Twenty thousand excess pandemic deaths could be Johnson’s political legacy

Twenty thousand excess pandemic deaths could be Johnson’s political legacy

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How’s this going to play at the general election? Whenever the pandemic is over and we return to normal life the politics of what has happened over these last few months are going to dominate the political agenda perhaps until the next general election. A big question is whether Johnson’s government was too slow to act. The main story on Guardian this morning under the headline “Enforcing UK lockdown one week earlier ‘could have saved 20,000 lives’ sets out an…

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More dreadful leader numbers for Boris: Starmer moves to a net plus 34 in latest YouGov Well/Badly ratings

More dreadful leader numbers for Boris: Starmer moves to a net plus 34 in latest YouGov Well/Badly ratings

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Another set of leader ratings has Johnson trailing a long way behind Starmer. The LAB leader has a net score (badly % deducted from Well %) of plus 27%. In the same poll with the same calculation Johnson is minus 7%. So that means a 34% net lead for Starmer. This is in line with other leader recent leader rating polling which asked different questions. The YouGov one here was its traditional “is X doing well/badly?” At the moment the…

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A new way of showing how LAB and CON are viewed

A new way of showing how LAB and CON are viewed

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This looks quite interesting – trying to assess how the main two parties are viewed by looking at responses to the same series of YouGov questions over a period of time. This has been all dressed up and called the Valence Index. No doubt we’ll see more of this in the coming months but it will be a long time before we can test this in a real election. One thing that strikes me is that there are more don’t…

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Weeping angels. On moving statues

Weeping angels. On moving statues

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“I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:And on the pedestal these words appear:‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing…

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GE2019 Tory remainers – the key voting group who are giving Starmer positive ratings

GE2019 Tory remainers – the key voting group who are giving Starmer positive ratings

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We are just over 3 years and 10 months from May 2nd 2024 which is the final date that the next general election can be held. That’s the time that the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has got in order to put himself into position where LAB can take enough seats to make the party electorally competitive. LAB’s seat total from GE2019 was 202 – the lowest total that the party has achieved since 1935. To get a majority Labour…

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The Social Undistanceables: A Plan

The Social Undistanceables: A Plan

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Thinking through the problem of the moment What a mouthful. Like the name for a reality TV programme. Trying to match up the odd, the awkward, the peculiar. Or perhaps a play – if a theatre can be found. Almost unremarked, the RSC recently announced it would close until next January. Birmingham Hippodrome has started redundancy consultations, its reason being what Basil Fawlty might have termed the “bleedin’ obvious”: “We are unable to reopen until social distancing measures are relaxed”….

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