With just a possibility that we might soon be seeing a Conservative leadership contest the former Health Secretary and the one who made the final two last time, Jeremy Hunt, is now the clear favourite. Last time he was in the runoff with the membership and did a fair bit better than most people expected. Under the Tory rules contenders go through a series of ballots with MPs to decide which two names should go forward to the membership. He…
With the drip-feed of Conservative MP’s coming out against Johnson carrying on as party leader and PM, the BoJo exit date betting has taken a turn. 2022 is now favourite for his departure from Number 10. There’s increasingly a view that Johnson will have to face a confidence ballot at some stage – something that’s triggered when 15% of CON MPs or more write calling for such a vote. Even if this doesn’t happen immediately what could act as the…
Every month as we all know the Conservativehome website carries out a survey of its party member readers to find out their views including the regular cabinet satisfaction ratings. The latest survey is featured above and as can be seen the PM and current occupant of Number 10, Boris Johnson, is rated with a net satisfaction level of minus -15%. By a long-distance these are the worst numbers for anybody on the list. Remember that those who took part in…
Two public servants: both in the autumn of their careers; both “Sirs“; both in the legislature; both facing important decisions. How are they approaching this and how are they being treated? The first is Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, between 2011 and 2017. His time as Met Commissioner was not, it is fair to say, an unalloyed success. During his time in office, the Met launched two high-profile investigations into sex abuse cases: Operation Yewtree and Operation Midland….
From ex-LAB MP Nick Palmer The style of the cartoon here will be nostalgic for longer-standing PBers – it comes from Marf, whose work often used to adorn PB columns. She’s flourishing and pursuing other careers, but I asked her to do one for my local CLP for old times’ sake. We’re using it to recruit new members from among “things are awful but what can one do?” people, who are really rather a large slice of the electorate these…
The first article I ever wrote for this site was about recency bias: The habit of people to focus on the last bit of information they got on a topic and overstate its importance. As with many biases, it crops up again and again and the Johnson survival market right now is a classic example. So far this month the odds on a 2022 departure for the Prime Minister have fallen after the local elections, shot up in advance of…
Before we get to that, a brief thought on the PM and his amendments to the Ministerial Code. At the heart of most scandals is a conflict of interest: putting your own personal interests ahead of those you should take into account. The PM is ultimately responsible for the Ministerial Code and its enforcement. How is that supposed to work when it is him accused of breaching it and he is under investigation? He should not be judge and jury…