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..They retained a seat in a Westminster by-election In all the focus on Labour’s by-election performances, there has been much less attention to the Tories who have struggled whenever they’ve been defending a seat. For although they took Copeland from LAB in 2017 and Hartlepool in May their record in by-election defences has been very poor. Indeed you have to go back to December 8th 2016 and Sleaford and North Hykeham to find a seat that they managed to hang…

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Part of the Tory programme at GE2010 was the “triple lock” for pensioners. Passed into legislation in 2011 this guarantees that the basic state pension will rise by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is largest. What nobody envisaged at that time was that a totally artificial drop year on year in average earnings such as that created by the pandemic would point to, perhaps, an 8% increase in average earnings which according to…

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New poling by Ipsos MORI for The Economist finds backing for extending certain restrictions to stop the spread of COVID in the short-term while it is still posing a risk, however, there is much less support for these measures to remain in place permanently.  As can be seen a large number want face masks to continue to be compulsory in shops and on public transport after July 19th. 70% want to see this continue for 1 month after 19th July while two…

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The above chart shows party by party the vote changes that took place in last month’s Chesham and Amersham by-election compared with what happened there just 18 months earlier at GE2019. It was a sensational outcome and one that, if you look at the betting where the Tories were rated as a 95% chance even until the final week, was a bonanza for smart punters. A big reason was that the election was, and still continues, to be ignored by…

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A good day “to bury” bad news?

With most of the media, in England at least, focused on tonight’s event at Wembley, the huge divide between the ministers and scientific advisors is probably not going to get the attention it deserves. Ministers appear to be heading for the moves on July 19th when the expectation has been that this was going to be “Freedom Day”. People are planning their lives around this and I just wonder whether this will be another “Boris Christmas break” that at the…

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BoJo’s move could hurt the Tories most The above chart by Deltapoll should be a warning to Mr. Johnson about the dangers to his party of pressing forward with voter ID. It was published 2 years ago and shows the constituency relationship between having no passport and voting leave. As can be seen there is a correlation – the smaller the proportion with passports in a constituency the greater the chance it voted Leave. I have not been able to…

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