James Crouch
@MrJCrouch
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Head of Policy & Public Affairs Research @OpiniumResearch. Have some public policy to develop and communicate? Get in touch.
London
Joined September 2011
Your random reminder from me that Malta voted to unify with the UK in the 1950s but was turned down.
I have arrived in Malta (33c). They have red post boxes and British plug sockets. This is a proper country.
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That being said, I have two questions. 1. Why is the prime minister getting his own lunch? .2. Why are we not providing it in Downing Street? . This man is governing our country, he's not just some middle aged bloke in a city job.
Evening Standard gets all snobby about the sort of lunch that literally everyone with a job in London has every other day… and then wonders why people don’t want to read it.
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This sound suspiciously like working in an office.
Boris Johnson on wfh culture: 'You spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back and then forgetting what it was you're doing. '.
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It feels like the reasons why this is the case should be complex. But no!. Why the Naples-Bari Line cost ~60% more than Tours-Bordeaux Line is probably specific & technical. Why it costs us 5-8x more to build can only be due to humungous glaring issues in how we do this.
Phase 1 of High Speed 2 (🇬🇧) will cost £396m per mile of track. 🇮🇹Naples-Bari Line: £74m per mile.🇫🇷Tours-Bordeaux: £46m per mile.🇯🇵Hokkiado Shinkansan: £51m per mile
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I'm sure Robbie Moore is an excellent MP, but going through the election results and occasionally I come across one like this and have to ask "what on earth happened here?" .Bellwether seat. Essentially no swing. Tory hold despite massive Lab majority. Bradford suburb. Wild.
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As fun as this is, it doesn't get around the problem:.1. London has immigration levels that make it v hard for UK-born to compete for housing. 2. People are forced out of London to SE due to this combined with low building. The need *in* London. remains greatest.
Ministers will tilt housebuilding targets away from Labour-supporting big cities towards more rural Tory heartlands and stop councils from blocking developments because they are “out of character” with their surroundings.
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@JoelTaylorhack Fully on board with bringing it back. Soho’s reputation is as the vice capital and party capital of London, residents surely chose that?.
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@TomHulme79 The BBC are going to have harder time with documentaries on the death of Her Late Majesty or the 2019 election.
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@tom_pridham I mean, I’d vote for anyone standing on a platform of free workplace meals for middle aged blokes in city jobs.
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It has been 9,931 days since William Hague became Tory leader. This means Hague's leadership is nearer in time to Ted Heath's 1970 election win than it is to the current Conservative leadership race.
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@markaizatt @allymackenzie17 I believe the latter was the reason why UK MPs weren't keen. Essentially they were worried it would become a model for other colonies and a then a big chunk of the British HoC would be colonial representation.
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@LauraHAllain @MrPranPatel @AlisonKriel @lizpemtbnm @N8Holder @KateRoseWill @MrCaseyBailey @MegRoughley @rrunsworth @ShaiHussain @EmmaValerio82 Just to flag this isn’t factual. St George was a Christian of Greek origin, as Greeks lived throughout this area at the time. The area was a Roman province and he, like his father, was in the Roman army. Thinking of him as either a Turk or an Arab is a false reading.
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@JoelTaylorhack I don't pretend to be an officianado of all things Soho, but I think it being the party district predates the move to bring in a greater residential community 40-50 or so years ago. If Soho can't have open air bars & restaurants, where in London can?.
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@Edtechris In simple arithmetic terms there was an 11% swing nationally from Con to Lab. Here it was 0.3%. I think that's noteworthy.
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The reason why I could only get a 2 bed flat is because there aren't enough 3 bed houses. The reason why my 2 bed flat was hideously expensive is because there aren't enough of either. The reason council flats are £500k in SW12 is because there aren't enough of all of the above.
‘It’s not enough just to deliver grain [to the famine-struck region] — it needs to be affordable grain.’. We would never say this about delivering food to a starving population, so why do some say it about housing?
