Today will be Johnson’s last PMQs as PM
Was it PMQs that helped bring him down? No doubt over the next year or so we are going to see a series of academic and other studies on the downfall of Johnson who, of course, at GE2019 had the best Tory general election outcome since the Thatcher era. Arguably PMQs had its part to play his exit and it was some of his PMQ responses on “partygate” which potentially were troublesome for him. His flat assertions about the lockdown…
The Tory leadership: How final three are viewed
This is not good for Truss At the moment most of the polling focus on the Conservative leadership contest has been about views of first MPs and then the Tory Party membership. The latter of course will decide between the two agreed by the parliamentary party and we should get that tomorrow afternoon. The above polling issued this evening by Opinium looks at how each of the three remaining contenders are viewed on several measures. The person who comes out…
Liz Truss now odds-on favourite in the CON leadership betting
This follows the latest round of voting which saw: Mike Smithson
The next CON poll lead in September looks a good bet
As the Wikipedia poll table shows there has been no recovery in the Tory polling position since Johnson decided to throw in the towel and step down as PM. But could that change as we get beyond September 6th which is when the new leader will start. The previous experience is that new leaders can get a significant polling bounce. Those of us who have been around long enough will remember what happened when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair in…
My 250/1 Sunak bet looking even more like a winner
The expectation was that Tom Tugendhat would be the one to lose out in this third round of voting and so it has been. But the one who has the biggest headache is Penny Mordaunt who has seen her vote drop even though there was one fewer candidate. She should have been putting on votes at this stage because momentum is very important. For the hot favourite and leader, Sunak, this was a great round increasing his vote by 15…
Penny now drops to third in the betting
It’s looking like a Sunak/Truss final two As MPs prepare for the third round of voting the above shows how punters are seeing the race. Penny, who only a few days ago was rated as a 58% chance in the betting has slipped sharply while Truss has made a recovery. Sunak, though, continues to dominate. I still think that at these odds the ex-Chancellor is good value. The Spectator is backing Badenoch and I just wonder if she could exceed…
Rishi and Liz looking stronger on the betting markets
And the Penny decline continues With a lot more people expected to spend the day indoors then it is likely we will see a fair amount of activity on the next CON leader betting markets. As can be seen both Sunak and Truss got tighter with Mordaunt continuing to edge down. Her position is far worse than it looked a week ago. My reading is that Sunak is value as long as you can get longer than evens. I thought…