Monthly Archives: January 2019

‘Tim Bale: Johnson and Rees-Mogg are still in with a shout in the race to succeed May’, ConservativeHome, 7 January 2019

In order to stay in office, the Prime Minister had to promise her party that she would be gone before the next election.  But there’s little agreement among Conservative members – and even less agreement among Conservative voters – as … Continue reading

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‘People want to have their cake and eat it’, Involve, 24 January 2019.

‘Jesus.  Never mind having their cake and eating it, too.  They want the flipping moon on a stick.’ Whether that’s how politicians and staffers will actually react to What People Want to see in Parties, I’ve no idea.  But I confess: … Continue reading

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‘Theresa May asks her MPs to ‘think about history’. She should do so too’, Evening Standard, 18 January 2019

As the smoke clears at the end of one hell of a week at Westminster, Theresa May has to choose between her party and her country. Either she decides to risk the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal on … Continue reading

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‘Would a Norway option break the Brexit stalemate? Here’s what new polling tells us’, The Conversation, 16 January 2019

The Labour politician Jim Callaghan famously remarked to his colleagues in 1970 that a referendum on Europe might end up being “a little rubber life raft” into which they all might one day have to climb. Just five years later they did … Continue reading

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‘The opposite of enthusiasm: why do people support or oppose the Brexit deal?’, YouGov, 15 January 2019 (with Stephen Fisher and Eilidh Macfarlane).

We know – at least we think we know – that voters don’t think much of Theresa May’s deal.  But we don’t really know why – until now, perhaps.  A YouGov survey of 1754 adults in Britain conducted on 7-8th January … Continue reading

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‘Why is the Brexit Deal so unpopular?’, What the UK Thinks, 11 January 2019 (with Stephen Fisher).

Ever since the EU withdrawal deal was published in November, Mrs May has been struggling to persuade MPs to back it. On Tuesday, we should learn whether she has eventually managed to win them over or not. Her attempts to do so have not … Continue reading

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‘Jeremy Corbyn’s successor may be more establishment than you expect’, New Statesman, 3 January, 2019.

Those who sign off their tweets with #JC4PM2019 may find it difficult to contemplate but sometime, somehow, their man will eventually have to give way to a successor. It may not happen soon. But it will happen. No one, least … Continue reading

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