A question that shrewd Conservative MPs will be asking themselves this week is: which of the candidates for the party leadership will Labour fear most? Here is the poling evidence we have so far. Last week both Opinium and YouGov asked respondents to rate each of the contenders they expected to stand. Opinium asked whether … Continue reading Who Labour wants as Tory leader – and who it fears

A vital quality at the heart of many dramas – fictional, sporting or political – is jeopardy. The audience takes sides, between characters, teams or parties, and is kept in suspense for as long as possible as to the outcome. If we have a stake in the result, as fan or voter, the drama is … Continue reading Can the new Tory leader escape Johnson’s toxic legacy?

Talk of a hung parliament is heating up. “Coalition of chaos” warn the Conservatives. No deal with the SNP, says Keir Starmer. How would ihings play out in practice? Not as the Tories say. Here's why. In the run-up to the 2015 election, the Tories hope portrayed Ed Miliband, Labour’s then leader, as the likely … Continue reading “Coalition of chaos”? Fear not. It won’t happen

Last week’s by-elections were plainly terrible for the Conservatives – but they were not that great for Labour. To be sure, the party regained Wakefield. This was better than just holding on in Batley and Spen and losing Hartlepool last year. But was the Wakefield result good enough to suggest that Labour is on course … Continue reading Labour STILL has a mountain to climb

Good morning. Here is the news. The Conservatives have held on to win the closely-fought by-election in Tiverfield and Waketown. Here are the figures. No, of course that’s not what happened, except in one sense: those are the combined totals for yesterday’s by-elections. Taken together, the Conservatives did win more votes than either Labour or … Continue reading Tories crushed by tactical voting

Both sides in the rail strike are keen to win the battle for public opinion, and both claim they are doing just that. What is the truth? Let us start with the rival claims. On Tuesday, the RMT union cited a survey published by Savanta ComRes, saying that 58 per cent backed the strike, far … Continue reading How to view the conflicting polls about the rail strikes

First a word of warning. This is not a normal blog. What follows is a lengthy look at how Labour could win the next election (or at least become the largest party) but why it has not yet found an effective strategy for appealing to two very different kinds of target voter. My analysis derives … Continue reading Why Labour must win over Jenny and Joe – and how it can

We all know the mantra. Britain has its problems but, for all its faults, our nation is a mature, stable democracy. We don’t do civil wars or revolutions. We haven’t been occupied since 1066 or lost a major war since America gained its independence. Fascists, Nazis and Communists have never broken through. A British version … Continue reading The fragile roots of Britain’s democracy

We shall come to Partygate, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party in a moment; but first, a question. Do we have a soul and, if so, where is it?  In 1869, Friedrich Goltz, a German physiologist, wanted to find out. He conducted an experiment with two frogs. One had its brain removed, while … Continue reading Why today’s Conservative Party resembles a frog with no brain

These should be happy days for Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister has a comfortable majority in Parliament. His Labour opponent, Keir Starmer, is struggling to enthuse Britain’s voters. He is emulating his hero, Winston Churchill, in his rhetorical defiance of Vladimir Putin and his military support for Ukraine. Indeed, Johnson enjoys great popularity in parts … Continue reading Boris Johnson is not running Britain. He’s running scared

CONSERVATIVES  Good news: For a government fighting elections in mid term, their 33% share of the vote was reasonable. (I am using the figures produced by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Nuffield College, Oxford. They draw on a much larger sample of wards than the BBC, which gave the Tories 30%.). Overall, the Tories … Continue reading This is how the parties really did in the local elections

This weekend, will Boris Johnson claim to be a latter-day Lazarus? Will Labour predict that Keir Starmer is on his way to Downing Street? Will the Greens and Lib Dems boast that they have broken through? The answer to all these questions may well be “yes”. Local elections week has its own special rhythm. Ahead … Continue reading Who’s really up and who down? A survival guide to the local elections