The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is now out. As it says: The media and others often bestow on internal polls a sense of mystique and unique insight, making internal opinion polls sound exciting and especially revelatory. They are not... Yet they certainly sound more exciting – and hence, to take one example from my book which goes into this all in more detail, the Sunday Times story in 2020 about Boris Johnson being briefed on private polling ahead of the US election. There was nothing in it that you could not glean ...
The idea of sleeper trains is a romantic one and it is easy to forget that, not so long ago, they were headed the way of the dinosaur. Deutsche Bahn were so convinced of this that they decided to axe all of their sleeper trains. Fortunately, their Austrian neighbours saw an opportunity and bought all of the available rolling stock. The result was a network of routes based from Vienna that allow you to go to sleep in one city and wake up, hours later, a long way away and for no more than the cost of a cheap hotel ...
The Observer leader column today calls for voters in Tiverton and Honiton to vote tactically for the Lib Dems and voters to tactically vote for Labour in Wakefield. In an editorial that does not pull its punches, the Observer describes Conservative MPs who voted to keep Boris Johnson in office as "morally myopic and politically foolish". "A double whammy of byelection defeats will frighten Conservative MPs in red wall seats and those traditionally true blue. A scare, the bigger the better, is exactly what the Tories need before this government slithers into even worse degeneracy." The newspaper says there is ...
Kate Bush is back at the top of the UK singles chart 44 years after Wuthering Heights. This is a record gap and makes me feel rather old, because I bought her first album (The Kick Inside), which included that song, when it came out. But we won't worry about that. So here's another track from The Kick Inside.
There seems little prospect of this week's rail strikes being called off. Although workers at Transport for Wales are not striking, many at Network Rail are. As Transport for Wales uses Network Rail services, almost all its services will be cancelled on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Services on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, will be subject to some cancellations and overcrowding. Overcrowding is also expected today and on Monday 27 June. The advice is not to travel. TfW services Transport for Wales advises its customers only make essential journeys by train on 20, 22, 24 and 26 June, and not to ...
Sat, 12:36: Difficult for us in Northern Europe to see Mercury, but the rest should be possible. https://t.co/7DlfD5oYzW Sat, 12:59: RT @gregjames: OK it's happened. We have the best video ever https://t.co/CpkVpTVueC Sat, 13:22: "Sans papiers" by Sven 't Jolle, on display at the Parcum museum at the Abdij van Park near Leuven. https://t.co/0jhFYY7ewd Sat, 16:36: Saturday reading https://t.co/otm9328SEZ Sat, 18:41: Mort, by Terry�Pratchett https://t.co/yShNMc1BZ4 Sat, 20:48: RT @jasonintrator: Maybe there are more trans identifying kids because for a few brief years there was more acceptance, and not because it'... Sat, 21:18: Daily Quordle 145 6️⃣4️⃣ 8️⃣5️⃣ https://t.co/Cm9zc2fDBW https://t.co/c9KnKlNOJO Sun, ...
It's hard to think of a plausible route for securing electoral reform for the House of Commons which does not involve significant, and committed, support for it from the bulk of the Labour Party (both to win votes in the Commons and, if a referendum is involved, to win that too). As I wrote in Liberal Democrat Newswire last year: Labour has a long and sorry record of talking the talk on reform but then when it comes to the crunch deciding that hating the Conservatives matters more. Hence the apathy over AV in 2011. Hence the decision to help ...
Cheeseburgers and cars without seatbelts Big Macs are a thing of the past for Muscovites. McDonald's—along with 400 other Western businesses—shut down their Russian operations as part of sanctions against Putin's War in Ukraine. But the Russians have come with an answer. They have simply taken over the McDonald's outlets and handed them to oligarch Alexander Gorvov. The golden arches have been pulled down and Coca-Cola and Big Macs are off the menu. But there is some consolation for Russian carnivores– a double cheeseburger is 30 roubles cheaper. However, the rebranding of McDonalds does not mean that sanctions are failing. ...
Sun 19th
07:16
The big train ride, day 6 - a somewhat battered traveller detours in search of profit...
Morning, and time to assess the damage. The knees were somewhat beaten up, with cuts and scrapes the record of the previous day's mishap. But they were working, so it was time to get on with the show. And I had a plan... Before leaving Suffolk, I had rummaged through our "random currency box" and discovered that we had 81,000 Hungarian forints. And given that my only fixed point for the day was to catch a train from Vienna at 7.23 p.m., it was time to get inventive. There is a train service that runs every hour from Bratislava-Petrzalka station ...
Residents recently highlighted to us the deterioration in part of the road surface at Eton Street - see photo : We reported this to the City Council's Roads Maintenance Partnership and have since received this helpful reply : "Thank you for your report. An order has been raised for repairs to be carried out."