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I agree with this. It's no longer as straightforward as Labour's old Leave seats that switched to the Tories. Some 'red wall' places Tories have had pretty respectable mid-term results. In some others like Cumberland they've had a kicking. What it is that defines them?.
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Actually I did once have the pleasure of being on a panel with @_RobbieMoore, so I should firstly have extended huge congratulations to him for his success this week.
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This is taking 'father of the nation' too far.
The French president is stepping in after the country's birth rate hit its lowest point since World War II.
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@lewis_goodall @ZachElsbury They do. There is a public gallery that can and is attended by members of the public, as well as journalists whose job it is to relay court proceedings. It's not secret, it's just not a TV circus.
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The final two has got to be Jenrick vs Cleverly or Tugendhat. There just isn't much room for Kemi's votes to go further.
Kemi Badenoch mounts comeback .as Mel Stride is knocked out of Tory leadership race. Jenrick: 33.Badenoch: 28.Cleverly: 21.Tugendhat: 21.Stride: 16. James Cleverly had been expected to pick up votes and even leapfrog Badenoch but has instead stood still.
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Sadly the the problem is really with those targeting MPs. Neave, Gow, Berry, Bradford murdered by the IRA. John Major was mortared. Thatcher almost killed in Brighton, others seriously hurt. To my knowledge, Parl suggested nothing other than carry on in spite of them.
Harriet Harman says MPs safety fears could be allayed by returning to hybrid voting and speaking. She wants a speakers conference on the issue. Says MPs should not feel under pressure to change how they vote and they have been @AndrewMarr9 @LBC.
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I’ve never been so happy in my life!! Thank you to @OpiniumResearch for all the fantastic opportunities I’ve had and the @TweetMRS for helping us to be part of the most exciting sector to work in! #MRSAwards.
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Just seen the results of our first poll of the campaign! 👀. Follow @OpiniumResearch and @ObserverUK for the first of (at least) 7 polls we'll be conducting throughout the campaign - tables released tomorrow evening. #GE24.
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This is literally untrue. UKIP got more than 3 times the votes the Greens got in 2015. People supportive of PR would have had 80 UKIP MPs, not 1. Think of FPTP as 650 town halls. If you can't convince any of those halls to elect you, you don't get rep in the Commons.
The first-past-the-post electoral system - an open door for extremists. #democracy - it would be a good 💡 . @MakeVotesMatter @UnlockDemocracy.
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@drjennings Not to be pedantic, but isn't the 17th century actually 1601 to 1700, rather than 1600 to 1699?.
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After inflation I think its nearer £500 million extra a week. The government has spent the money without being willing to 1) properly tell us it has 2) argue whether this is good or bad and 3) say what that means / should mean for the future of the NHS. It's extraordinary.
This is genuinely the first time I have seen a Cabinet minister explain that "more than £350 million a week" has been added to the NHS budget. Bonkers that they refused to make this point years ago.
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I feel like all this chart tells me is that confidence votes are triggered at similar points in a leader’s unpopularity with their colleagues.
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Rushed calcs from me. Red Wall/marginals.= 3-4% swing to Lab from GE19 .= 2% swing to Con from LE18. Safer Tory/ex-LD territory.= 9% swing to Lab from GE19 (due to big Con drops to LD/Grns really).= 3% swing to Lab from LE18.
Key point: lots are erroneously saying Labour is not 'winning back' the Red Wall. Change in these elections is on 2018. In 2018, Labour *had* the Red Wall nationally. Labour standing still or even going back slightly in Red Wall areas in these elections *is* progress for Labour.
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@Channel4News I'm quite disappointed in @Channel4News for taking a terrible assault on a couple and turning it into 'so what do you think about that bastard Johnson?' I'm assume C4 thinks someone like me would look at this and nod/agree (I agree with her statement), but I'm not impressed.
