If there was a betting market on the first Tory MP defecting to the Brexit Party my money would be on Steve Baker

If there was a betting market on the first Tory MP defecting to the Brexit Party my money would be on Steve Baker

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Hey @LadPolitics can you put up a market on who will be the 1st Tory MP to defect to the Brexit Party? Want to back Steve Baker, story 2day 'Nigel is very smug at the moment & is 100% sure that there is at least 1 high-profile defection in the pipeline'https://t.co/5QD2GS4hMX — TSE (@TSEofPB) April 28, 2019 In today’s Sun on Sunday reports Tory MPs such as Lucy Allan, the MP for Telford, have openly tweeted encouragement for the Brexit Party,…

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Will John Bercow leave his job as Speaker in 2019?

Will John Bercow leave his job as Speaker in 2019?

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This looks like the best way to get a 25% return in eight months. Earlier on this month I wrote a piece about the plans of Tory Leavers to try and oust John Bercow this week just gone, accurately I predicted they wouldn’t have the numbers to oust Speaker Bercow.  In that piece I bemoaned there were no Bercow exit markets but thankfully Paddy Power now have a market on whether Speaker Bercow will leave his job in 2019. For…

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Before we get too excited at this stage before the 2014 Euro elections Farage’s party was on 38% – 20 points ahead of Cameron’s Tories

Before we get too excited at this stage before the 2014 Euro elections Farage’s party was on 38% – 20 points ahead of Cameron’s Tories

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Wikipiedia table of polling for the May 2014 Euro elections Lots of polling excitement tonight with surveys showing UKIP with a apparently avery large lead over the Tories and level pegging with LAB when the samples were asked how they would vote in next month’s euro elections. It all looks a bit gloom and doom for the Tories but if you check back to what was happening at this exact point  5 years ago  UKIP were on 38%  with the…

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Bye-bye by-elections? Part 2. MPs who resigned their seats and stood in the ensuing by-election

Bye-bye by-elections? Part 2. MPs who resigned their seats and stood in the ensuing by-election

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In Part 1, I discussed how the reasons for triggering by-elections have changed since 1918. In Part 2, I will discuss in more detail the phenomenon (or lack) of MPs resigning and re-contesting their seats over principle or when they change party allegiance. In Part 1, I showed you the trends in both the number of and the reasons for Westminster by-elections over the last 100 years. Now, fast-forwarding to the present, just a couple of months ago, 11 MPs…

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The 2020 Democrat contest is likely to go all the way to the convention

The 2020 Democrat contest is likely to go all the way to the convention

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Field size and campaign structure make it hard for anyone to win outright Once upon a time, American party conventions to nominate their presidential candidates were raucous, sometimes violent, often unpredictable and certainly lengthy. The Democrat convention of 1924 set the unhappy record of taking 103 ballots to select a candidate, in a convention that lasted more than a fortnight. The drudgery, sweat and fatigue would prove fruitless: John Davis would go on to lose every state outside the South…

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What could really drive LAB voters away is Corbyn ignoring the vast majority of them on Brexit

What could really drive LAB voters away is Corbyn ignoring the vast majority of them on Brexit

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Does he commit to a “confirmatory referendum” or not? Next week’s Labours ruling national executive committee will be faced with demands to include a clear commitment to a confirmatory public vote on Brexit in its European election manifesto. This is something that has not appeared in draft leaflets that have been circulated within the party and have aroused fury. Ever since June 24th 2016 Corbyn and his team have managed to deftly avoid pressure from the anti-Brexiteers and have stuck…

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The Tories should take some consolation from Newport West – the disaster that did not happen

The Tories should take some consolation from Newport West – the disaster that did not happen

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Betting favourite for 2nd UKIP ended with barely a quarter of the CON vote The narrative at the moment is all about how appallingly the Tories will do in the Euro elections on May 23rd. Almost no threads appear on PB these without some new prediction of the impending disaster. But are we overstating this? I think that we might be Let us look back just three weeks when we were digesting the Newport West by-election result. The UKIP candidate…

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Four weeks to go to the Euros and the polling has it very tight

Four weeks to go to the Euros and the polling has it very tight

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What is extraordinary about the coming Euro elections on May 23rd is just how many different parties will be on the ballot papers. The Wikipedia polling table above seeks to include all of them and I don’t think there has been a previous election like this in modern times. The one thing that makes the coming election different from 2014 is that there will be no simultaneous local elections on the same day. This is the first time this has…

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