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Month: April 2017

The death of populism?

The death of populism?

Embed from Getty Images As the outcome of round 1 of France’s Presidential election became clear, the relief in the rest of Europe was palpable.  The French were not going to follow the perfidious British and vulgar Americans and vote in as their leader a populist promising to epater the European bourgeoisie.  Europe was safe.  Populism would remain a miserable Anglo-Saxon affair and much good would it do them. Perhaps.  But maybe there are rather more continuities between the US…

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New polling suggests that CON London strongholds could be vulnerable to Stop Brexit candidates

New polling suggests that CON London strongholds could be vulnerable to Stop Brexit candidates

The Survation Kensington poll in the chart above has been commissioned by a body called the Stop Brexit Alliance (SBA) to rest the feasibility of putting forward candidates in London CON strongholds where neither Labour not the Lib Dens have any chance, My understanding is that other similar seats are being looked at and hopefully we will have the data within the next few days. The standard voting question in this poll found CON 46%; LAB 29%: LD 16.6%: UKIP…

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Corbyn to quit or not to quit on June 9th, that is the question

Corbyn to quit or not to quit on June 9th, that is the question

O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.  – Hamlet Act V, Scene II William Hill have a market up on whether Jeremy Corbyn will announce his resignation before 11pm on June 9th. Whilst it might sound like…

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Latest French polls not quite as good for Macron as they were

Latest French polls not quite as good for Macron as they were

But he still leads by wide margin The French election comes to its final round next weekend and the polls are showing a slight edge towards Le Pen though it is still very hard to see a pathway to victory for her. What is intriguing is this Wikipedia analysis of how second round votes are splitting by what people did on the first round. Clearly there are lot of voters yet to make up their minds and this is giving…

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Caught in the backwash. The SNP subsides and the Conservatives surge

Caught in the backwash. The SNP subsides and the Conservatives surge

Embed from Getty Images Alastair Meeks who accurately predicted the SNP tsunami of 2015 looks at the best Scottish seat bets In 2010, not a single seat in Scotland changed hands.  Electoral politics north of the border has got a bit more dynamic since then.  2017 will not be as wild as 2015 but the polls suggest a fair amount of movement. The SNP already have 56 out of the 59 seats that they compete in, so their room for…

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Why the Tory lead might be even larger than the polling implies

Why the Tory lead might be even larger than the polling implies

  Lab & Lib Dem vote is a lot softer than the Con vote @IpsosMORI poll finds implying an even larger Con majority than we think might happen? pic.twitter.com/PDHa8BVsGg — TSE (@TSEofPB) April 28, 2017 The Labour and Lib Dem vote is substantially softer than the Tory vote In this month’s Ipsos MORI poll it found that the Labour and Lib Dem vote is softer than the Tory party vote, this came as a surprise to me.  One of the reasons…

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New YouGov Scottish poll suggests the Tories could make 7 gains in Scotland

New YouGov Scottish poll suggests the Tories could make 7 gains in Scotland

Graphic – The times And the LD could triple their Scottish seats The main General Election polling news overnight has been a YouGov/Times survey of Scotland which suggests that the Conservatives could start to win back some of the seats in Scotland that they held more than a quarter of a century ago. The Lib Dems could also stage a small recovery tripling the Scottish total to three seats. Labour, which at GE2010, won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats, is…

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