What a curry on
TSE
Breaking: Starmer’s leadership?
Yesterday I speculated that Starmer would quit if he received a fixed penalty notice, I based this on the unmatched high levels of personal integrity that lawyers have, coupled with his high sense of ethics that DPPs need, and the fact of the criticisms Starmer has rightly launched at Boris Johnson for his repeated lockdown breaches. Starmer is tune with the public as this YouGov poll shows, although Beergate appears not to have damaged Starmer’s rating at YouGov. The cynic…
The great grad/non-grad voting indicator
One of the best charts to explain this year’s local elections was the above one produced by Sky News during its coverage. It basically shows changes in vote share based on areas that have more or fewer graduates in the electorate than the population as a whole. As can be seen, the Tories performed worst in areas where there were 35% or more graduates and did significantly worse in those areas which had 15% or less. One of the things…
The 2022 English local elections – the final scorecard
Above from BBC News are the final totals from last Thursday’s local elections. As can be seen the Tories lost the most councillors but the LDs not the official opposition got the most seats. For the LDs this comes 12 years after under Nick Clegg that the party entered into the coalition arrangement with the Tories something that proved to be a major negative in the period that followed. Thursday’s outcome and their Westminster by-election victories in Chesham & Amersham…
A UK recession in 2022?
I’m not keen on this betting market from Smarkets, despite the grim news from Andrew Bailey and the Bank of England earlier on this week. The Bank of England has warned that Britain is on the brink of a recession as the country is battered by a cost of living crisis that has sent inflation surging to a 40-year high. Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s Governor, said that sharply rising energy prices will inflict “hardship” on millions of consumers as it increased…
Korma chameleon, you come and go
At the start of 2022 I never expected to be writing a thread on a betting market on Sir Keir Starmer getting a penalty notice for breaking Covid-19 regulations, quite frankly Starmer seems a bit vanilla and boring to be breaking any rules but thanks to Smarkets you can bet on this market. That Starmer finds himself in this position represents quite the existential threat for him given the way he has rightly pilloried Boris Johnson for his parties in…
The big fact about the next election
Can Johnson survive the Tory LE2022 flop?
Time to bet that there’ll be a confidence vote? What makes the aftermath of the local elections so dangerous for the prime minister is that the outcome was not predicted. The Tory losses were far in excess of what anybody thought was going to happen and it is going to take some time for this to be digested by the party. This is Johnson’s first major electoral setback and raises the question of whether he is the electoral asset the…