politicalbetting.com

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons“. Such might be the reaction to the Prime Minister’s assertion this week that Britain was “not remotely a corrupt country” and that he did not believe that “our institutions are corrupt“. Mandy Rice-Davies’ response comes to mind. Still, there is something impressive in the way he asserted that MPs breaking the rules should be investigated and punished barely days after having whipped his MPs into voting for…

Read More Read More

It has been quite clear over the past three or four weeks that the voting intention polls have been tightening and now the latest Redfield & Wilton survey is reporting a 2% LAB lead – the best performance for the party for well over 18 months. Quite what is driving this is hard to say but there has also been a decline in Johnson’s leader ratings. It was back in April last year that the Tories started to build up…

Read More Read More

Smarkets are continuing with their weekly local by-election bets and tonight’s contest is in a ward which I know well and where my wife and I rented a cottage just before the March 2020 lockdown. It is the University and Scotforth ward on Lancaster council. The last time this ward was contested with three seats available the result was: Lab 295, 278, 267Green 217, 175, 142Cons 119, 113, 112LD 88, 83, 72 Currently, the Green party is favourite and is…

Read More Read More

For the second day running the Daily Mail decides that Geoffrey Cox is the main story unlike almost the rest of the papers which have moved on. I’m not so sure what the impact on public opinion that the Cox story is having apart from highlighting the fact the Tory MP is a very successful lawyer. It is getting to a stage where Johnson needs to do something about the the MP second jobs issue which could be very tricky…

Read More Read More

Veteran coverer of Westminster by-elections, Michael Crick, has an interesting piece out on Mail+ observing the remarkable degree of collaboration that seems to be going on between LAB and the LDs over by-elections. He notes that in the summer that the LDs only had a token presence in Batley and Spen while it was the same for LAB in Chesham and Amersham. The same seems to be happening in the December contests with the LDs just have a token presence…

Read More Read More

It is just a week since Owen Paterson had to step down but there no abating the media interest in what other Tory MPs are doing. As can be seen the Times is leading on the former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and the Guardian is putting the focus on the former Tory leader, IDS. All this comes after the polls are showing the Tory lead collapse and Johnson with some terrible personal rating numbers. At some stage this will die…

Read More Read More

December’s battles should surely change that Here’s a political trivia question that even the most ardent PBer would struggle to answer – when and where was the last successful Tory Westminster by-election defence? The answer is hard because there have been so few such contests. The answer is Sleaford and North Hykeham in December 2016 when TMay was PM. Since then the Tories gained Copeland from LAB in February 2017, and lost Brecon & Radnorshire to the LDs a week…

Read More Read More