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If O’Mara does quit as an MP on September 3rd the ensuing by-election will be a backcloth in the build up to October 31st

24/8/2019 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

The timing might not help BJohnson The Sheffield Hallam MP, Jared O’Mara, has made it clear that as soon as the Commons returns from its summer break he will step down thus triggering what could be an interesting by-election in Nick Clegg’s old seat. Labour are already throwing everything at defending their great victory there at GE2017 while a full LD by-election operation is already in place. Assuming that the by-election is called almost immediately, then polling day could coincide…

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The coming Battle of Brighton could determine the fate of Brexit

24/8/2019 David Herdson Comments 0 Comment

If Labour sticks to its current fudge of a policy, No Deal is the likely outcome Conferences don’t usually matter. These days, they’re mostly occasions when the party can try to sell itself and its policies to the media and the public – a glorified party political broadcast, if you like – while also acting as a bonding exercise for members of that party. It doesn’t always work out like that of course, but those are the primary aims. For…

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If BJohnson is planning an election the numbers continue to look good

23/8/2019 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

And JSwinson’s response to the PM Corbyn suggestion doesn’t seem to have hurt the LDs August is generally a month when we see fewer Westminster voting polls and it’s probably because of the possibility of an early election that this year we’ve seen as many surveys as we have. Even leaving Kantar aside the Tories will feel relatively comfortable about where they are which is being helped by the ongoing poor numbers for Labour. The ambivalence of Corbyn’s party on…

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Joe Walsh – my 130/1 longshot for the Republican nomination

23/8/2019 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Could Trump face a challenge? Generally speaking incumbent presidents tend not to have to face a serious primary challenge when they run for a second term. Certainly that’s been the assumption with Donald Trump and until now the possibility of other challengers has not appeared. That is changing with a prominent former Republican congressman and now a right wing radio host, Joe Walsh, saying that he is seriously considering running against the President. One of the unique features of the…

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Why they just don’t put up a hard border in Ireland

22/8/2019 Editor Comments 0 Comment

From Topping, who served there with the British Army during the Troubles It was sobering listening to Simon Byrne, a bluff Northerner and current chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), this morning on the radio opining on the practicalities of policing a hard border should it be required. He feared a return to a paramilitary style of policing and how, with his 7,000 policemen, it would be impossible to fulfil such a remit. At the height…

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Red Letter Day. Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of being next Prime Minister

22/8/2019 TSE Comments 0 Comment

It used to be so easy. For the period after the 2017 general election when Theresa May was Prime Minister, all you had to do was take advantage of Jeremy Corbyn’s enthusiasts and regularly lay him for next Prime Minister at the short prices that prevailed. Since she had made it plain that she was not going to fight the next election, so the circumstances in which he would be next Prime Minister were very limited indeed. He wasn’t the…

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HS2 might be hated by Tory activists but scrapping it could lead the party to being portrayed as being anti-north

22/8/2019 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Wikipedia The biggest mistake that was made over HS2 was to call it just that. This is why it polls so poorly. It sounds like a vanity project which is exactly what it isn’t. The new line would free up chronic under-capacity on the existing West Coast Main Line including for all the local and commuter services. If this had been billed as “West Coast Mainline upgrade” it wouldn’t have attracted anything like the opposition. So the decision to review…

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A man of principles. Boris Johnson and the EU

21/8/2019 TSE Comments 0 Comment

If consistency is the sign of a small mind, then Boris Johnson must have a brain the size of a planet. For he has slid from position to position on the EU like Bambi on ice. In 2003, he opened a speech to the House of Commons, in which he advocated Turkish membership of the EU, thus: “It is hard to think of a measure that the Government could have brought to the House that I could support more unreservedly…

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