According to YouGov, the Party commands a plurality of voters only among the over 70s. As far as voting intention is concerned, the Conservative Party is literally dying on its feet.
Liz Truss has called the policy “profoundly unconservative”. What’s unconservative? Discuss. But what can certainly be said is that it’s illberal and, in this case, Party members line up with individual freedom against government coercion.
Mike Freer’s announcement is a significant milestone. As he prepares to leave the room, Labour is knocking on the door. We have little sense of how it would rearrange the furniture.
P.S: A poll that compared Sunak’s performance against Sir Keir to, say, Kemi Badenoch’s, Penny Mordaunt’s and James Cleverly’s might tell us something worth knowing. This morning’s nugatory exercise does not.
In Gremlins Two, the loveable creatures are electrocuted into putrified jelly. The film bears no report that eleven survived.
Most Conservative MPs are desparate to avoid one any time soon. It may not have occured to some that bringing down the Bill could bring about precisely the outcome they want to avoid.
“It seems a mighty coincidence that it has just popped up at this particular moment.”
Sir Keir will have to work hard to keep his party on the right side of the line. Which will require withdrawing the whip from any Labour MPs who support attacks on our troops.
How James Arbuthnot and Nadhim Zahawi played important and different parts in the sub-postmasters’ campaign for justice.
Farage is 59 – a rubbery, ebullient 59, but 59 nonetheless. Does he really fancy a decade’s prospective work to recast the right, with no certainty of elected office at the end of it?
The danger is that the conflict slowburns into a wider one, with hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies accelerating, and knock-on consequences for inflation and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The longer Number Ten fails to declare, the more cheerfully Labour will pile in – preparing to frame the Prime Minister as a bottler if he waits until after the Budget to rule out a May poll.
The channel will help to shape Tory members’ take on the general election, the Conservatives, Reform UK, Farage, post-election debate…and, not least, America’s own election, Trump and Biden.