Browsed by
Month: October 2017

Why people voted the way they did on Brexit and the huge gulf between Leave & Remain

Why people voted the way they did on Brexit and the huge gulf between Leave & Remain

Comments 0 Comment

Ipsos MORI has Tweeted the above chart this afternoon which is based on polling carried out a year ago. Given that we know that little has changed in the overall view of Brexit then the assumption surely is that these figures stand the test of time. The priority of leavers was the capacity of Britain to make its own laws while Remainers were most concerned about the imapct on the economy which we’ve seen with Brexit devaluation of the pound….

Read More Read More

A reminder of the great political betting night June 23/24 2016 as punters were slow to realise that Leave was winning

A reminder of the great political betting night June 23/24 2016 as punters were slow to realise that Leave was winning

Comments 0 Comment

Chart of Betfair Exchange trades from Betdata.io There was a discussion on the previous thread on the betting prices overnight in June last year when the Brexit referendum results began to come in. Thanks to Betdata.io which monitors these things on Betfair the above is the final 12 hours of betting. What is striking is just how slow punters were to realise that Remain wasn’t winning. At 2310 the Remain price reached a 93.5% chance and a lot of money…

Read More Read More

Consolation for Theresa – in spite of the Tory turmoil LAB isn’t pulling away

Consolation for Theresa – in spite of the Tory turmoil LAB isn’t pulling away

Comments 0 Comment

We get so few voting polls these days that any new one is something of an event and today we had ICM for the Guardian which once again has the two main parties level pegging. Looking at the Wikipedia polling table above the big message is that the Tories have less to fear than might, at first, you would expect. Sure Labour is ahead in many of the polls but the picture is far from clear cut and it is…

Read More Read More

Just one in 20 CON voters on June 8th did so because of Theresa May

Just one in 20 CON voters on June 8th did so because of Theresa May

Comments 0 Comment

So much for the campaign basing it all on her A unique feature of the Conservative campaign for the June election was that the branding was completely about Theresa May and you would have been hard pressed on things like the Tory battle bus to see the word Conservative. Clearly this was based on the belief believe that the Prime Minister herself was the strongest feature of the Conservatives offer in the election that she had called to endorse her…

Read More Read More

The excellent Vietnam documentary series is a reminder that we need to learn from history

The excellent Vietnam documentary series is a reminder that we need to learn from history

Comments 0 Comment

Picture credit: The CIA In Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War, President Kennedy is quoted as saying: “We don’t have a prayer of staying in Vietnam.  These people hate us.  But I can’t give up a piece of territory like that to the Communists and then get the people to re-elect me.”  LBJ felt much the same.  And yet, a President who – more than Kennedy – deserved to be called great, both for the breadth of his social…

Read More Read More

If Jared O’Mara had been in Farage’s UKIP he’d have been booted out of LAB by now

If Jared O’Mara had been in Farage’s UKIP he’d have been booted out of LAB by now

Comments 0 Comment

PinkNews One of the things that always impressed me about Farage’s UKIP was the speed in which he’d deal with situations like that which Corbyn’s LAB faces tonight over the online homophobic comments by the man who ousted Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam on June 8th. The former leader of the purples was acutely aware how actions like O’Mara’s amongst party officials, candidates and those holding elected positions could damage the party and he would act very quickly. In doing…

Read More Read More

Corbyn was far less a driver of the GE2017 LAB vote than many of his supporters maintain

Corbyn was far less a driver of the GE2017 LAB vote than many of his supporters maintain

Comments 0 Comment

Just 13% named him as their main reason for voting LAB In the aftermath of the June 8th general election so much was happening politically that not much attention was paid to the above YouGov polling carried out shortly afterwards. For me the interesting thing was how, in relative terms. Corbyn does not appear to be key factor which has been very much the narrative since. Just 13% named him as their main reason. As can be seen from the…

Read More Read More

Just two months left for Corbyn to achieve his Glastonbury boast – becoming PM by Christmas

Just two months left for Corbyn to achieve his Glastonbury boast – becoming PM by Christmas

Comments 0 Comment

If all the polls had been looked like Survation & the YouGov model there’d have been fewer JC accolades Just on four months ago, after the LAB leader’s extraordinary reception at Glastonbury, the festival chief, Michael Eavis, reported that Corbyn had told him that he’d be PM within six months and that he would scrap Britain’s Trident nuclear defence system as soon as he could. The following day the LAB PR machine went into action to seek to play down…

Read More Read More