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Viewing this by-election through the prism of Hartlepool could be a mistake While almost all the media focus has been on the July 1st Batley and Spen by-election there’s been hardly any coverage of the Tory defence in Chesham & Amersham where they are defending a 29.1% majority. It is as though the lessons of Hartlepool are being applied in this part of southern England where so many things are different. There’s a good analysis of what’s going on and…

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Yesterday in an interview Starmer was asked whether he could name his party’s candidate in next week’s Chesham and Amersham by-election. He couldn’t and another indication of how badly things are going for him. This morning Ipsos has published a series of charts on the various leader ratings that it runs and the above chart compares how he and Corbyn rated for satisfaction after 14 months in office. Starmer has slumped to a new low of minus 29% which compares…

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What’s the difference between bribing voters and fulfilling electoral promises to them?  Outright bribery is now illegal but politicians still promise the earth and try to deliver. How else will they win re-election, after all. The Americans have a down to earth name for it: pork barrel politics. The Italians have an even better description: “clientilismo” – the dispensing of favours, money, jobs, projects to a party’s supporters largely for being a supporter, the public purse seen primarily as a source…

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“Fatta la legge. Trovato l’inganno.” (A law is made. A way round it is found.) Sicilian in origin, apparently. Fancy that. Still, who could have thought that barely days after the G7 announcement for a minimum global tax rate for large companies, it would be one of the architects of the proposal who, according to this report, is seeking to get an opt-out for financial services because the proposed tax changes might affect affect global banks headquartered in the U.K….

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Bascially if GE2019 had been fought on these boundaries then BoJo’s majority would have been between 10 and 20 seats larger. This is because, of course, the opposition parties would see a decline at the same level thus increasing the gap by double the Tory seat gain, These probably won’t come into effect until Q3 2023 thus increasing the speculation that there could be an autumn general election in that year. Also the fact that the Tories have this bonus…

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No doubt everybody will be looking first for their own seats and the chart above shows the changes by region. Where I live, Bedford, there are no changes in a seat that was narrowly held by LAB a at GE2019 and was Tory target number one. No doubt today we will see some number crunching with a notional result of what would have happened at GE2019 if the election had been fought on these new boundaries. To find detailed changes…

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Maybe the weather and COVID trends are making us feel better? The net figure here is calculated by deducting the “get worse” total from the “will improve” and the chart shows how this has noved since 1988. Thus this month just over half (53%) think the economy will get better over the next 12 months (+2 from April), 31% worse (-5), giving a net Economic Optimism Index score of +22.   The question now is whether this will be sustained. A…

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