Brexit is not in trouble because of the lack of a mandate Brexit Day is now just 125 days away, or less than 18 weeks, if you prefer (and of those, you can discount Christmas). The extent of the discussion of a second referendum is therefore a measure of the desperation of both those who want to stop Brexit and those dissatisfied with how it’s going. That desperation is understandable. Brexit – in a legal sense – now looks a…
One of the arguments that pro-second referendum Tory MPs are using at the moment is that the Brexit deal basically splits the Tories and Labour gets off scot free in spite of its equivocation and huge policy differences. So it is being said that if there was a referendum then it would split Labour as well. For Corbyn’s equivocation on Brexit and the referendum has really cost the party almost nothing so far and indeed the polling finds that those…
He’s become TMay’s main Brexit defender Great things were predicted for Rory Stewart after his selection as CON candidate ahead of GE2010 for the safe seat of Penrith. He attracted an enormous amount of coverage and in December 2009 Ladbrokes made him the 12/1 fourth favourite to succeed Cameron as CON leader. To get a sense of the atmosphere at the time this was from a glowing profile from Anna van Praagh in the Sunday Telegraph in 2009. “Britain doesn’t…
If you look at the front of forces on the march you tend to find one of three things. Leaders, figureheads, and cannon fodder, and British politics certainly hasn’t been suffering from an excess of leadership recently. Theresa May (still officially Prime Minister when I started writing this sentence) entered Downing Street after a leadership election which was more entertaining than inspiring and, having campaigned for Remain, took on the responsibility of delivering Brexit, whatever that means (two and a…
A Gallup poll boost for remainers campaigning for a second Brexit referendum? Since it stopped carrying out voting surveys for the Telegraph after the 2001 general election Gallup has not really been a force in British political polling. This was the firm, of course, that really started the business and on which so much has been based. Well this week the US based, Gallup, has just published some UK Polling which is a useful addition given that Brexit totally dominating…
Moggsy appears to be ruling himself out of the leadership and is set to back fellow Etonian BoJohttps://t.co/Snu75YfUiB — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 22, 2018 The main development in the Conservative leadership “contest” this morning has been an article by Moggsy in the hardline Brexit supporting Spectator ruling himself out of the leadership and giving support for the former Mayor and fellow Etonian, Mr Johnson. For a long period early in the year Rees-Mogg was favourite in the betting and…
Betdata.io I really do like showing betting charts simply to indicate how opinions about a likely outcome change all the time and it’s good to see it in graphic form. Giving the response so far from parliamentarians to the brexit deal the chances are that this might get voted down by MPs and if so then what? The consequences of no deal have not yet been spelled out to voters but there’s little doubt that ministers are aware. There’s increasing…
From the outside the UK economy looks pretty healthy. Unemployment is low and economic growth has been more consistent than any of its EU peers. Little wonder its politicians regard it as a success story. There’s only one problem. The UK economy is built on an edifice of consumption and debt. The work we do? It’s selling things to each other that have been made abroad. It’s a dangerously fragile situation, where we congratulate ourselves on maxing our credit cards…