John Bercow – denied a peerage by BoJo on his retirement – now joins Labour

John Bercow – denied a peerage by BoJo on his retirement – now joins Labour

Generally speaking Speakers do not take part in the political debate once they have retired. Generally speaking, as well they are elevated to the House of Lords on their retirement but that didn’t happen with BoJoj who over-ruled this long-standing precedent. At the time just I wrote this was a petty minded move by BoJo that could come back to bite him. Well tonight the Observer is reporting that Bercow is now a LAB member and he’s started going on…

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What were punters thinking when they bet on the Tories in Chesham at 1/20

What were punters thinking when they bet on the Tories in Chesham at 1/20

As PB regulars will know I spent the last five weeks here saying that the odds available on the LDs in the by-election offered great value for money. What I cannot work out was what those on the other side of the bets were thinking when they took the risk of effectively rating the Tory chances of victory as a 95% chance. My first bet on the LDs was at 7/1 when Smarkets first got a market up and I…

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Survation has the party that dropped 20% in C&A with a 6% lead in Batley & Spen

Survation has the party that dropped 20% in C&A with a 6% lead in Batley & Spen

Can LAB squeeze the LD vote to undermine Galloway? In a poll with the fieldwork taking place before the C&A by-election news Survation has the Tories set to offset their disaster there with a gain in Batley and Spen. Of course one seat is in the south where BoJo’s party is struggling while the other is in the north where there is a totally different political environment.. Labour’s problem here is not helped by George Galloway’s intervention though the threat…

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The widespread notion that LAB can automatically assume 2nd prefs of LDs is not supported by real life elections

The widespread notion that LAB can automatically assume 2nd prefs of LDs is not supported by real life elections

Inevitably after outcomes like yesterday’s by-election there are calls for a progressive alliance of some sort to be created whereby there is an arrangement so that the two of Lib Dem, Green or Labour parties in a specific seat stand aside so that the vote of the “progressive” can be maximised. This is the way it is argued that the FPTP system does not always work best for the Tories. The only problem is that this assumes that LD voters…

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Remember that a CON-LD swing smaller than in C&A in 1990 led to Maggie going within a month

Remember that a CON-LD swing smaller than in C&A in 1990 led to Maggie going within a month

Let’s not kid ourselves – this was a disaster for BoJo Lots of excuses being made this morning by those trying to explain the Tory flop in C&A but surprisingly little on its impact on the position of the PM who has been riding high in recent months over the handling of the vaccine. Sure there was Hartlepool on May 6th but that is so unlike the vast majority of Tory-held seats. C&A was a typical Tory stronghold in southern…

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One thing we thankfully haven’t seen in the UK – a political divide on being vaccinated

One thing we thankfully haven’t seen in the UK – a political divide on being vaccinated

I have just discovered this polling from a few days back on vaccination take-up in the US which I find to be quite remarkable. That SIX times as many Republican voters say they won’t get vaccinated than Democrats ones is extraordinary. What does it say about GOP voters that there is an extraordinary political divide over something that undoubtedly saves lives. My initial thought was that this goes back to Trump and his scepticsm about COVID which appeared to continue…

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