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Former Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, dies after long illness

5/4/2021 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

The Presss Association has reported within the past hour that the Conservative MP for Chesham and Amersham, Cheryl Gillan, has died at the age of 68 after a long illness. Paying tribute to the former secretary of state for Wales, Boris Johnson said she would be sorely missed. “I’m very sad to hear the news of the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan,” said Johnson. “She was a great servant to the people of Chesham and Amersham, to the Conservative party and to…

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Papers, please

5/4/2021 CycleFree Comments 0 Comment

The case of Willcock v Muckle should be much better known than it is. In 1950 Mr Willcock, stopped by a policeman for speeding, was asked for his ID card. He refused. The case went to the Court of Appeal where the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, known for his ultra-conservative views, thundered against the idea that the police should be able routinely to demand ID cards for irrelevant reasons. In 1952, 7 years after the end of the war…

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Labour’s Hiraeth

4/4/2021 Editor Comments 0 Comment

This draft thread header was written in December 2019, but due to pressure of work I never had a chance to send it in. Alterations are shown in italics. In 1918, Couponed candidates took 20 seats, Asquithian Liberals three seats, and Labour or Independent Labour candidates twelve seats in Wales. I mention this not from any particular desire to talk about 1918 in Welsh politics, but because it marks the last occasion to date when Labour failed to top a…

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A reminder: Starmer needs a net gain of 124 seats at the next GE to win a majority

4/4/2021 TSE Comments 0 Comment

A reminder of the atrocious legacy Corbyn bequeathed Starmer & Labour Today is Sir Keir Starmer’s first anniversary as Labour leader and I thought it would be worth remembering the position Starmer inherited. Only three Leaders of the Opposition have made over 100 net gains at at next election, Attlee, Blair, and Cameron, so Starmer will be joining stellar company if he achieves it. My own opinion is that Labour probably needs to only make around 40 net gains from…

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What YouGov was reporting a year ago today

3/4/2021 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Putting LAB’s current position into context Thanks to John Rentoul for Tweeting the above poll data from April 3rd 2020. As can be seen the immediate polling reaction to the start of lockdown was to get behind the government and the Prime Minister. You could easily argue that over the past year there has been a CON-LAB swing of nearly 10% but that simply ignores the strange times in which we live. This huge lead tapered off in the following…

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Can the Greens take their 2021 opportunities?

3/4/2021 David Herdson Comments 0 Comment

Remember the Climate Emergency? It turns out it wasn’t quite the emergency activists claimed, once a genuine emergency arrived. To be clear, this isn’t to say that Global Heating isn’t a problem in many, and very serious, ways; it is to say that it’s not “a sudden state of danger requiring immediate action”: the definition in my desk dictionary. The crucial words there being ‘sudden’ and ‘immediate’. Covid has meant that climate policy responses have had to take a back…

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A year on for Starmer and he has yet been able to shake the hands of a single voter

2/4/2021 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Events overshadowing his election were even worse than for IDS in September 2001 I always felt sorry for IDS whose election as Tory leader was due to take place the the day after 9/11 – an event that so dominated the world that he never really had a chance to have a honeymoon period. But at least, unlike Keir Starmer, IDS was able to have a first conference speech within weeks and was not barred from shaking people’s hands. We…

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Alba just get 3% in first Scottish poll since Salmond launched his new party

1/4/2021 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Five weeks to go before the Scottish parliament election and we have the first Scotland polling since Alex Salmond made his announcement about setting up his new Alba party to compete with the SNP for the indy vote. The fieldwork from Survation all took place during a period when the former SNP leader and later Westminster MP was dominating the Scottish media. Alba is not standing in a constituency so the relevant polling is that for the regional lists when…

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