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The problem the Tories have in exploiting this bad week for Labour is that on Friday morning we'll be hearing headlines about Wellingborough and Starmer will have the breathing space he needs.
Could Wellingborough be the Tories' worst-ever by-election? Quite possibly, yes. For comparison, and old times' sake, here are a few other contenders for that title. Short thread:.
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From a guy who used to a lot of research for financial services comms. We avoided lots of consumer fieldwork in Jan on the basis everyone felt poor and depressed. If Sunak chose Jan 2025 I think he'd need his head examining.
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@hadaway83 @BenZaranko @JohnRentoul @TheIFS @trussliz Tongue in cheek: I think there was (is?) a serious green argument that economy designed for GDP growth naturally lent itself to destroying the planet and the yardstick of the economic should be happiness instead, even if it meant GDP reduction (or something like that).
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@Ben_Walker87 That's incredibly impressive. Very very few MPs can claim that level of personal local support.
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The amount of people in this video I can’t even imagine being in the same room as each other now. Far too much has happened in the intervening 13 years.
Currently watching some old Conservative party political broadcasts (cos I’m all about fun) and came across this one from 2011. I…think it’s quite good?
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Since 2001 there have been 5 leaders of the Conservative Party. David Cameron was Conservative leader for half of that time.
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When I was 22 this was the sort of thing I liked to write to the editor of @thetimes. No regrets.
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‘My father left school at 13 & created jobs. I, much more educated, went into the professions but never created any jobs”. A vague idea struck me (not on jobs). Has over-reliance on increasing education & going into professions actually contributed to productivity problems?
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@TypeForVictory Means test for those with huge pension and investment assets certainly. Residential home I consider unacceptable. * Genuinely rich older people - fine.* Many older people who happen to live near London - screwed.* Everyone else - fine. It'd target middle/above middle OAPs.
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The greatest opportunities in the UK remain in London. If the children of today cannot live and work in London, because they simply cannot compete with the global capital and manpower entering internationally, many young people will say Labour didn't help.
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What is the House of Commons again? One might even call it. a citizens' assembly.
NEW: Labour will introduce citizens' assemblies to decide contentious issues, such as Lords reform and housebuilding. Sue Gray has told @TomBaldwin66 of the “transformational” success of bodies in Ireland that built consensus for constitutional change.
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Tom Holland speaks movingly and persuasively about the fundamental role Christianity has in the West's conception of right and wrong, who we are, and as the true basis of our human rights. Yet another break with ourselves, and precious few leading us care.
For all the anti-Christian/anti-religionists out there, you are now living in a post-Christian/secular society, ONS figures demonstrate that, which begs the question: are we actually better off bc of it? Are we happier? More rational? More cohesive as a society? Really?.
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Labour has done a good job on talking tough and putting the blame on the last govt, but it needs to give voters some hope. Over half doubt Labour's ability to make things better, with concerns over fairness and honesty in the upcoming "painful" budget.
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If I was PM for the day I would command the ONS to expand every single statistic it currently only provides for England to be for the whole UK. Sure, devolution, but Ayr and Antrim aren't foreign countries.
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However, up until Liz Truss the pattern of this parliament looked much closer to the former rather than the latter chart. The question for me still remains, how much progress can the govt make in the next 6 months.
End of 2022 poll update! Labour has the biggest lead of any opposition party at this point in the Parliament since 1995
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Don’t mean to kick a decent man with he’s down. But. Only Sunak could schedule an election with the worst economic figures appearing in the campaign and the best appearing in week 1 of the new government.
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These are not equivalents. God give me strength.
Tube driver who led chant of 'free, free Palestine' on an Underground train is suspended. Would this have happened if he was chanting “Free Ukraine” ?
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Khan ahead in West Central when he wasn't before. 5% swing. And Outer London isn't coming to help. Bexley and Bromley, same swing there. London is re-electing Sadiq Khan to a third term. #LondonMayorElection #le2024.
