There was a day last week when an Ashcroft poll put the Tories six points up over Labour, while a Populus poll had Labour five points up on the Conservatives. An eleven point swing during one twenty-four hour period not surprisingly had commentators wondering about why the polling had gone all wacky on us. This […]
Archives for January 2015
George Osborne’s demand that Labour rule out working with the SNP is frankly, a bit weird
At a Commons Treasury Committee meeting yesterday, George Osborne gave his thoughts about a possible Labour-SNP coalition: “There’s going to be a lot of hard negotiation on things like the fiscal framework and I think it would be very unfair to the whole United Kingdom if we had a Chancellor of the Exchequer who was […]
Chris Bryant v James Blunt: it’s tough to know who to support, really
I enjoyed the Bryant v Blunt twitter spat as much as anyone. It was nice to see a political social media argument where the gloves really came off, as opposed to the usual platitudinous nonsense these things usually conform to. My only dilemma revolved around to who to support. It’s human inclination to want to […]
In order to win the 2014 Euro elections, Nigel Farage sabotaged his grand project
The history of UKIP is a fascinating one, and I urge all of you who have not yet read Revolt on the Right by Rob Ford and Matthew Goodwin to do so. It recalls UKIP’s beginnings as a sort of techy, academic bunch founded by LSE history professor Alan Sked and follows its evolution towards […]
Why the Greens’ “citizen’s income” is a bad idea but will nevertheless cause problems for Labour
Over the weekend, Natalie Bennett did a media drive to promote the Green Party’s election policy around a “citizen’s income”. The idea is extremely simple to explain: every adult in the UK gets £72.40 a week from the government. This takes the place of all current welfare systems. This stipend from the Treasury would be […]
Could the Tories and the SNP ever do a Westminster deal?
“We’ll never put the Tories into government.” These words Nicola Sturgeon told SNP’s conference in November. I myself had no reason to doubt them. The Conservative Party is so loathed by the vast majority of Scots, assuring voters in Scotland that the Nats would never consider propping up the Dark Side was extremely important for […]
Will the Charlie Hebdo atrocity help the Tories in the short term?
Solidarity in the West has been impressive post-January 7th. The surge of the far-right has, so far, not been as scary as I had feared. Nigel Farage’s comments on the matter were rightly jumped all over, by all sections of the press, as being opportunistic and a bit nasty. Nigel had to take his brand […]
Will Al Murray running in South Thanet be good or bad for Nigel Farage?
Al Murray, the comedian whose act is built around caricaturising a recognisable English archetype, has decided to stand in South Thanet, Kent during the general election in May. The relevance of this particular constituency is obvious: it is where Nigel Farage has decided to plant his flag in the hopes of taking his place amongst […]
A gaze at the polling in key Lib Dem-Tory marginals and then trying to figure out what it means
I have done a few general election predictions over the past month: UKIP target seats, Green target seats, Lab-Tory marginals. I am often asked to do Lib Dem seat predictions. I have elected not to, not because I’m attempting to dodge a bullet; to avoid doing something that may cause me to advise that the […]
The people the bus strike ultimately affected were the poorest in London
Yesterday, if you were in the centre of London, you saw evidence of the chaos that surrounds any industrial action around public transport. There were some buses, but not nearly enough of them for everyone to get to where they had to go. Because south London has no tube, if you live in that part […]