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We need to reserve judgment We have just gone through a leadership campaign in which the two contenders have made a series of extraordinary statements about their views and policies and what they would do if they actually entered number 10. They have, of course, been trying to appeal to a very specific audience – Tory members. Those who follow the regular ConservativeHome ratings of leading party politicians will know that even before the contest Truss has generally been quite…

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I was intrigued by Rishi Sunak’s observations on the lockdowns he and Liz Truss helped introduce. My own view that the first lockdown was necessary so the government and NHS were prepared for what was coming and the lockdown from December 2020 onwards was a good idea whilst the world beating vaccine rollout was taking place so I’m not astonished with the 62% of the public saying the lockdowns were worth it. My expectation is that any politician criticising the…

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One of the reasons why findings from Ipsos are so well regarded is that their polling series goes back nearly fifty years so we can help contextualise current polling. I am fan of the Issues Index simply because it is asks for unprompted responses from the public, given the way some on the right frottage themselves over wokeism you would expect wokeism to feature pretty high on that list from Ipsos but no. If the Tories focus heavily on wokeism…

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The YouGov polling for tomorrow’s Sunday Times highlights what I believe will be an increasing challenge for the new government when Truss takes over. The NHS has been so central to British politics since it was founded just after the war and in election after election has been amongst the top couple of issues in determining how people vote. For a whole series of reasons the service appears to be struggling at the moment and this is represented in the…

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What a situation for BoJo’s successor? One of the problems about the timing of the leadership contest is that less attention is being paid to the coming disaster that will be created by the sharp rise in energy prices. Some of the headlines this morning are pretty bad and as far as I can see they don’t overestimate the situation. This is a serious crisis and is impacting on not just the UK. If it is Liz Truss who takes…

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The timing of the next general election is not something that we have looked at very much on PB and the general assumption is that it will be 2024. I just wonder whether Liz Trust, assuming that it is her, might be tempted to go early if by any chance she gets a polling boost when the result comes out the week after next. The only problem here is the memory within the Conservative party about what happened with Theresa…

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If the YouGov polling of CON members is right then the party is about to choose as leader someone who is not the first choice of Tory MPs. It will be recalled that in July Liz Truss came third in the first, second, third, and fourth rounds of MP voting. Even in the final MP round to choose the two names to go to the membership she got just 31.8% of the Tory MPs voting for her. This was just…

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The above confrontation between the HealthSec and a member of the public is getting a fair bit of coverage and the issue is not going to go away. Quite why this is happening now is hard to say but too many reports are emerging. This should be near to the top of th Truss things to do list when she moves into Number 10. Mike Smithson