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The Hartlepool by-election is a must win for both Johnson and Starmer – politicalbetting.com
The Hartlepool by-election is a must win for both Johnson and Starmer – politicalbetting.com
The above Ordnance Survey map shows the boundaries of the Hartlepool Westminster constituency which is set to be the first by-election of the 2019 Parliament and the first since both Starmer and Johnson became leaders of their parties. It is in a part of the world where I started my journalistic career and which I know very well. Indeed in a month’s time, assuming the lockdown easing goes to plan, I will be driving through the constituency on my way to a vacation on the Northumberland coast.
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In other news, the damage that the EU are doing to its own citizens and others around the world is incalculable. They are now climbing down on AZ but it's the shoddiest and most appalling chapter in a story of political dog-fighting and downright incompetence.
I expect all the Conservative candidate in Hartlepool needs to do is mention the UK vaccine success and the disgraceful scenes across the channel and he or she will tick all the right boxes for the denizens of Hartlepool.
If it happens then I'm not sure Keir Starmer will recover from the loss.
Wrong. The rest of the population isn’t paying attention to betting markets on a by-election.
The pressure is all on Labour to hold, but if it’s held on the same day as the locals then it will probably get lost in all the results.
"McKinsey: how private-sector technocracy took over
The pandemic-driven surge in management consultants is a serious threat to democracy.
Fraser Myers"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/15/mckinsey-how-private-sector-technocracy-took-over/
A great opportunity for the government to win a by-election gain, which doesn’t happen very often.
The pressure will be on Starmer if Labour lose the seat though, especially if they also lose control of Wales, overshadowing a successful night at the locals.
https://twitter.com/seanmagee/status/1371938159173455876?s=21
If the Conservatives take the seat it will be seismic. It was Peter Mandleson's seat, the High Priest of Blairism.
Unlike Sandpit I'm not convinced it will be close.
And McKinsey, of course, are the firm involved in the Oxycontin scandal in the US, advising the Sackler’s Purdue Pharma on cash incentives to pharmacies for pushing prescriptions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html
I suspect there's an a strong 'awkward squad' tradition there.
(FWIW the Pharma industry was well aware of the risks that Purdue was running - they turned up their nose at the company on multiple occasions)
What a weird situation that’s been allowed to develop, with regard to separation of powers and privilege of proceedings.
The pressure here is all on Labour to hold, but I don't think they're going to struggle. My expectation is that a large fraction of the 2019 electorate, especially the BXP voters, will stay at home and that Labour will win reasonably comfortably on a much-reduced turnout - and yes, I understand that a suite of local elections are taking place on the same day as well, but those hardly tend to inspire voter enthusiasm either. Ball park figures: I'd guess turnout of 30% and a Labour majority of 2,000.
That’s why they paid several hundred million dollars in fines.
Of course the company was to blame, but so were McKinsey.
I’m aware of the history - of course McKinsey showed rather less qualms than the rest of the pharma industry.
OTOH, local elections and parliamentary elections in the same area are capable of producing wildly different results, and I don't think that we can infer too much from the local authority in this instance.
But the settlement was just a classic US shakedown. I remember David Brennan telling me used to budget for $1bn a year in settlement payments
Surprised the Davis story isn't higher up the agenda. About number six on the BBC's politics page.
F1: there are some Ladbrokes specials on season long (all 23 races occurring) win/podium/points markets. The only one I'm considering is Perez at 2.25 to be over 11.5. That's 12/23, just over 50%.
If the Red Bull and Mercedes are roughly equal and far ahead of the rest, that's value, even with low odds and a long time.
Last year, of 17, Albon got 2 podium finishes (2 DNFs), Verstappen got 11, but had 5 DNFs so that's really 11 from 12.
Perez had 2, incidentally (and would've had at least one more but for the Bahrain DNF. He had 2 DNFs).
The intention is to frame the narrative that Boris is a failure by setting him an unreasonably high hurdle
a) it's very unusual for governments to pick up seats in mid-term by-elections
b) it wasn't even Labour's most vulnerable seat
c) a government with an 80-seat majority doesn't need more seats anyway - a bigger majority just encourages the awkward squad of backbenchers to get more awkward.
