The screen-grab from the BBC’s LE2017 coverage that sets out the huge challenge for Johnson’s party on Thursday

The screen-grab from the BBC’s LE2017 coverage that sets out the huge challenge for Johnson’s party on Thursday

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Could the blues end up a net LOSER of seats? As we know local elections are scheduled for every May with a different set of seats coming up each year on a four year cycle. So this year we have those that were last contested in 2017 as well as the 2016 cohort which should have been voted on on last year It is the 2017 cohort that potentially could be challenging for the Tories. As can be seen from…

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The joys of first past the post

The joys of first past the post

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This forthcoming Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of the AV referendum when the country decided giving Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats a kicking was more important than replacing an iniquitous voting system. It was beginning of trilogy of plebiscites that have fundamentally changed the United Kingdom. The Scots on Thursday may make it a tetralogy* and soon North Ireland may make it a pentalogy. In hindsight it may have been best if the Lib Dems had insisted on electoral…

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Size does matter in Hartlepool

Size does matter in Hartlepool

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Ever since the Hartlepool by election has been called I’ve vacillated between a Tory gain and a easy Labour hold. If Richard Tice and the Brexit Party hadn’t stood in this seat in 2019 then this would have been a Tory gain at the 2019 general election so that is what I drove my belief that this should be a Tory gain at the by election particularly once it was confirmed Richard Tice wasn’t standing, however it isn’t December 2019…

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On the YouGov/Survation split the latter has a record of picking up moves to LAB better

On the YouGov/Survation split the latter has a record of picking up moves to LAB better

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Wikipedia final GE2017 polls Remember when its final GE2017 poll was dismissed as an outler Lots of talk by poll-watchers over the last 18 hours about the Survation survey which is showing a radically different picture of public opinion in the country compared with others particularly YouGov. To recall the former has the CON lead down to just 1% while the latter has it at 11%. This all reminds me of what happened with the polls when TMay was seeking…

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Let’s admit it: the Good Friday Agreement is incompatible with Brexit

Let’s admit it: the Good Friday Agreement is incompatible with Brexit

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Northern Ireland’s arrangements need overhauling before they break down No-one cares about Northern Ireland. Lots of people say they do of course but in reality, as long as bombs aren’t going off (or, at worst, are only going off in Derry or Strabane or the like), then it’s either left to get on by itself, an insoluble problem best left alone, or a political football to be kicked in the interests of whoever’s kicking it. If they did care, it…

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Setting the scene for next Thursday’s local elections

Setting the scene for next Thursday’s local elections

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CON position better than LE2016 but worse than LE2017 – the years when most of the seats last fought Next Thursday, I think I’m safe in asserting, we will see the largest set of local elections ever to take place in England. This is because the group of seats that should have been voted on last year had their elections postponed and of course this year we have the 2017 cohort. On top of that we have several hundred local…

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How Bad Is the French Vaccine Roll Out?

How Bad Is the French Vaccine Roll Out?

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The perception and the reality France – the country of Pasteur, Marie Curie, Descartes, and Pascal – has a problem with vaccine hesitancy. Their own President, in a bizarre moment of self-harm, decided to declare the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine as “quasi-ineffective” for older people. Add this to long-standing issues with skepticism about vaccines generally, and you have a recipe for a country that is going to struggle to get jabs into arms – potentially resulting in France never being truly free…

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