And another >4% swing in Greenwich & Lewisham. Khan's team will feel pretty confident. There would need to be a huge swing to Susan Hall in outer London back to Susan Hall to make her election likely. #le2024.
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@MrPranPatel @LauraHAllain @AlisonKriel @lizpemtbnm @N8Holder @KateRoseWill @MrCaseyBailey @MegRoughley @rrunsworth @ShaiHussain @EmmaValerio82 More that Turkey didn’t exist then and the Arabs only conquered the area near the end of St George’s life / after. It’s not how he would have described himself, it doesn’t seem an accurate way to describe him anyway, so surely we all agree that’s important?.
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I'm actually a huge advocate for the office. But not because you waste time at home. You waste time in both the office and at home, just the time wasted in the office is more social which tends to be far more rejuvenating for productivity.
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Most Tory view I possess: Young people who go straight into politics is bad for them (how many talents <30 have we burned through in this parliament already), and probably not that great for politics either. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither should your parly career.
Obsessed with the pictures of the first evidence session for the Youth Select Committee
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What does the Conservative Party's performance in these local elections mean? Let's start with comparing it to the 7 parliaments before it, and see what we patterns/baselines/examples we can draw upon. #le22
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No words for this one. No words. #GE24.
James has just seen the results of this week's @OpiniumResearch / Observer poll. If you too want a piece of this action keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow night.
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Completely agree with all of the below, saw the same in our Opinium poll where the Tory lead went from 14 to 20. Yes, National Service got everyone talking, but far too many of them were saying that they didn't like it and didn't want it, and here's the result.
EXPLAINER: Why has Labour gone from a 12-point lead to a 17-point lead in a week? . Two main shifts:. 1. Early middle-aged voters: Labour has seen a 9-point jump in its support with early middle aged voters (35-49), now taking 61% of this group to the Tories’ 16%. 2. Squeezing.
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For some reason I've just realised that up until last Autumn, David Cameron and Tony Blair shared a unusual special place in history. They had only ever sat in the prime minister's seat at the cabinet table. That unique place in history has returned solely to Blair.
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If this is the case, there are not words for me to adequately describe how stupid this is as an approach. MPs jobs are to choose the best two to go to members, not a good and a bad. Best case you get a bad contest, worst case you get a bad leader. #ToryLeadership.
After result yesterday I had a chat w a senior Cleverly organiser who told me they'd picked who they wanted to be up against in final two. Is it possible that his team were SO sure they were over the line they lent votes to another camp to skew result? Huge miscalculation if so.
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Cpt @JamesEnders shared this earlier. The thing isn't just we used to get excellent work trips to places such as Barcelona, but that we can't imagine a better bunch of people to be coming with us. 11+ months into Covid. Still thriving, still the best, still us. @OpiniumResearch.
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I know not the point BUT she is not Lady Michelle Mone. Michelle Mone, Lady Mone = life peer 👍.Lady Michelle Mone = daughter of a duke, marquess or earl 👎. (Only other example of the genre is Michelle Mone, Lady Barrowman = wife of a knight, which Doug is not 👎).
What is @RishiSunak talking about? . I was honest with the Cabinet Office, the Government and the NHS in my dealings with them. They all knew about my involvement from the very beginning.
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I understand leaders meet a lot of people and that this is problematic in a pandemic. But how has this man got had to isolate 6 times but the Prime Minister, the literal head of the government, only got it once about 20 months ago?.
Keir Starmer has tested positive for COVID and will miss PMQs. The Labour leader also tested positive in October 2021 and will now - if my maths is correct - have self-isolated six times.
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So incredibly excited to be a finalist at the Young Researcher of the Year at #MRSAwards this year!! Thank you to the wonderful @OpiniumResearch for the fabulous opportunities to do the amazing work we do!.