Nor, more controversially, do I think it's a must win for Starmer. Obviously it'll be hugely damagnig to Labour morale if he loses, but there isn't any credible alternative to him as leader, in the same way that the Conservatives have Sunak, Truss and one or two others. The Conservatives aren't exactly drowning in good senior ministers, but Labour's talent pool is barely even puddle-deep - Brown then Corbyn have seen to that.
https://twitter.com/johanknorberg/status/1371778021892497408
S’pose I’d better get some work done then. Laters.
There will obviously be lots of attention from the bubble, but its miles away from make or break for either leader.
Just because your being paid to advise on how to push addictive drugs doesn’t absolve you of blame.
You said yourself the rest of the industry was aware of the company’s practices (as were informed members of the public) - how much more aware would be those intimately involved in the management of its affairs ?
You’re effectively arguing that mercenaries bear no ethical responsibility for their actions.
My understanding is protection from the first jab is (slightly) declining by then?
Does the second jab also take two-three weeks post jab to have an impact?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/opinion/us-third-party-liberals.html
Though which will the London based media talk about more? This seat or the Mayor of London?
*snigger*
Tories will win because the 1 in 4 who voted Brexit Party will continue their political journey away from Labour to:
- reward Boris for getting Brexit done
- reward Boris for bringing jobs and investment to the NE. Including keeping Nissan in the NE, something that was still uncertain in December 2019.
- reward Boris for getting the jab to their granny, to their mam - and by voting day, to themselves. (If you want to see some REALLY cynical politics, expect to see the end of restrictions on meeting people advanced from 17th to 3rd May. Oh, is that just before voting on the 6th? Who knew....)
- stick the boot into Sir Keir Starmer for trying to use every wrinkle he could to get their Brexit vote overturned. The folk of Hartlepool are a liberal lot, Roger. They voted for that caricature embodiment of the homosexual, metrosexual London politico spin doctor, Peter Mandelson. But he hadn't tried to do them out of their Brexit result. Most things are taken in their stride in Hartlepool. But that? No way....
Candidate selection will be crucial. If the Tories can find a local pick that would help. Labour aren't - its either a Paul Williams fix or la Pidcock gets onto the shortlist thanks to hard left elements on the NEC. Either way neither is local. And local is very much an issue in Hartlepool looking at the warring factions of Hartlepool Independent councillors they now have.
I do wonder if a Paul Williams parachuting might play to Labour's favour though. OK so it loses them any chance of winning the PCC, but he is a well respected doctor. Play the health card - "I've been battling to save people from Covid and the Tories are scared of a public enquiry because they know what it will find". Might work. The entire campaign will be posted leaflets written elsewhere because have I mentioned that Hartlepool CLP is bonkers?
Ultimately it comes down to this. Its Super Thursday so turnout will be high. Most people will vote Tory for Mayor. Many of them will vote for their local flavour of anti-Labour for council. If the Labour candidate for MP is Paul Williams they will vote for the Tory for PCC. To then "loyally" vote Labour for MP is a stretch - once people start voting against, they keep voting against. And it is "AGAINST" Labour and not "FOR" any other candidate. Labour has become toxic on Teesside in a way that I can scarcely believe.
There are plenty of examples of London-centrism in the media - not convinced that this would be one of them.
https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1371920028682043392?s=21
https://twitter.com/asfarasdelgados/status/1372093441543442433?s=21
However, it's impossible to guess this one. 'Rona europhia could give the Tories a big boost - other Governments have benefited from this around the world - and Hartlepool is also part of the Towns Fund (and I wouldn't rule out the Tories making a big/bigger play out of that for the seat) so it's possible they get comfortably over 40% too.
It's probably about evens at present and 10/11 is good enough for me to back the Tories given the potential upside factor this year.
I think that makes him one to watch for future leader of the Labour Party.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/pressure-mounts-on-boris-johnson-to-launch-coronavirus-inquiry
But whether they win it or not that doesn't matter for Boris but losing it will be a blow to Starmer even though Labour realistically has little chance:
1) the local Labour party is in disarray, with a lot of in fighting and the saner (more centralist) members have left
2) they don't control the local council and that isn't going to change
3) the Conservative regional mayor is going to walk his re-election because he has delivered everything he promised.
