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Would she be Starmer’s worst nightmare? One of the interesting moves in the CON leadership contest is a statement of support from Michael Gove for Johnson’s successor. She’s currently the Minister of State for Local Government and Communities and her boss used to be Michael Gove who has had a big impact on previous Tory leadership races. A quick search on YouTube finds her coming over as a very effective speaker. This is how James Forsyth in the Speccie rates…

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Today is a big day in the contest to choose the next CON leader and of course next prime minister. The 1922 committee of Conservative backbench MPs will be meeting later to decide and then announce the various rules of the contest. From reports that we have the idea is to concentrate the first part of the process as much as possible so that it is fully complete before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess next week….

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It may seem churlish to speak about Sir Keir Starmer’s (un)electability given we’ve seen four polls this week with Labour at least 11% ahead but there’s always been a nagging feeling that Starmer’s position was distorted by Boris Johnson’s multiple inadequacies. That first tweet is quite damning for Starmer, his popularity is based on Boris Johnson’s palpable inadequacies, so leading Boris Johnson in leadership ratings is a bit like winning an award for being the tallest dwarf. So if the…

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If I were to succeed Boris Johnson as Prime Minister the first thing I would do is scrub Downing Street with the strongest industrial bleach in the world to get rid of the stain and stench of Boris Johnson, to make sure his assault and corrosive behaviour on the ethics and probity of government had been removed. The ignobility and infamy of appointing Chris Pincher as Deputy Chief Whip despite knowing about allegations about his behaviour might be topped by…

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As can be seen from the Wikipedia table there has been a marked move to LAB with the four most recent surveys having the party with double-digit leads. This has been partly driven by a Tory decline and partly by LAB edging up. The LAB/LD/GRN aggregate is now mostly at 60%+ – an important figure to bear in mind given the level of tactical voting that there has been in recent by-elections. This could all change quickly once Johnson is…

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The chart based on trades on the Betfair exchange says it all. The big movement on the next CON leader market has been to the former hot favourite and ex-Chancellor, Rishi Sunak who today launched what looks like a highly professional campaign to succeed Johnson. The numbers here are very similar to the next PM market where Starmer has dropped almost completely out of it following the now near certainty that the next PM will be whoever the Tories choose….

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I’ve noted before here how over the last three-quarters of a century Oxford graduates have totally dominated British politics when it comes to leading their parties to victory in general elections. The above table sets out the alma mater of the leaders the winning parties since 1935 and the trend is extraordinary. Only at GE1951 and GE1992 was the winner not an Oxford grad. In fact Churchill and Major did not go to university. I was sort of expecting that…

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