A big day for Sunak – now as big a threat to Starmer as he is to Johnson

A big day for Sunak – now as big a threat to Starmer as he is to Johnson

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Rishi who was 250/1 when tipped on PB as next PM eight months ago Today the big political news will be the summer statement by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, which is being dubbed “the Coronacvirus Mini Budget”. This comes after an extraordinary nine months when has emerged from relative obscurity to be one of the biggest players in UK politics. He’s betting favourite to be Johnson’s successor and second favourite, behind Starmer, for next PM. It is hard to realise…

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WH2020 A powerful new ad from Republicans against Trump

WH2020 A powerful new ad from Republicans against Trump

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One of the most intriguing aspects about the White House Race has been the powerful advertisements being produced and funded by Republicans who are opposed to Donald Trump. What makes the above so effective is that the soundtrack consists of things said on the record by ex-President Ronald Reagan who was, of course, a Republican We have featured here before promotions from the Lincoln Project and this latest ad above is not from them but from an organisation simply called…

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Across all pollsters the Tories are retaining a clear lead

Across all pollsters the Tories are retaining a clear lead

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One of the oddest features of current next general election polling is how little there is of it at the moment. The main pollsters of yesteryear, ICM and Populus are not heard of much in this context and even YouGov has only been issuing new polls every few weeks. The last published survey from them finalised its fieldwork on June 12th – which is getting on for a month ago. Survation, top pollster at GE2017, is producing a survey about…

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Passing the buck Boris style

Passing the buck Boris style

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 The PM is at the centre of a new storm tonight after he was reported to have put part of the blame for care home 20k+ pandemic deaths onto the care home themselves. According to the Guardian report linked to in the Tweet above Speaking during a visit to Goole in Yorkshire, Johnson said the pandemic had shown the need to “make sure we look after people better who are in social care”. He went on: “We discovered too many…

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Susan Rice moves up sharply in the betting to be Biden’s running mate

Susan Rice moves up sharply in the betting to be Biden’s running mate

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Joe Biden has made it clear that he aims to announce who will be his running mate in early August so we could know who is going to be on the ticket with him in less than a month. The betting and the speculation of contenders’ chances tend to be linked to the weekend appearances on the Sunday political TV programmes. The two who have appeared a lot this last weekend are Illinois Senator and Tammy Duckworth and Obama’s choice…

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Why Starmer is not going to let go of the issue of Johnson not acting quickly enough on COVID19

Why Starmer is not going to let go of the issue of Johnson not acting quickly enough on COVID19

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One of the great sources of analysis during the pandemic has been on Radio 4’s “More of Less” programme which each week subjects big issues in the news to statistical analysis. It has just finished its current series and its last programme was basically a summation of how the pandemic evolved. It is well worth listening to here . Inevitably the issue of timing of the government’s decision in March is subject to scrutiny and a clear view is developing…

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It appears Brexit and the handling of Covid-19 by the Scottish & Westminster governments is pushing Scotland inexorably towards independence

It appears Brexit and the handling of Covid-19 by the Scottish & Westminster governments is pushing Scotland inexorably towards independence

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In today’s Sunday Times we see another poll that’s great for the SNP and supporters of Scottish independence, I was struck by Professor Sir John Curtice’s analysis in the Sunday Times Although Scotland has had among the world’s highest proportion of Covid-related fatalities, based on excess deaths, Sturgeon has an approval rating of plus 60 for her handling of the crisis — measuring the difference between those who think she has done a good or a bad job. By contrast,…

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