When it comes down to it, most articles only have one point at their heart. They can be tricked out with lively language or illustrated with telling examples (or they can be pedestrian plods through the topic). Nevertheless, that one point is usually missed by most readers. So let me sum up the point of this article in one plain paragraph. The EU can choose the terms of a deal with Britain that it wishes to offer. Britain in turn is…
Generally speaking in previous White House races the big party conventions have been the trigger for significant moves in the polling. This year because of the pandemic the conventions are virtual and all eyes are on the the first full surveys to come out following the Democratic party event which finished on Thursday night. So far there is only one new poll carried out totally after the convention and that has Biden with a 9% lead rather than an 8%…
Brexit has not gone away; far from it Gavin Williamson is a lucky man. In any ordinary government he would have been sacked over the exams fiasco this month, ex-Chief Whip’s book or not. This, however, is not a normal government. It’s not normal in part because it simply doesn’t play by the conventions of the game and is happy to brazen out scandals or tolerate failure that generally wouldn’t have been accepted in the past. It also has the…
On Betfair the total matched now exceeds £60m This week has, of course, been the Democratic convention which because of the pandemic has been a virtual one. This has meant none of the last spectacle that we normally associate with US conventions but the party has used the prime time TV coverage that it has got to send out specific messages and promote specific people. Last night Joe Biden was up with his acceptance speech and the general view of…
Paddy Power have a market up on whether Gavin Williamson will be out of the cabinet by the end of Sunday, now we should praise Paddy Power for putting up both sides of the markets. I’m advising taking the 1/7 because the bar for being sacked from Boris Johnson has been raised to the point where I suspect only denouncing Brexit or saying Dominic Cummings broke lockdown & quarantine rules on his excursion to Durham will get you sacked. I…
TSE
If you’re a (Scottish) Unionist then it isn’t looking good, the tweets above indicate the worrying issues facing the Union right now. There’s some scope for hope, from this observer’s view it appears that debate is being framed as Scotland v. The Tories/Boris Johnson, with Scottish Labour and the Lib Dems absent from the debate. Once those parties join the debate we might see the arguments change. However relying on a party led by Richard Leonard to be the Gebhard…