Trump goes on the offensive against the media – a sign of the next four years?

Trump goes on the offensive against the media – a sign of the next four years?

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At least it’s going to be interesting With just nine days to go till his inauguration Donald Trump has held a major press conference dealing with how his business interests will operate while he’s in the White House, the Mexican wall and who’ll pay for it, and, of course. the revelations in the past 24 hours about his alleged relationship with Russia and what is said to have gone on in that hotel room. The clip above shows how he…

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Experto credite, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

Experto credite, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

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Graphic credit: Twitter Economists have had their Michael Fish moment, so said Andy Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England speaking at the Institute of Government last week.  Having predicted a post-Brexit referendum crash that failed to happen, he believes the profession of economics is to some degree in crisis.  But it raises a wider question: what weight should we put in the judgements of experts?  Have we had enough of experts? This is a question of much recent…

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The PB/Polling Matters Podcast: Labour’s re-brand & why 2017 won’t be all plain sailing for Mrs. May

The PB/Polling Matters Podcast: Labour’s re-brand & why 2017 won’t be all plain sailing for Mrs. May

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On the first PB/Polling Matters podcast of 2017 Keiran discusses the future of the Labour Party with the General Secretary of the Fabian Society Andrew Harrop. They discuss Corbyn’s recent rebrand as a left-wing populist and Labour’s mounting problems including Scotland, Brexit and the daunting electoral math faced in Westminster ahead of the presumed General Election in 2020 (and what to do about it). Keiran also takes us through some recent polling and explains why he thinks 2017 will be…

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Corbyn and his party’s biggest challenge is making headway amongst his own age group – the oldies

Corbyn and his party’s biggest challenge is making headway amongst his own age group – the oldies

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With the youngsters LAB’s just fine: pity they’re less likely to vote Watching the TV news it’s clear that Corbyn Mark 2 hasn’t quite had the impact that his team would have liked. There’s a terrible lack of consistency and no real clear plan about what the message was going to be. A problem is that the audience for TV news bulletins tend to be the very people that Corbyn and LAB are most struggling with – the oldies. Today’s…

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Lucian Fletcher on the implications of the dramatic events in Northern Ireland politics

Lucian Fletcher on the implications of the dramatic events in Northern Ireland politics

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Embed from Getty Images The resignation of Martin McGuinness means that there is no longer any leadership in the Executive Office of Northern Ireland. The jointly-held nature of the position of First Minister/Deputy First Minister means that with Martin’s resignation, Arlene Foster has effectively been dragged kicking and screaming from office. For those (most people, I expect) who don’t pay attention to Stormont politics as long as there’s no violence, this is all very odd. The government of Northern Ireland…

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Farron says Corbyn’s now “cheerleader in chief for the Conservative Brexit government”

Farron says Corbyn’s now “cheerleader in chief for the Conservative Brexit government”

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.@timfarron : Jeremy Corbyn has ceased to be Leader of the Opposition to become cheerleader in chief for the Conservative Brexit government” — Lib Dem Media Team (@LibDemPress) January 9, 2017 Corbyn’s LAB re-launch day – how its going so far One of the features of the post-GE215 uprising within Labour that brought Corbyn victory in the leadership elections was the way that anyone who opposed their man was tagged by the Corbynistas as a “Tory”. In Labour circles this…

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Team Corbyn makes a generous New Year gift to Tim Farron given that 68% of current LAB voters think it is wrong to leave

Team Corbyn makes a generous New Year gift to Tim Farron given that 68% of current LAB voters think it is wrong to leave

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Corbyn's new year gift to Tim Farron given that 68% of current LAB voters think BREXIT wrong (YouGov)https://t.co/j6UEazIaBp — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 9, 2017 Why Labour has to be ultra-careful on its BREXIT stance. More than 2/3 of its voters think it is wrong to leave. pic.twitter.com/F4XkMrsNxd — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 9, 2017 Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet

After 16 months of Corbyn Mark 1 get ready folk for this week’s launch of Corbyn Mark 2

After 16 months of Corbyn Mark 1 get ready folk for this week’s launch of Corbyn Mark 2

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Save Jezza – trash the media Above is part of a Newnight discussion that I was part of last week which, amongst other things, examined the position of Jeremy Corbyn and whether there was any chance of recovery. I was pretty blunt in the programme though the views expressed were ones which have repeatedly been made before. It was interesting in the programme that the JC-backer in the discussion responded to my points by attacking the media. Labour’s voting intention…

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