Le Pen might not even get on the first round ballot The big 2022 election in Europe is the French one which takes place on two Sundays in April two weeks apart. This two-stage process means that any number of contenders can seek to put themselves forward in the first stage and it is the top two in votes that take part in the final runoff two weeks later. The first hurdle that contenders have to surmount is getting 500…
He’s got to hope this doesn’t lead to more cases The above YouGov polling highlights a gamble that Boris Johnson is taking with the relaxation of the COVID rules in England. What is interesting is that north of the border Nicola Sturgeon is continuing to keep her rules in place and this offers a possible comparison. It has always been known that Johnson’s whole personality is very much against controls of this nature. Also he’s trying to crawl back in…
This comment was posted by Cicero on the previous thread and given a good account of the mood in the baltic states which I reproduce here in full. A must read to understand what’s going on “ “I attended a business conference at a hotel in Tallinn last night, and afterwards we were having a coffee in the hotel lobby when the Putin speech came on CNN. The Estonians and Georgians in our party were very grim faced indeed. This…
Are restrictions being eased too early? Just as the Johnson government was sharply criticised for the delay in bringing in restrictions two years ago I wonder whether the latest move will similarly be seen as a mistake. In many ways Johnson’s desire to return to “normality” is commendable but but he is taking a gamble. It will be interesting to see whether the public will view it positively. Also while we wait for the Met report on Johnson this might…
The above is from the Opinium day of the General Election survey that it carried out in December 2019 and a particular area of Interest is why the LAB vote slumped so dramatically. It will be recalled that what was then Corbyn’s party saw its vote share drop from 40% at the previous General Election to 33%. The above findings focus on LAB defectors and as can be seen it was Corbyn’s leadership of the party that was the biggest…
As has been widely speculated whatever the Metropolitan Police decide to do about Johnson then it will be bad for the Prime Minister. If he gets a penalty ticket that raises into questions about some of the denials that we had when reports of what went on at Number 10 during lockdown started to seep out. If he doesn’t get a penalty ticket then it is the “One law for them and one on for us” narrative once again. In…
Last October, those heady days, when Boris Johnson and the Conservatives were seemingly unassailable and people were wondering if Labour would ever lead in the polls under Starmer, I wrote a piece that the economy might be the issue that makes the next general election more favourable for Labour so this polling from YouGov is something I am intrigued by. What must really alarm Conservative strategist is that a majority of Conservative voters think the government is handling inflation badly….
One of the many good things Smarkets have done is regularly have a market up on opinion poll leads. With eight days left in February I can just about understand these odds but my inclination is to back a Conservative lead this month. If they follow their usual schedule I’d expect a YouGov poll later on this week and Opinium poll on Saturday, by happenstance they are the pollsters with the smallest Labour leads with leads of 4% and 3%…