Election 2019: Leaders travel across UK in final push December 11, 2019 Party leaders are travelling across the country today in a last ditch plea to appeal to voters before the polls open for tomorrow’s General Election. Boris Johnson got his day started before sunrise by doing a milk round in South Yorkshire. Read more: Election 2019: The many losers, and occasional winners, of the campaign He [...]
Election 2019: The many losers, and occasional winners, of the campaign December 11, 2019 The winter election has finally come – but was the campaign as bad as we thought? Here we round up the many losers, and occasional winners, of 2019… Tory rebel David Gauke might be about to lose his South West Hertfordshire seat to his Conservative replacement Gagan Mohindra, but the founding member of the Gaukward [...]
Political adverts disappear from Facebook’s online library December 11, 2019 Facebook came under fire yestderday as tens of thousands of political adverts disappeared from the social media firm’s online archive, two days before the UK goes to the polls. Adverts from the Conservatives, Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats can now no longer be found in the so-called “ad library.” Read more: The best and [...]
Michael Heseltine: Hung parliament better than Conservative majority under ‘flexible’ Boris Johnson December 11, 2019 If this election has proved anything, it’s that political allegiances aren’t what they used to be – not least when it comes to those normally found sitting in parliament. Which is why I find myself speaking to Tory grandee, former frontbencher and Conservative peer Michael Heseltine about his decision to back the Liberal Democrats over [...]
Yougov poll: These are the London seats tipped to swing for Labour December 11, 2019 Some of London’s longest-standing Conservative seats are tipped to swing for Labour in tomorrow’s election, according to the final Yougov poll. Released last night, the Yougov poll suggests a slim Conservative majority of 28 seats across the country, an increase of 22 on 2017, which would be enough for Boris Johnson to push through the [...]
Not quite Frost/Nixon: Boris Johnson hides in fridge as adviser rows with TV reporter December 11, 2019 A frustrated media adviser to Boris Johnson was filmed swearing at a reporter live on ITV this morning, as the Prime Minister retreated into a fridge in response to a request for interview. Johnson was participating in an early morning milk round in Yorkshire today when Rob Oxley blocked the path of an ITV reporter [...]
So you’ve won over Workington Man — what next? December 11, 2019 What do you do if you’re a Conservative leader whose flagship policy has split your party down the middle, with the result that you lost your working majority live on air as a coterie of former allies quit in protest? Answer: cast your net further afield. This is the Tories’ “Workington Man” strategy — the [...]
Are the televised election debates a waste of time in their current format? December 11, 2019 Are the televised election debates a waste of time in their current format? Stuart Thomson, head of public affairs at BDB Pitmans, says YES. Despite everyone’s hopes, the televised leadership debates have been a complete damp squib. They have been a waste of everyone’s time, revealing little that we didn’t already know and failing to [...]
Britain needs a ‘national’ health service, not a ‘nationalised’ one December 11, 2019 Throughout this election campaign, the Labour party has returned time and time again to the issue of NHS “privatisation”. This won’t have come as a surprise to anyone. Indeed, it is now standard fare during elections for the argument to be put that the government of the day is pursuing “backdoor” or “creeping” privatisation. But [...]
Institute of Directors members criticise Labour nationalisation plans December 11, 2019 Members of the Institute of Directors business body have criticised Labour’s plans to nationalise broadband, with 75 per cent of members calling the policy a bad idea in a poll. In a survey of over 1,000 of its members, the IoD also found that Labour’s broader plans to nationalise swaths of the economy would result [...]