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I had the pleasure to attend @NextGenTories packed reception last - a true sign that many Conservatives are still determined to engage with working age voters. In the words of @TomTugendhat: “you are the answer to the question this conference is asking”. #cpc24
The Next Gen Tories plan must be at the heart of the Conservative rebuild. Storming speeches from @RobertJenrick and @TomTugendhat at our reception.
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The biggest lesson for this Conservative Party: 4 years later they made 116 gains and won 272 seats, only two behind the Liberals who had lost their landslide. Don’t waste those years.
Arthur Balfour’s Conservatives won only 156 seats in the 1906 General Election. To this day the worst result in the history of the Conservative Party.
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@AdamWisdish @FredTitmus @BootstrapCook @tomhfh As I’ve seen you post this several times. There are over 6 million 11-18s, so turnout is about 8-9% at best. This is not a national election and they have no democratic legitimacy. I’m sure it’s interesting for those participating but that’s it.
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Rishi Sunak really appears to have increased in confidence since Uxbridge. He's found a way to get on the front foot, lead the narrative, and divide the opposition in a way that seems to have evaded him beforehand. Not going to say I expected it now though.
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I had this experience at 10am. If you want a newspaper today, you are too late.
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It’s been a crazy hectic week in the run up to party conference, but I’m incredibly proud of my colleagues at @OpiniumResearch for the huge work they’ve done ahead of Labour and Conservative Party conference this year. See those of you going from this weekend!.
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@rcolvile @michelledonelan This shows some of the bad faith interviewing of this nature from broadcasters and journalists that politicians get. I think the media have just got ingrained in their own mind that this is doing us a service, when it really really isn't.
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@Channel4News The man uses outrageous language, it's quite unsurprising now. Johnson has consistently voted for and promoted gay equality. The idea that Boris writing 'bumboys' is a sign of him being root-cause of the near-evil teens that attacked these women is obscene.
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Hearing the important messages from @alexandrabulat and @the3million about how we need a declaratory registration system and not an application system for settled status for EU citizens at @britishfuture event #lab19
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But, it is worth stating that this decline is due to fewer "cultural Christians" in the UK, basically fewer "oh yeah, I'm CofE" types. > Roughly 1in20 of all ages under 65 identify as Christian & attend church.> But the % of non-church going Christians is declining drastically
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I still find it extraordinary that Blair is the only person born after the Treaty of Versailles to win an election for Labour.
“If you look at the last 11 elections, it goes: Lost, lost, lost, lost, Blair, Blair, Blair, lost, lost, lost, lost”. Alastair Campbell tells Labour MP Nadia Whittome the party needs a “fundamental rethink” on its election messages to voters. #politicslive
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Which is why when people I see on social media scream about Israeli attempts at "genocide", I simply say: what "genocidal" state allows the group it's supposedly targeting to make up a fifth of its citizenry and encourages them to fully participate in politics and society?.
Arab Israelis, about 20% of the population, are well aware they have a more political & religious freedoms, a better standard of living & live in a safer society than the neighbouring Muslim Arab countries. Why would they want to support Hamas & betray Israel?.
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After the extraordinary @OpiniumResearch poll this weekend, here are a few thoughts from me on why so many made the wrong assumptions about what would happen in the late stages of #Brexit. #ep2019
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Also is an eg. of how the anti-woke right misjudge the mood:.Anderson: "virtue signalling, namby-pamby, pearl-clutching woke nonsense".Starmer: "the flag is used by everybody, it's unifying, it doesn't need to change. We just need to be proud of it.". Starmer hits the right note.
Nike purple St George’s cross a good eg of how many ‘culture wars’ aren’t really wars. Most don’t animate many & involve small online minority and some like this are where a corporate does something silly/misguided and people across spectrum from Keir Starmer to Rishi Sunak agree.
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This slightly haggard look, with a heavy bag in one hand and a double-strength Pret in the other, is the energy I'll be channelling tomorrow when I fully return to work after my extended post-election holiday.
