The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: My deep dive into MRP polling – what it is, what it can tell us and why it may get the next general election wrong – has been one of the most popular editions of The Week in Polls so far. That piece concentrated on evidence from the UK. But MRP has been used in other countries too. How has it fared there? Find out more by reading this edition of The Week in Polls here, and you can sign up below ...
If I look back on this entry in years (or perhaps only months) to come, I shall have no idea what the old boy was on about. Wednesday I settle down with Rachel Reeves's new book: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Call me Ishmael. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. "Take my camel, dear,' said my Aunt Dot, as she ...
Ahead of the Autumn Statement the Financial Times quoted former Chancellor Philip Hammond as saying: 'the politician who is honest about the situation probably gets voted out.' Jeremy Hunt was less dishonest than the irrational right-wingers on the benches behind him who called for substantial tax cuts, but he gestured towards them in the 'cuts' he offered, his reiteration that 'Britain is a low tax country' and his claim that cuts in taxes (and therefore in public investment and services) is the surest path to economic recovery. There's a remarkably wide gap between our partisan debate and what expert economists ...
I wrote about John Carter when choosing his glorious faux Beach Boys record Beach Baby, which was a hit in the US too: The song was written by John Cater and his wife Jill Shakespeare. Carter had already written Funny How Love Can Be for The Ivy League and Let's Go to San Francisco for The Flowerpot Men. He had also sung the lead on Winchester Cathedral (in reality recorded by a group of session musicians but credited to The New Vaudeville Band) and backing vocals on The Who's I Can't Explain. The First Class did not exist any more ...
This news in today's Independent illustrates a stark political fact: you can make all the promises you like but if the infrastructure is not there to deliver on them then you will be found out. In this case the pledge to expand free childcare for British families has been earmarked as being doomed for failure because thousands of nurseries have shut their doors amid a staffing crisis. The paper says that new figures from school inspectors Ofsted show that 3,320 of the 62,300 nurseries and childminders for under-fives in England have shut their doors in the past year alone, leaving ...
The Lib Dems have called on Rishi Sunak to strip Boris Johnson of his £115,000 a year ex-Prime Ministerial allowance and for the disgraced former PM to be barred from receiving future honours or a peerage. It comes ahead of Johnson's scheduled appearance at the Covid inquiry next week. The inquiry has already heard evidence that the response to the pandemic under Johnson's government was chaotic and filled with a callous disregard for the lives of the elderly. Boris Johnson's former Chief of Staff, Lord Lister, told the inquiry that the ex-PM said "let the bodies pile high" when presented ...
From the City Council : Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating SSEN works. The Order is expected to be in force for eight days from 4 December 2023. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order is to prohibit temporarily all vehicular traffic in Seafield Lane between Thomson Street and number 21 Seafield Lane. An alternative route will be available via Thomson Street, Perth Road and Seafield Lane. If you have any queries, please contact ...
