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In recent weeks there have been a number of reports that the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, will be made a peer in Johnson’s resignation honours. This would mean that the first electoral test for the Truss administration could be a by-election defence in Mid Bedfordshire where Nadine had a huge majority last time. But based on what the LDs did in Shropshire North and Tiverton and Honiton this could just be possible for them even though they would start in…

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I can see why Smarkets have put this market up, I can see why people might want to back either side. On the Yes side I can see a by election being triggered by Boris Johnson wanting to earn millions outside the glare of parliament and the register of members’ financial interests, wanting an elegant way of doing a chicken run to a safer seat, or scandal. I said at the time if Boris Johnson hadn’t already announced his resignation…

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It would appear to deal with the looming energy price increases Liz Truss will cut taxes for companies rather than directly help voters. If she does that then I confidently predict at the general election only Radiohead will have a worse record than Liz Truss and her government. Those YouGov findings show how badly the voters are expecting things to get, the gold standard ONS found ‘that close to half (44%) of UK adults who pay energy bills found it…

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Even on the final MP ballot she only got 31.6% One of the problems about the Conservative party’s system for electing a leader is that it is entirely possible for the person who is chosen not to be the choice of MPs – something that looks set to happen in the current contest. It used to be the case before the rules were changed during William Hague’s leadership that it was the MPs who made the decision and the MPs…

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Generally, leaders of the opposition have a good month in August because the government is not able to dominate the news agenda as much and they can often get a look in. Not so this August because the big political story is the Tory leadership contest to choose the next PM. September is not looking good for the Labour leader either because the result of the Tory election is due on September 7th and the day will be dominated by…

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Does Truss agree? There is little doubt that a big reason why the Tories did so well at the last election was because of Boris Johnson’s strategy in relation to what became known as the red wall seats. In Sunak’s speech which the New Statesman has published it appears that the former Tory Chancellor and leadership contender is completely abandoning that approach. One of the problems he has is that the poicy was always going to be difficult to sell…

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We do know that the mailing of ballot packs has been put back a bit and it would be useful to know when voting actually starts. So if you are a CON member can you let PBers know? It would be great as well if someone could post a picture of the blank ballot form.

Following Intelligence from GCHQ that the ballots of Tory members could be altered through online interference there’s been a delay in postal ballots being issued. Given that everything was focused on party members getting their ballot packs at the start of this week I wonder whether the delay could have an impact. On the face of it has given more time for Sunak to overhaul the apparent big lead the Truss has built up. What has been remarkable in the…

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