Hartlepool and Darlington have always had a local rivalry (both our Football teams are crap but the towns are the same size and aren't Boro). While it's not accurate to say - look what you could have had and point at Darlington getting the Treasury (now estimated to be a 1000+ Government jobs btw as other departments send some of their treasury lobbying teams north) I'm sure that may encourage a few people to decide that pork belly politics could work for them
Not something likely to happen in the near future but it's certainly a possibility in the long run. It's difficult juggling multiple competing priorities.
Or the LibDems.
Either of those notions looks decades away.
There IS merit in asking questions about public procurement and the test and trace fiasco, but that's what the NAO and the PAC are for - we don't need an inquiry for that.
Guess it could still be useful if another different pandemic occurs in the next couple of decades, but after that the lessons will be forgotten.
A decline that was seemingly immediately reversed by a Tory regional mayor (if you ignore the end of austerity from Whitehall). And this then accelerated as the local councils started to shift away from Labour.
And if you look at things that way it's fully understandable why Labour is dying around here. The irony is that hald the reason they are suffering is the consequence of national (Osbourne / Tory) policies they had no control over.
I mean if you're going to chastise others for deceit or ignorance.....
Edit - Upon checking, she was retained as Victims' Commissioner by Boris Johnson, so it might be fair to say this government.
I mean he could have replaced her.
This is something that Westminster really needs to pick up and deal with. Members of the Scottish Parliament should have the same rights of privilege as MPs so that they cannot be bullied by a Lord Advocate who seems to have lost all judgment about the public interest. Civil Servants who lie and connive on behalf of their political masters must be sacked. The current role of the Lord Advocate is indefensible and needs to be changed.
Some things cannot be done. It is a matter for the SNP if Peter Murrell is a fit and proper person to be their chief executive although it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament as to whether or not he lied to them. It is a matter for the Scottish Parliament whether it has confidence in Nicola Sturgeon. But an institutional set up that has allowed the current abuses to go unchecked would embarrass a banana republic and has no place in a western democracy.
Both labour run councils yet South Shields (which for reasons I don't know, had money) spent money on libraries, improving the sea front....
Darlington council spent 3 years trying to close the local Library so it could save a £1m a year and try to keep the swimming pool open.
Class warfare really wasn't the issue here - it was a lack of money and a lack of imagination. And the rest of Teesside was the same
Does the labour candidate for Mayor really stand little chance ?
She seems quite hopeless but there is talk that local party bigwigs openly mock her and that makes me feel a little sorry for her.
I saw something she did on Twitter with Jet from Gladiators (it wasn’t a millennium barn dance in Yeovil aerodrome) which just seemed bizarre.
Hence a Cabinet Sec who quite honestly believed that an opposition MP embarrassing the Government with leaks should be arrested. He believed this, because the leaks were coming out ahead of the spin doctors attempts to spin stories in the press. This meant that the spin doctors were failing to control a story. Which meant that the spin doctors (technically civil servants) were unable to do their jobs "properly".
https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1372098638281895939
https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1372099970535469057
I think that this will be a low turnout low energy by-election with a Tory win. Labour will draw the wrong conclusion and double down on fun with flags.
He has:-
Saved the airport and brought in both local flights (Belfast, Bristol, London) and Ryanair.
Started to sort out Teesworks (you may remember that is why the Lib Dems won Redcar in 2010)
Definitely brought in local jobs (2000 in Boro building turbines, Treasury to Darlington)
So the odds of him not winning the election are zero and the vote won't be going to the second run. The only question is going to be the size of the victory.
Northern Independence?
New one to me.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR
To build a better, fairer and freer North for all.
To campaign for a referendum on the independence of the North, to be decided by the people of the North.
A green industrial rebirth.
WHO WE ARE
The Northern Independence Party is a democratic socialist party, who are committed to uplifting the voices of our members. We were founded in 2020 to combat the injustice of the north/south divide. We stand opposed to all forms of ideology based on hatred and bigotry.
https://www.freethenorth.co.uk/
I don't think Democratic Socialism appeals to either of us nor does Northern Independence.
10/11 each of two, and that is without the fringe parties running for him.
https://twitter.com/FreeNorthNow/status/1372100445582266376?s=20
These guys cannot be a serious party.
I mean boiling establishment piss.