Hubristic Overreach – what happens to dominant parties

Hubristic Overreach – what happens to dominant parties

Comments 0 Comment

From ex-LAB MP and longstanding PBer Nick Palmer It’s pretty widely-believed that politicians are all in it for themselves – the fame, the money, the sense of power. On the whole, that’s not true in most democratic countries. Fame is a double-edged sword: the media will build you up and then tear you down. If you’re good enough to get a Cabinet salary, you’re good enough to earn more for less work outside. And few retired politicians report that their…

Read More Read More

The danger for LAB is that its equivocation over Brexit could be alienating its GE2017 tactical voters

The danger for LAB is that its equivocation over Brexit could be alienating its GE2017 tactical voters

Comments 0 Comment

LAB drops to a its lowest share this parliament There’s a new YouGov poll out this morning that has LAB down at 37% which equals its lowest share in any public poll since GE2017. That this should happen while the Tories are in almost total internal war over the Brexit negotiations might seem surprising. This is just one poll but the overall trend is very clear – we’ve moved from a situation when there were almost solid Labour leads to…

Read More Read More

If Betfair punters are right the Republicans are set to hold onto the House in the November midterms

If Betfair punters are right the Republicans are set to hold onto the House in the November midterms

Comments 0 Comment

Betdata.IO This would be a big victory for Trump While we are all focused on the Tories and Brexit in the UK the biggest political betting market at the moment continues to be the above one on the US midterm elections and, particularly, whether the Republicans can hold on to the House. The current RCP polling average has the Democrats 6.4% ahead but that’s not thought to be big enough to see change. In many states the congressional district boundaries…

Read More Read More

To force an early election Jezza needs CON defectors – but would Tory remainers really back him?

To force an early election Jezza needs CON defectors – but would Tory remainers really back him?

Comments 0 Comment

“We would force a general election” if there was a bad deal or no deal for the UK, says @jeremycorbyn #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/03Qqqodm64 — BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) July 1, 2018 During the weekend the Labour leader was talking about forcing an early election over Brexit. What he didn’t say was exactly how this would come about because as things stand at the moment the Commons electoral arithmetic is very much against him. While Labour has sometimes acted…

Read More Read More

Sajid Javid becomes the fifth CON MP to be favourite to succeed TMay since GE2017

Sajid Javid becomes the fifth CON MP to be favourite to succeed TMay since GE2017

Comments 0 Comment

Chart Betdata.io Rees-Mogg now down to 3rd favourite There’s been some movement in the Betfair’s next CON leader market following the pulication at the weekend of the latest ConHome survey of party members. The big news there was that the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, is now the favoured choice of CON members who partipate in ConHome surveys. This has had a big impact on the betting with Javid now jumping about Gove into the favourite slot. At least now the…

Read More Read More

Unless Moggsy has the backing of 158 CON MPs for his oust TMay move this threat is all piss and wind

Unless Moggsy has the backing of 158 CON MPs for his oust TMay move this threat is all piss and wind

Comments 0 Comment

Telegraph A confidence move could make her position stronger This week is going to be all about the crunch cabinet meeting on Friday at Chequers when TMay is hoping to get agreement on Britain’s approach to Brexit. So we can expect a lot of sabre rattling like that above from Moggsy and threats of resignations and moves to oust her. The problem is that we’ve been here before. Those opposesed to the TMay approach have been briefing about resignations and…

Read More Read More

Three Score and Ten? Has the NHS reached the end of its natural life?

Three Score and Ten? Has the NHS reached the end of its natural life?

Comments 0 Comment

On July 5th the NHS marks its 70th birthday, and the occasion will be marked by a significant financial injection as a means of life support by the Conservative government. This should keep it breathing for a while yet, but like any ageing process we should consider whether the condition is terminal, and what the objective of continued treatment is. Is the NHS a model of health care fit for the 2020’s or are there better ways of organising it…

Read More Read More

Fighting the last but one war. The final Brexit battle approaches

Fighting the last but one war. The final Brexit battle approaches

Comments 0 Comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=8JOpPNra4bw That didn’t take long.  As soon as the Germans were eliminated, it suddenly occurred to the entire British media that “VAR” could, if you squinted at it hard enough, be read as if it were a German pronunciation of the word “war”.  Amazing, I know.  So “Don’t mention the VAR” made its way through the lower reaches of the press and swam upstream as far as the Times and the Telegraph.  Could you have imagined such wit?  The nation…

Read More Read More