I can hear the Clegg haters on Twitter responding to the title I’ve given this article already: with any luck, dead and buried. But as I’ve already highlighted the central importance the Liberal Democrats, through the magic that is the First Past the Post voting system, will probably have on who governs post-May 2015, as […]
Archives for December 2014
So long as young people continue to not vote, they will be ignored by Westminster
There’s a raft of stuff in the Guardian his morning about young people and voting. A big poll has been done on 17 – 22 year olds. Most of what comes out is roughly what you’d expect: this group is more pro-European, more liberal generally than those in older age groups. The stuff that is […]
Who will be the next leader of the Conservative Party? All of the candidates and the odds on each of them winning, right here
The next leadership contest within the Tories could happen as soon as four and a half months from now. Even at its latest, it’s only a little over two years away, given the timeline Cameron himself has outlined. So it seems to me that getting to grips with who might feature in that race and […]
The Lib Dems are the only thing standing in the way of the Tories getting a majority in May 2015
There’s been a Guardian/ICM poll done this week, measuring Westminster voting intention in Scotland. It’s not quite as bad for Labour as some of the other Scottish polls done recently, but it’s still pretty awful. The SNP has a 17-point lead over Labour, enough of a lead, on uniform swing, to reduce the Scottish Labour […]
If the Labour Party is sincerely targeting Sheffield Hallam, they’re acting like morons
I read an article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday about how Labour has decided to target Sheffield Hallam next May. It has all the hallmarks of a story put out to fill space on the basis of little actual content. Some “senior Labour figures” had told the Telegraph that behind closed doors Hallam is being […]
How the Greens will do in the 2015 general election: a seat-by-seat prediction
Last week, I did a prediction of what will happen in fourteen UKIP target seats, ones identified by the party itself. I thought it might be fun to do the same for the Greens, particularly given that party had told the Guardian their own version of a “super-12” list. I will go though each of […]
Tory plans around student immigration are highly revealing
Plans for foreign students to essentially be chucked out of the country after their course finishes has been met with condemnation from all sides. That’s because it’s a silly policy. Supporters of the idea say that 70,000 students from outside the EU hang around to work after they get their degrees, not seeing that this […]
Saloth Sar goes to Paris
So the islanders loved my goddamn story so much, the big kahuna said he would give me whatever I wanted. I could have had John Daiquiri put to death if I so desired, but I had enough blood on my hands for one lifetime. Instead, I asked for Daiquiri’s boat, the one he sailed to […]
I’m warming up to the idea of an English parliament
I remember being at an Alex Salmond speech in London a few years back. It was post May-2011, maybe autumn 2012 or so. I recall being impressed with his oratory skills, but that’s not what really sticks in my mind about the event. What I’ll never forget was a bloke very close by me in […]
How UKIP will do in the 2015 general election: a seat-by-seat prediction
One of the big questions ahead of next May’s general election is this: just how well are UKIP going to do in the end? Will they achieve anywhere near the fourteen percent nationwide that they got in this week’s ICM poll? Or will their vote collapse, mostly heading back to the Tories? Actually, as interesting […]