Boris is unlikely to be a 10-year PM but he might well win a GE This has not been Boris Johnson’s finest week. A series of humiliating defeats in Westminster, an underwhelming PMQs, harangued on the campaign trail, caught out using policemen for partisan ends and left to dangle in Number 10 without either an electoral escape or a means of leaving the EU by the foolishly promised 31 October. Of course, there may be some great grand plan cooked…
I saw this, cringed so hard, my feet shrank three sizes. https://t.co/VbgZAte8pA — TSE (@TSEofPB) September 6, 2019 Thinking about what to have for lunch. Large bucket of boneless (certainly spineless) JFC (Jeremy’s Frightened & Chicken) perhaps. pic.twitter.com/37t2GKmVOI — James Cleverly?? (@JamesCleverly) September 6, 2019 If chicken suits swung voters we wouldn't be in this mess (we'd be facing Chaos with Ed Miliband) pic.twitter.com/Hkq7MJvFhV — James Morris (@jamesdmorris) September 6, 2019 This afternoon a friend asked me what I thought…
Picture: On the pavement in Parliament Square. Credit John Rentoul. I did warn Boris Johnson that going for an early election would not work. If only he’d listened to my advice, he would not be in the pickle of pleading for an election that the Opposition may or may not deign to give him. It would have suited me better as well, because my betting tip at the end of that column is currently well underwater. It just shows the danger of assuming that…
I don’t take opinion polls very seriously and nor should you. For all that, they tell us something and some of the time we have no better clue as to what is going on than what they tell us. Right now, they seem to be telling us something rather interesting. For many months, pollsters have consistently found appreciably more respondents in their sample who said they voted Remain in 2016 than said they voted Leave. Since Leave won 52:48, this…
FT: Poll by ?@ICMResearch? suggests that a November election (as opposed to October) would wipe out the Tories’ big poll lead https://t.co/JTfN3d7Iu1 pic.twitter.com/ibGL5QLAKi — Jim Pickard ? (@PickardJE) September 5, 2019 Tonight’s Financial Times reports that Some Labour strategists believe the Tories would be damaged by a spike in support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party if Mr Johnson fails to fulfil his pledge to take the UK out of the EU by October 31, “do or die”. An ICM poll…
James Blundell looks at tonight’s by election in Coventry. Away from the hubbub in Westminster, there is the upcoming Wainbody ward by-election which is the southernmost ward in Coventry where I grew up and has historically been a very safe ward for the Conservatives. It is relatively affluent and firmly middle class, my estimate for the leave vote there would probably be 55-60 even though we have no definitive figures. Due to the passing of Gary Crookes, a well-liked councillor…
Jo Johnson was a remainer who resigned from Theresa May’s Government in Nov 2018 saying no deal would “inflict untold damage” on the country. He and his brother clearly disagree. But to accuse him of betraying national interest on first day of his “election campaign” is ? ? — Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) September 5, 2019 In a move more reminiscent of Game of Thrones meets the Milibands Jo Johnson’s resignation as both a minister and an MP has the potential…
It’s all frightfully exciting, isn’t it?! Parliament being prorogued. People demonstrating against coups. Cabinet Ministers, the PM even, having to confirm that they will obey the law. Discussions about obscure precedents from the reign of Queen Anne about whether or not the Queen has to assent to legislation. Government defeats. The loss of its majority to zero as the PM was speaking, the later fall into a minority administration. Long-standing senior MPs being expelled from their party, some by text…