2 reports into events long ago: 34 and 26 years. The main protagonists are dead. Should anyone care, as the Today programme put it somewhat indelicately, about one murder so very long ago (Daniel Morgan)? Or even about an interview of a troubled Royal? The latter are two a penny these days. Police competence rather than corruption is a rather more pressing issue. We all know about the press’s dubious and sometimes illegal activities; besides the News of the World…
On the betting exchanges the LDs are currently rated as a 6% chance of winning the Chesham and Amersham by-election which takes place on June 17th. I think this is a value bet. The above rather cheeky Tweet by the party President, Mark Pack, reflects a degree of confidence that follows a period of heavy campaigning and the party’s success in the constituency on May 6th when they took control of Amersham Town Council from the Tories as well as…
It is often said that Labour has no route to Downing Street without retrieving its former solid bloc of seats north of the border. Or winning back those “Red Wall” seats in the north-west and north-east of England. What is less often remarked upon is that it will not be enough – unless it can also do something about the Midlands. The part of the country which was until recently packed with marginals is fast moving them into safe Conservative…
What’s surprising is that this didn’t happen sooner Above is the betdata.io chart of Betfair’s next general election market and as can be seen for the first time the Tories are above a 50% chance to win a majority. Given the way that Labour and its leader have been struggling of late then the real surprise is that it has taken until now for the betting milestone to be reached. Currently the Tories and Johnson are continuing to benefit from…
Singling out nurses for special treatment could spark off a host of other public service pay demands The Jenny McGee story makes most of the front pages this morning and is likely to continue to get attention for a week or so until after the Channel 4 programe she features in goes out. This touches a few issues including BREXIT which has made the UK more difficult for trained foreign nurses and the need for the government to keep public…
After LAB lost Hartlepool and their lacklustre performance in this year’s locals the next two electoral tests also look problematical for Keir Starmer and his party. Next up on June 17th is the Chesham and Amersham by-election when Labour vote is likely to be squeezed by the LDs who came a second last time with LAB on just 12.9% of the vote. With Davey’s party throwing everything at the constituency the LAB vote is likely to be squeezed hard and…
And just two weeks later I find it very difficult to explain such a huge change within 2-weeks even though that period did include the May 6th local elections. Certainly, all the media narrative following the elections was questioning Starmer’s position and Labour’s performance which was reinforced by the party’s loss of the Hartlepool Westminster by-election. But in the counts that took place on the Friday and Saturday some less good results for the Tories emerged particularly in Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire,…
The map of a single US congressional district The map says it all – just how the boundaries of congressional districts can be so created so they maximise the benefit for one party – in this case the Republicans The boundaries are drawn by the Republican contolled state governemnt.