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…
The polling should add to the pressure on Number 10 The latest fortnightly Opinium poll is out and the message from those sampled is clear – they want the PM out and they want him to go straight away. The voting numbers are relatively unchanged – LAB: 36% (-1) CON: 33% (-1) LDM: 11% (-1) GRN: 8% (+1) SNP: 4% (=). The firm’s approval ratings have Johnson net MINUS 29% Starmer net MINUS 6% So the LAB leader is 23…
Even Johnson would lose his seat With all the focus at Westminster being on whether Johnson will face a confidence vote amongst CON MPs there’s gloomy news for him this morning from YouGov which has its latest MRP survey out. This shows the party losing 85 out of 88 key marginals. This is how YouGov’s Patrick ‘English describes it: The Conservative party faces the prospect of largescale losses in Con-Lab battlegrounds up and down England and Wales, according to YouGov’s…
This is effectively a change in the way the UK governs itself and it is being made without reference to Parliament. The big question is whether the move to give much more power and make the PM less accountable is going to go down well with Tory MPs. Clearly, Number 10 has made the judgment that it can. This comes at a time where there is talk of a confidence move on him amongst Tory MPs. Whether there will be…
I have just been rethinking my betting on the June 23rd by-elections because there must be a possibility now that Johnson isn’t going to survive. Without him at the helm then the whole Tory proposition will be different and we cannot rule out a boost for the party in the polls. Those of us old enough to remember the end of Tony Blair as Labour leader in 2007 will recall how the party’s position was transformed for a few months…
The most dangerous period for Johnson was never going to be the publication of Sue Gray’s report but the polling reaction to it and this evening we have the first survey carried out fully since the document came out. As will be recalled previous R&K poll carried out on Monday had the Tories 6% behind. Four days later the same pollster has the LAB lead at 9%. The big question is whether other pollsters who will be reporting in the…
Only days ago it was being described as “UnConservative” With the price of energy soaring at an incredible rate the government have at last given into pressure and is introducing a windfall tax on the companies that are seeing their profits soar by the change. The PM has been particularly stringent in his opposition to such a move describing it as UnConsrrvative up to only a few days ago. Yet today, in the aftermath of the Gray “partygate” report we…
One of the things that I think is important when looking at polling is to dig deeper and observe the trend. We all know that statistically individual polls do have a chance every so often of being out and this is why I really appreciate tables like the ones above from YouGov. Looking at the trends in tables like the above is more revealing. Of all the leadership questions the one I like the most is favourability and a few…