With Labour’s NEC deciding the leadership election rules Long-Bailey has yet to declare

With Labour’s NEC deciding the leadership election rules Long-Bailey has yet to declare

Comments 0 Comment

Can we ready anything into her silence? Over the weekend we have seen a fair bit of the prospective successors to Corbyn as LAB leader of which five have already declared. These are: Keir Starmer Emily Thornberry Lisa Nandy Jess Phillips Clive Lewis Surprisingly there has been no public move so far from Long-Bailey who is said to be the favourite of the Corbyn and McDonnell – the ones who really hold the power. An excellent profile on her in…

Read More Read More

Will the Conservatives increase their majority at the next election?

Will the Conservatives increase their majority at the next election?

Comments 0 Comment

  Ladbrokes have a market up on the Conservatives increasing their majority at the next general election. I can understand why some will want to back the 4/1. Boundary changes would see the Conservative majority increase to around 104 if the vote shares remained identical at the next election and if Labour choose electoral Ebola in the form of Ian Lavery then this bet looks like a winner. I’m always wary of markets where the bookmaker doesn’t offer the other…

Read More Read More

Point of no return

Point of no return

Comments 0 Comment

When Emily Thornberry threw an early hat into what is likely to become a crowded Labour leadership ring she did so with a vow to step down if it ever became clear, from the polls and her colleagues, that she couldn’t win a future election as a sign of her loyalty to the party. This was a fairly obvious shot at Jeremy Corbyn who went into the 2019 GE as the with the worst ratings of any major party leader…

Read More Read More

Key GE2019 party constituency stats from the Commons Library analysis

Key GE2019 party constituency stats from the Commons Library analysis

Comments 0 Comment

Just before the Christmas break the Commons library published its analysis of the December general election and the above are some of the sets of data that relate to the main national parties. Clearly the seats of former Speaker Bercow and the current one Hoyle are going to appear in the lists because the main parties do not contest them. So Buckingham had its first main party contest since 2005 while Chorley had a limited range of candidates this time….

Read More Read More

The Next Labour Leader matrix – working out who’ll win

The Next Labour Leader matrix – working out who’ll win

Comments 0 Comment

Working through lots of candidates and lots of considerations Calling the Labour leadership contest is hard, to me at least. Not only do we not yet know who’s going to stand but working out what the key considerations will be with the relevant voters – at both nomination stage and in the election proper – is an exercise in second-guessing on multiple levels. We don’t even know when the election will start for sure: it might be next week but…

Read More Read More

The big worry for Trump is that his disapproval ratings remain above 50%

The big worry for Trump is that his disapproval ratings remain above 50%

Comments 0 Comment

The chart shows the Real Clear Politics average for the President’s approval ratings which over the decades have been a good pointer to electoral outcomes. In an analysis Taegan Goddard of Politicalwire notes that only Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush had periods when the majority of American disapproved of them and both failed to be re-elected. Maybe Trump can change things in his final year but maybe be won’t. As we saw in the midterms voters are very…

Read More Read More

With Iowa barely a month away Bernie steps up the attacks on Biden

With Iowa barely a month away Bernie steps up the attacks on Biden

Comments 0 Comment

We are only weeks away from the Iowa caucuses – the first state primary in the prolonged process in which the Democrats will decide who shall be the nominee to fight Trump next November. The latest move from second betting favourite Bernie Sanders (78yo) is to step up the attacks on the front runner Jo Biden (77yo). In an interview with the Washington Post, Bernie sought to undermine what is the ex-VP’s perceived electability. “Sanders said that Biden brings ‘a…

Read More Read More