Andrew Neil’s attack on Johnson goes viral By 5am this morning, as my screen grab shows, there had been 3.3m views of the Andrew Neil video attacking Johnson for chickening out of doing an interview with him. That is a staggering number which doubt will increase during the day. No doubt the calculation in Number 10 was that the potential negative of being subject to 30 minutes of forensic scrutiny by Neil was worse than the downside of not taking…
“It is not too late. We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say” Andrew Neil issues a challenge for Boris Johnson to commit to an interview with him, to face questions on why people have “deemed him to be untrustworthy”https://t.co/daHLxEYn4r pic.twitter.com/oQ21uDdtJe — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 5, 2019 This’ll contine right through to next Thursday In this clip Neil makes a powerful case why Johnson should be there and if Tory strategy is that this could…
Next LAB leader odds May 12th 2015 Chuka’s GE2019 campaign with a different party One of the most intriguing battles next Thursday is in the city of London and Westminster – seat which has been held by the Conservatives for well over a century. At the referendum the constituency voted just under 72% for remain and only 28% for leave making it it a tasty target for the Lib Dems in an election where Brexit is the dominant issue. The…
Remember the Supreme Court cases on prorogation or Article 50? How irrelevant they seem if, as polls indicate, the Tories get a majority. With 7 days to go, can there be a better time to wheel out Wilson’s dictum about a week being a long time in politics? There cannot. Consider it duly wheeled out. And yet the “Protect our Democracy” section in the Tory manifesto (pages 47-48, here) has not received the scrutiny it deserves. It starts with what some might consider a…
At the referendum it was 56.4% Leave In some quarters quite a lot of people have been getting excited about Johnson possibly running into trouble in his Uxbridge & Ruislip constituency which he held at GE2017 with a majority of 5k+. In the chart I’ve shown the vote shares from last time and the projection by Prof Chris Hanratty on the party shares there at the May 23rd Euros. First thing to note is that this is not your typical…
What happens when anti-CON voters decide to go tactical There is little doubt that if the LDs are to salvage anything from from a hugely disappointing GE19 campaign a lot depends on what happens in Esher & Walton – the seat currently held by the Foreign Secretary and former BrexSec, Dominic Raab. A victory here would be the Portillo moment of the election and might just take some of the edge off Johnson’s likely victory. The chart shows the result…
Will it be in these ranges when the exit poll comes out? Above are the latest Commons seats spreads from SportingIndex which have shown little movement this week. A way of looking at this is that this is where current betting money is going and to me, at least, there are few obvious bargains. My main spread bet is on turnout which is currently 66.8% sell and 67.4% buy. I bought at 66.4%. I did have a sell bet at…
On Monday evening, Ken Clarke, described by Intelligence² as a Big Beast of British politics, was being interviewed by John Humphreys, though even Humphreys was scarcely able to get a word in, as Ken opined, entertainingly and at length, on Brexit, Boris, elections and a life in politics. The following comments he made are worth noting as relevant, not just to the election, but to politics thereafter:- Communicating with voters The challenge now for politicians was how to talk to voters,…