Motes and beams. Leading a response to a pandemic without moral authority

Motes and beams. Leading a response to a pandemic without moral authority

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So now we know: as in Pirates of the Caribbean, the rules of the C aren’t so much rules, they’re more what you’d call guidelines.  Robert Jenrick has confirmed that the public could always exercise “a degree of personal judgement”.   This will come as a considerable surprise to the 27million people who listened to Boris Johnson on 23 March: “give the British people a very simple instruction. You must stay at home, because the critical thing we must do to stop the disease spreading…

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With the Cummings lockdown saga now in its seventh day some biting polling in Daily Mail

With the Cummings lockdown saga now in its seventh day some biting polling in Daily Mail

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If the Team Johnson plan for the Cummings lockdown saga was to hope it would go away then there’s no sign of that this morning. Several papers have it as their main story and the usually Tory-backing Daily Mail is giving big prominence to the JL Partners polling above. As I’ve argued before the Mail is critical for a Tory PM and for the paper to oppose so vehemently the actions of Johnson/Cummings is not something we have seen since…

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Will Labour lead in a nationwide YouGov poll in 2020?

Will Labour lead in a nationwide YouGov poll in 2020?

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This market by Ladbrokes on Labour leading in a UK wide Westminster voting intention poll is an intriguing one, the most recent YouGov poll had the Conservatives 15% ahead, during the first phase of the pandemic that lead peaked at 24%, prior to the pandemic that lead was around the early 20s, so it is fair to say the Conservatives lead with YouGov has been consistently high. So what chance of Labour leading in a YouGov poll this year? The…

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There’s been definite damage to Boris Johnson in the polls following Dominic’s Cummings and Goings

There’s been definite damage to Boris Johnson in the polls following Dominic’s Cummings and Goings

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The last time I saw a Prime Minister needlessly trash their reputation like this was in the autumn of 2007 when Gordon Brown denied he had been planning on holding a snap election. Even one of his MPs wrote ‘Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority’, such a denial of reality damaged Brown’s ratings and they never really recovered which saw Labour lose power and they haven’t been in power since. These rapid falls…

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The front pages after Dom’s big day

The front pages after Dom’s big day

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Can he survive and what’s this going to do to lockdown compliance? One telling reaction has come from Mark Wallace of ConHome under the headline “I admire Dominic Cummings – but he needs to resign now“. He notes: Voters’ fury is real, justified and widespread. The political damage is serious and lasting. The Prime Minister might expend yet more capital to defy the uproar, and Cummings might stay on. But to do so would be a mistake. If he pauses, and coldly…

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The betting moves even more to Cummings still being in his job next month

The betting moves even more to Cummings still being in his job next month

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But what will the pollsters find? I’d be very surprised if we see a poll tonight on the Cummings press conference but surely we will get something during the day time. Although, as he set it out, Dom had understandable reasons for his approach it was very much out of line with what he should have been doing in late March and early April and what a big proportion of the population were doing. What I find really odd is…

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