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Just a few minutes of casual conversation – people being themselves (more or less). It's the kind of content we're pretty accustomed to nowadays, but there's something so charming about having a glimpse of it with significant figures from the past.
"Someone once asked me have I had my face lifted. I said it hadn't dropped yet.". —Margaret Thatcher, Behind the Scenes Pre-Interview Footage for ITN (1984)
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This was always going to happen. The Conservatives will want Labour to have to confront this problem in government, win political points from opposing them, then not bring it back in themselves when they get back into office.
🚨 Jeremy Hunt confirms pensions triple lock will be in the Tory manifesto . Comes after he suggested it was ‘under review’ in the long term - and after worries on the Tory side of a pensions backlash since the spring budget.
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Great to see @Ed_Miliband attend the @RenewableUK and praising the excellent work they do: “they are so much more than a trade body” and so they are!
Fantastic turnout for the @RenewableUK reception at #Lab24 Conference, with a clear direction of travel hopefully to be set by this government for the next 5 years.
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As someone who bought a new build in 2021, and was born in 1991, this will never not be mad.
Your council tax bill will forever be based on what a bored estate agent driving along your street in 1991 guessed your house was worth. (If your home was built more recently it's a guess of what the estate agent would have guessed *if the house had existed* in 1991.).
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A key reason why a snap election on Rwanda is a bad idea. It'll be about immigration for 4 days then Starmer will announce a policy on cost of living and suddenly we're in a 6-week campaign between a Labour platform for government versus a Tory death spiral on immigration.
For the last time, you don't get to pick what the election is about.
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So proud of the work we’ve done with our favourite clients and partners @EPO_lse @LSEnews @BritishCouncil #MRSawards
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Surely we can narrow this down to only a handful of Tory MPs who have the cultural knowledge to make this reference?.
A senior Tory MP messages: “He’s going to hang on and destroy the house like Samson tearing down the walls of the temple.”.
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@KateWilliamsme She had bad press, but she's not the first Royal to have abysmal press, and she is the first to quit within 20 months. Charles was almost a national hate figure for years, he's still there, because to quit is a slap in the face to everyone else who went through it and didn't quit.
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This isn’t how general elections work. If you don’t have a whole platform for govt to put to people small boats will be in the news for a day or two and then it’ll be 6 weeks of Starmer’s agenda dominating the campaign.
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The government's majority is scarily closed to being halved.
Lee Anderson has lost the Conservative whip after failing to apologise for Islamaphobic comments. He has now become the 19th Independent MP, and reduces the Government's official majority to 46.
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Thanks to an idea espoused by this Lib Dem peer, I can't wait to see Lib Dem candidates disqualified en masse.
"We could amend our election laws and say, any politician who uses [false information on social media], we will disqualify them". Former Facebook executive Richard Allan says the UK must update "election law for the internet age". #BBCLauraK
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@JoelTaylorhack From what I can tell using the pop figures of St Anne's, Soho, until the 1890s 16,000 people lived there. It'd already dropped to 6,000 by 1920 and it's now barely 2,000. Wish I could figure out between 1920 & 2021, but I think more people live on my road than the whole of Soho.
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In 1992, when Alan Milburn won Darlington, his supporters (I can only assume) began chanting Rule, Britannia! . Starmer's patriotism project isn't about making that compulsory, but making us all believe that it wouldn't be odd / antithetical to Labour's brand for it to happen.
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I used to think Keir Starmer was the unluckiest Labour leader (starting the pandemic, Brexit etc). I'm now beginning to suspect he might be the luckiest. Partygate, Truss, potential decline of SNP, all landing in his lap.
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@BNHWalker It's part of the UK that used to be very marginal but has since shifted very strongly towards the Conservatives. I think it should have a name. It was v important to the story of 2015, and at least worthwhile paying attention to in '17 and '19.
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