A few weeks ago I tipped the Tories to hold North Shropshire at 2/5. Since then, everything which could go wrong has gone wrong for them and 7/4 is available from two bookies (at time of writing on Friday night). Suffice to say I wouldn’t place my 2/5 bets now. But I am about to advise you to back the Tories at current odds. The core challenge in political betting, in my view, is separating emotion from prediction. Most obviously…
The Tweets above from the BBC’s Lewis Goodall who is filming in Shropshire reinforces the view that the Number 10 party story is really cutting through to the public and this should be worrying ministers. Most people, I’d suggest, have a clear memory of what happened to their Christmas last year and how plans to meet with loved ones had to be abandoned. This contrasts sharply with the apparent breach of last year’s strict lockdown rules by Johnson and his…
As a child arriving at Dover after a 2-day train journey from Naples, my mother and I would go through Customs and passport formalities, a channel marked “Aliens“. Those were the days when Customs officers did actually inspect luggage and supercilious passport officers looked at you and your passport details as if determined to find some reason for turning you back. All that changed of course. Foreign-born citizens are no longer called such harsh terms. Not officially, anyway. But now…
Other polls are expected in the next few days and the big thing is whether or not they support the Survation trend. Clearly, this has been a difficult period for the government which is attracting a lot of media coverage. I stand to be corrected but a 6% Labour lead is the best for the party since GE2019.
A reaction “Do as we say not do”? A week today the Tories will be defending the by-election – a seat they won with a majority of 40%+ over LAB at GE2019 when the LDs were in third place – 53% behind the Tories. That the LDs should be in contention is remarkable in itself but Ed Davey’s party decided to target it even before Owen Paterson had resigned. Initially, they put the resources in the expectation that Paterson would…
The morning after doesn’t look any better The big question now for Conservative MP’s is whether they think the party can recover if Johnson stays as leader. My view and I’m sure that is shared by many on the site is that there is a point of no return and that has been reached. Once it has been concluded that this has been a turning point for the party then surely we should expect some action to be taken. The…
Even some of Boris Johnson own MPs believe this narrative, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, Boris Johnson’s credibility amongst his own MPs will be shot. I’d love to see a betting market on the size of the Conservative rebellion next week. I predicted that Boris Johnson’s political authority would evaporate over the shameless and shameful bid to save Owen Paterson, I didn’t expect it to happen quite so soon. What must alarm Tory MPs is just how…
Allegra Stratton quits The big news this afternoon is that Allegra Stratton has quit. This follows the video of her issued last night. We can also expect a number of polls on the revelations about the Number 10 Party last year when severe lockdown provisions were in place. In many ways it has been remarkable that it is only now that this has become public and there is little doubt that video clip shown last night is damaging. In the…