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Month: July 2017

Tonight’s cartoon on the crazy staff changes in the Trump White House

Tonight’s cartoon on the crazy staff changes in the Trump White House

Just trying to keep up with the ins and out in the Trump White House is becoming a huge challenge. In the past fortnight we’ve seen the exits Sean Spicer, the former press secretary, and Reince Priebus, the first chief of staff. Tonight’s news is that the President has removed Anthony Scaramucci from his Communications Director role after he’d served for just ten days. Quite whether things will now settle down is hard to say but the rapidity of the…

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How general election turnout has changed by age group – 1964-2017

How general election turnout has changed by age group – 1964-2017

Commons Library Research briefing The chart above is from another excellent new research paper that’s just been published by the Commons library. It looks at election turnout which, of course, was one of the big drivers behind the GE17 outcome. While the big story from June 8th was the increase in the youth vote the 25-34 years olds also saw a significant increase Fewer oldies bothered to vote and we had the first downward movement with this segment since GE2001….

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Chancellor Hammond may not be PM (yet) but he’s the one currently running the show & shaping Brexit

Chancellor Hammond may not be PM (yet) but he’s the one currently running the show & shaping Brexit

He alone appears competent and in control Today’s Times front page is the latest reminder of the rise and rise of Chancellor Philip Hammond in the government suggesting that he’s positioning himself as the next party leader and PM. A good indication of Hammond’s new status is that the both the Mail and the Sun, tabloids that until 10pm on June 8th 2017 were widely regarded as politically influential, are making strong attacks. Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun calls him…

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A week goes by and the main polling news is that Remain voters are much more relaxed about gay sex than Brexiters

A week goes by and the main polling news is that Remain voters are much more relaxed about gay sex than Brexiters

Wikipedia Am I the only person who yearns for the YouGov daily poll? Given the precariousness of the government’s parliamentary situation and the massive challenge of Brexit we’ve just gone through a whole week without a single published voting poll. Just about the only survey that’s been published was the YouGov poll for Pink News on attitudes to gay sex with the cross tabs broken down by voting intention. Not surprisingly Remain voters (64%) were much more likely to agree…

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After what’s been described as Trump’s worst week yet the betting stays with the president surviving

After what’s been described as Trump’s worst week yet the betting stays with the president surviving

Betdata.io Chaos and back-stabbing have become the new norm Based on publicly available betting data the main issue that’s attracted the interest of political punters in the past week has been whether or not Mr. Trump is going to survive as President to the end of a full term. The numbers are in the Betdata.io chart above and show that the UK betting markets rate his chances of remaining at 51%. So far I’ve not been tempted by the Trump…

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Thirteen Saturdays ago the money was going on TMay’s Tories getting 400+ seats

Thirteen Saturdays ago the money was going on TMay’s Tories getting 400+ seats

Commons spreads from Spreadex sees CON at 400+CON 402-408LAB 145-151LD 21.5-24.5UKIP 0.25-1.25SNP 43-46https://t.co/m9B2DFvQv3 … — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 5, 2017 A journalist called me to ask what was the peak position that the Tories reached in the GE2017 campaign. I dug bag into my historical Tweets and referred him to the one above when Tories were clearing the 400 mark on the spread markets and LAB was struggling to hold onto 150. That was, of course, after the local…

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Back Trump to be impeached in 2019 at 18-1

Back Trump to be impeached in 2019 at 18-1

Making enemies could cost him dear, as McCain has already shown Donald Trump is an unusual president. Unusual in the same way that a triceratops turning up at Crufts would be unusual. He is not merely of a different species; his whole manner and understanding of the role are utterly alien to DC. Even by his standards though, this week has been extraordinary. He publicly attacked his own Attorney General, he banned transgender people from serving in the military (without…

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Latest by-election results and summary for July

Latest by-election results and summary for July

July 27th Local By-Election Summary Fallowfield on Manchester (Lab defence) Result: Labour 861 (77% +15% on last time), Green Party 105 (9% -13% on last time), Liberal Democrat 82 (7% +3% on last time), Conservative 72 (6% -4% on last time) Labour HOLD with a majority of 756 (68%) on a swing of 14% from Green to Labour Blandford Central on North Dorset (Ind defence) Result: Conservative 310 (37% +17% on last time), Labour 307 (36% +25% on last time),…

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