Kirsty Wark heads the betting for the next QuestionTime host

Kirsty Wark heads the betting for the next QuestionTime host

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Several bookies have now got odds up who is going to succeed David Dimbleby as the host of the long running BBC series Question Time. Most of them showing a similar assessment to Ladbrokes which features in the panel above. My understanding is that the program is made by an independent production house which clearly will have a view about who should take over from Dimbleby. So this is not going to be a sole BBC decision. The Producers will…

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Losing today’s Brexit vote could prove fatal for Mrs. May’s premiership

Losing today’s Brexit vote could prove fatal for Mrs. May’s premiership

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Can the rebels be curtailed yet again? After the Brexit bill defeat for the government on the in the Lords on Monday the issue is now back in the commons and there’ll be a big vote on whether to accept what the Lord’s decided. The stakes are very high indeed because if the measure goes through it will have a huge impact on the way that ongoing negotiations on the deal take place. Essentially if it passes Mrs Mays hands…

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Trump’s hardline policy on immigrant children has become a testing time for the White House

Trump’s hardline policy on immigrant children has become a testing time for the White House

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Maintaining Republican party support looks challenging The polling is not good for the President. According to a CNN poll two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the practice of taking undocumented immigrant children from their families and putting them in government facilities on US borders, Only 28% approve. Among Republican voters 54% support the policy but 34% don’t. This all comes in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet

Older voters more likely to back legalisation of cannabis for medical use than the young

Older voters more likely to back legalisation of cannabis for medical use than the young

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The Sajid Javid move is in line with public opinion The big news from Westminster this afternoon is that the Home Secretary has announced a review on the legalisation of cannabis for medical use – something that has become a big issue because of the Billy Caldwell case. The main recent poll on this comes from a YouGov survey last month and I illustrate the age splits in the chart above. What I find really interesting is that the older…

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On Betfair 2018 is once again favourite for TMay’s exit

On Betfair 2018 is once again favourite for TMay’s exit

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Is she going to be able to survive? Over the past year I’ve had a pretty good record with my political bets which have come to fruition. I was on the Democrats in the Alabama and Pennsylvania special elections and, of course, backed the LDs to beat the Tories in last week’s by-election. I lost on the Arizona special election and my long-shot for the Tory leadership, Damian Green, fell by the wayside earlier in the year. My other significant…

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And so the “meaningful vote” issue gets put back into the bill by the Lords

And so the “meaningful vote” issue gets put back into the bill by the Lords

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New Lords defeat for government on Brexit 'meaningful vote' amendment https://t.co/QfOQmitOuC — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) June 18, 2018 The problems for TMay mount I have to say that I haven’t been following politics tonight but the battle of Stalingrad. The problem here is that the ex-CON Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve, thought he had a deal last week when the bill was before the Commons and he didn’t push his original amendment. That ministers appear to have reneged on that arrangement was…

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Javid goes on the offensive at cabinet over cannabis for medical use

Javid goes on the offensive at cabinet over cannabis for medical use

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Sajid Javid repeatedly tried to raise the Billy Caldwell case at Cabinet this morning. But Theresa May blocked him, saying it wasn’t on the agenda https://t.co/CDya3Gnh1J — James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) June 18, 2018 TMay looks tin-eared on the Billy Caldwell case Las month YouGov found that 75% of those polled backed allowing doctors to prescribe cannabis for medical use – with just 12% opposing. Support was fairly even across the parties with 73% of Tory voters giving their support. In…

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If there was a CON leadership contest tomorrow my money would go on Javid and Hunt

If there was a CON leadership contest tomorrow my money would go on Javid and Hunt

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Betdata.io Theresa’s travails on Brexit over the past week have made it that bit less possible that she’ll survive as leader and PM to Brexit and beyond. I thought John Rentoul summed this up right in the Indy: “Until this week, I assumed May would be the prime minister who took us out of the EU in March. Her strategy of delay, procrastination and attrition isn’t pretty, and risks cutting the Brexit deadline fine, but it seemed to be working….

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