the above table from Wikipedia shows what’s happened over the last few weeks or so. Gone are the days when the Tories were 25 or 30% behind and we see almost the majority of current surveys with leads in the teens rather than 20s. Looking at the fine detail the change is not driven by fewer 2019 CON voters saying they’re…
Division Two Derbyshire Derbyshire did much better than most predicted last year, which was good to see. They may have lost Shan Masood, their leading run scorer in cricket last season, but they have retained Mickey Arthur and brought in an interesting young batsman from his other side (Pakistan) in Haider Ali, who averages 70 in first class cricket, to replace Masood. With Leus du Plooy replacing Godleman as captain the latter will hopefully find a few runs again and…
I am only just catching up with this which in my view is deeply unpleasant and I would suggest politically naive. If Starmer’s party thinks it can win elections with this sort of nastiness then fine. I think it is a mistake and as PBers should know I should be a key target for LAB being a tactical voter in the tightest marginal in the UK – Bedford . I can only assume that whoever is responsible for signing off…