The polls don’t look good for Johnson

The polls don’t look good for Johnson

Above is the latest polling on Johnson and this is in line with other earlier surveys that we have seen. By a very clear margin voters, including 38% of Tory voters want him out. On Wednesday there are likely to be further developments and, of course, Johnson will have to face Starmer at PMQs. These are couple of betting markets from Smarkets.

Might Southend West not be a total certainty for the Tories?

Might Southend West not be a total certainty for the Tories?

The next Westminster by-election is for the vacancy created by the murder on October 15th of the sitting MP, Devid AMess. Following the precedent set after the killing of Jo Cox in 2016 Labour, the LDs and the Greens have not put up candidates so on the face of it this should be a certain CON hold. But given the collapse of the Tories in the polls in recent weeks and the party’s poor record defending by-elections could there just…

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Current revelations put the Barnard Castle trip into context

Current revelations put the Barnard Castle trip into context

We all remember at the height of the first lockdown how the Cummings road trip on April 2020 so dominated the media when this was exposed a few weeks later and led to a big drop for the Tories in both the voting intention polls and Johnson’s leader ratings. If anything could have set out clearly to all at Number10 the impact of lockdown breaches this was it. The public anger as picked as recorded in the polls at the…

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New revelations lead to Johnson 2022 exit a 77% betting chance

New revelations lead to Johnson 2022 exit a 77% betting chance

This gets worse and worse for Number 10 The overall issue remains. If 54 Tory MPs do send letters in demanding a confidence vote the majority of party MPs taking part in that ballot have to vote for him to go for that to happen. A possible situation that could be tricky is if Johnson survived this by just a small margin and he sought, as seems likely, to try to carry on. He’d be even more damaged and a…

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The 10 Stages of a Crisis

The 10 Stages of a Crisis

“When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions.” It’s hard these days keeping track of all the Tories’ various scandals. Outside business interests. Wallpaper. Doing favours for donors. Free foreign holidays. Parties. Disrespecting the Queen. Blackmailing MPs. Misusing public money. Sacking Muslim Ministers. Prioritising pets over people. So here is your handy Cut Out and Keep Guide to the various stages of how a small problem turns into a big crisis. For those in or supporting other…

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Why Mr Bond…we’re not expecting you…

Why Mr Bond…we’re not expecting you…

Good evening, Mr Bond. I know you like a flutter, and that’s why I designed my latest scheme just for you. It began with a betting market. So simple, yet so temping. Who will be the next actor to play 007? The entertainment press loves discussing it, generating an endless supply of speculation and punters my way. Better yet, the options are endless. Maybe it will be a woman this time, as recent films have hinted? Or the first black…

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ANALYSING LABOUR-LIB DEM TACTICAL VOTING SINCE 1983

ANALYSING LABOUR-LIB DEM TACTICAL VOTING SINCE 1983

Following the stunning success for the Liberal Democrats at the North Shropshire by-election, former YouGov head, Peter Kellner, wrote in the Guardian: Byelection campaigns develop their own momentum: tactical voting in general elections is never as great. But back in 1997, when Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown led their respective parties, tactical shifts of just a few percentage points cost the Conservatives about 30 seats they would otherwise have held. Nothing like that happened in 2019. Lib Dems could not…

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Defection watch

Defection watch

Following Christian Wakeford’s stunning act of tergiversation Smarkets have a market up on whether we’ll see more Tory defections by the end of the next month, based on the story below you can understand why. My normal instinct in theis type of market is to back No. A little over three months ago it was said that three Labour MPs were ready to defect to the Tory Party, I wrote at the time ‘Defections usually aren’t normally leaked until the…

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