The Conservatives must join and win the battle of ideas

The Conservatives must join and win the battle of ideas

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The Thatcherite consensus is dead; the case for choice, freedom and opportunity is not In full, the United States’ Declaration of Independence is not a very good document. It bears the classic mark of the composite motion, being too long overall and unbalanced in its structure: very nearly half of it is a list of twenty-seven grievances. Fortunately, for history and for the revolutionaries, it was drafted by someone who knew not only how to turn a phrase but where…

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Lessons from Labour’s conference for the Conservatives

Lessons from Labour’s conference for the Conservatives

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Leadership Labour have, on balance, had a good conference, which should of course worry Conservatives like myself. Their leadership is now in full ascendancy – indeed many of the Corbynsceptic PLP stayed away. Brexit was largely elided (of which more later), so the actual splits in evidence were merely between different degrees of Corbynism. On reselection, Momentum butted heads with the unions and came off slightly worse, for now. (Watch that space…) And Corbyn himself is now much improved as…

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PB Video Analysis: Demographics Two. The Big Drag

PB Video Analysis: Demographics Two. The Big Drag

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In my last demographics piece, I looked at the boost developed countries got from falling fertility freeing up females from childcare duties. (I adore alliteration.) This piece looks to the recent past, to the experience of Japan, and asks what next? And the picture isn’t, if we’re going to be honest, a pretty one. Rising life expectancy, and birth rates below replacement almost everywhere mean that population pyramids will continue to invert. Old people produce less economic output than young…

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Canucked. Where the UK goes next

Canucked. Where the UK goes next

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Where do we go from here?  After Salzburg, infuriated by the dismissive way in which her fellow EU leaders sought to cast the Chequers approach to one side, the Prime Minister took the usual British approach of dealing with foreigners, speaking loudly and slowly.  The Prime Minister would like to plough on.  She appears to be almost alone in that.  In Theresa’s Party, the EU don’t want Chequers, the Labour Party don’t want Chequers, the Tory Reform Group don’t want…

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The Senate Kavanaugh hearing begins taking evidence from the woman who says she was sexually attacked by Trump’s nominee

The Senate Kavanaugh hearing begins taking evidence from the woman who says she was sexually attacked by Trump’s nominee

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BBC News Its odds-on that he’ll be confirmed All eyes in the US are on the Senate Justice committee which is taking evidence from a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy, Brett Kavanaugh. Christine Blasey Ford told the committee that Kavanaugh’s attack on her 38 years ago had left her “afraid and ashamed”. Because of the power of the Supreme Court and that its members serve for life the stakes couldn’t…

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The harsh truth for LAB is that the next General Election is in May 2022 and only the Tories have the power to hold it earlier

The harsh truth for LAB is that the next General Election is in May 2022 and only the Tories have the power to hold it earlier

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Even if there is a total CON Brexit collapse there is still the Fixed Term Parliament Act Ever since June 9th last year politics has been going through rather a strange phase. The biggest losing party, LAB, acted as though it was the winner and the main winning party, CON, acted as though it had lost. Mr Corbyn was celebrated almost wherever he went and Mrs May has had to cope with endless speculation about her future. Both are still…

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The betting chances of LAB winning the next election edge down to the lowest level since GE2017

The betting chances of LAB winning the next election edge down to the lowest level since GE2017

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Betdata.io Given that one of the ongoing themes of Labour’s conference has been the hope that there can be another GE soon I thought it might be useful to look for the first time at next general election betting. By the time we get to polling day – sometime between now and May 2022 – this market will see a large amount of activity. The only reason to be betting now is if you think the odds on your selection…

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It’s the WH2016 voter segments that said they were backing Hillary but abstained that the GOP should worry about

It’s the WH2016 voter segments that said they were backing Hillary but abstained that the GOP should worry about

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We all recall how in much of key state polling at WH2016 that Clinton was overstated thus giving us a very false impression of what was going to happen. Much of this was not down to switching but to ostensible Clinton backers not bothering to turnout. Their problem was the candidate. One of the insights I got from this excellent analysis of November’s US Midterm elections by NBC’s, Chris Matthews, is what this group of voters will do in the…

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