Covered market: the politics of towns

Covered market: the politics of towns

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Since the election, talk of towns has been the talk of the political town.  Labour politicians and Conservative politicians alike have concluded that is the key to political success right now. This apparent unity conceals a string of latent ambiguities and confusions.  What are towns? The Conservatives were mocked when they recently launched their Town Of The Year competition in Wolverhampton, which has been a city for nearly 20 years.  The optics could certainly have been better. Lisa Nandy has…

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Nine days before Iowa and the top 5 contenders are within 12 points of each other

Nine days before Iowa and the top 5 contenders are within 12 points of each other

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Chart from Fivethirtyeight.com A week on Monday we have the very first event in the 2020 White House Race. This is of course the caucases in the midwest state of Iowa which has a reputation of pulling off some surprises and having a big impact on the nomination races overall. This involves voters doing much much more than turning out at a polling station to cast a vote. At 1600+ events starting at 7:30 in the evening local time Democratic…

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Global Heating: great crises are difficult and complex. Activists need to recognise that

Global Heating: great crises are difficult and complex. Activists need to recognise that

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David Attenborough, like the Queen, is immortal and infallible and therefore the closest thing we have to a living god. Unfortunately, gods have little interest in the practical business of politics (or at least, only among themselves), which is where the problem lies with Attenborough’s call for action on global heating. While it has become popular recently to refer to the problem as the Climate Crisis, this is a poor choice of wording. Presumably the previous preferred terms – ‘global…

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Davey slips to his lowest level yet in the LD leadership betting

Davey slips to his lowest level yet in the LD leadership betting

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He’s heading towards evens Over the last two to three weeks there has been a fair amount of movement in the Lib Dem leadership betting with money starting to go on the Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran and with the acting leader, Ed Davey edging out. The current 1.85 on Davey, a 54% chance, is the weakest price yet since the the vacancy became clear. At the same time money has been going on Moran and she has…

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With 49 CLPs now having decided just under two thirds are going to Starmer

With 49 CLPs now having decided just under two thirds are going to Starmer

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Keir Starmer: 32 Rebecca Long-Bailey: 7 Lisa Nandy: 7 Emily Thornberry: 3 After what has been the biggest night so far of CLP meetings the overall picture is looking broadly the same and the big outstanding question is whether the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry will make the cut. Thanks to the excellent @clpnominations for his regularly updated Twitter feed for what is actually going on at the branch meetings keeping up an excellent running total of the LAB nomination…

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Bloomberg launches his latest ad attacking Trump during the President’s favourite TV show

Bloomberg launches his latest ad attacking Trump during the President’s favourite TV show

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Trolling Trump Inevitably this led to a Twitter explosion from Trump who has now dubbed the multi-billionaire as “Mini Mike Bloomberg”. According to Politico this is part of a deliberate strategy by Bloomberg who is benefiting in the polls as a result “It’s the latest example of how a plank of Bloomberg’s campaign revolves around agitating the president, who has increasingly begun criticizing his former mayor from New York, a self-made billionaire who has spent years belittling Trump as a…

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In spite of Trump’s impeachment problems punters give the Republicans a 54% chance of retaining the White House

In spite of Trump’s impeachment problems punters give the Republicans a 54% chance of retaining the White House

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What is absolutely certain the top political betting event of 2020 will be November’s US presidential election. Currently the incumbent. Mr Trump, is going through his impeachment trial at the US Senate while presidential hopefuls are going into the final phases of their campaign in the first state to vote on the Democratic nomination – Iowa with its caucuses on February 3rd. Until now PB has yet do a post on the the final election result in November. As can…

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