If the Hartlepool by-election “were held tomorrow”, Labour would almost certainly hold on to the seat, says the New Statesman’s political editor Stephen Bush.
But “the election is not being held tomorrow, and what we don’t know is whether the increase in the government’s fortunes has yet reached its peak”, he continues. That said, “you’d expect a Labour hold” as opposed to “a Conservative triumph” in a seat that has never voted Tory.
HuffPost executive editor Paul Waugh is more confident that Starmer’s party will prevail, arguing that “with the right candidate, Labour should be increasing its majority in Hartlepool, not hanging on for dear life”.
By Monidipa Fouzder2021-02-05T12:30:00+00:00
This weekend marks 103 years since the Representation of the People Act 1918 received Royal assent. As well as giving the vote to all men over the age of 21, the legislation created the first steps towards full suffrage, letting women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications vote too.
Significant progress towards gender equality has been made since then, but as a bill presented to parliament this week shows, the journey is not over.
On Thursday, the government introduced the
Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill to make provision for ministers, opposition office holders, law officers and the lord chancellor to take maternity leave.
Politico
There’s a new political podcast on the block, as if we haven’t got enough already. Time will tell if this one – hosted by Jack Blanchard – has the necessary addictive qualities to attract a large audience. Blanchard is known to Westminster insiders through his three-year editorship of the Politico London Playbook early morning email. This became essential reading for any Westminster watcher or player, and this first episode is devoted to how it came into being and what it’s like to write it. Pretty dry fayre, you’d think, but Blanchard interviews others who write these emails, like Ben Brogan, who really pioneered the genre back in the day when he worked for the Telegraph. Paul Waugh from HuffPo and Esther Webber from the Times Red Box also appear, as well as George Osborne, who had some good tales to tell. At first, I thought it might be a bit too “in”, but as the 37 minutes came to an end, I came to reflect that this is just the sort of stuff that you used
(Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
NHS Nightingale hospitals in Manchester, Harrogate and Sunderland have been put on standby as coronavirus infections in the regions soar.
Revealing that there are now more patients in hospital with Covid-19 than when the government ordered the lockdown in March, the medical director of NHS England, Professor Stephen Powis, said: “As the infection rate has begun to grow across the country, hospital infections have started to rise.
“In the over-65s - particularly the over-85s - we are seeing steep rises in the numbers of people being admitted to hospital so the claim that the elderly can somehow be fenced off from risk is wishful thinking.”