Skip to main content

A SUMMER OF MAY? MAYBE, MAYBE NOT

Eyewear's spokesperson
As the now tired adage goes, a week is a long time in politics. A week ago we did not know Trump's secret weird word... and more seriously, much more seriously, the Manchester tragedy had not yet happened. But now, after several debate appearances on TV from Corbyn, the Labour leader, and astonishingly poor appearances and non-appearances from the PM May, the polls have begun to converge, like an iceberg and a stable ship. Nik Nanos, Canada's leading polling expert, predicted this a month ago. As in some ways does our Eyewear book Tactical Reading, published a week ago. Though still too early to tell - and given the ferocity and mendacity of the right-wing media here in Britain - it appears May is losing her landslide. Here are Eyewear's predictions on the possible outcomes in a week, 8th June, when the UK votes to elect a new government.

MAY'S TORIES WIN A SLIM MAJORITY/MINORITY GOVERNMENT - 30% CHANCE
MAY'S TORIES WIN A MAJORITY OF 50-80 SEATS - 25%
MAY'S TORIES WIN A LANDSLIDE OF 80-100 SEATS - 20%
HUNG PARLIAMENT, COALITION OF LABOUR/SNP - 15%
CORBYN'S LABOUR WINS A SLIM MAJORITY - 10%

As will be seen here, Eyewear (which accurately predicted a Trump victory) believes there is still a 75% chance that Ms May will be PM in a week - but there is now a 25% chance she will not be... sufficiently disconcerting, I would imagine, for her team.

It should be added, we are not impartial. Eyewear supported Remain, and opposes a hard Brexit, supports immigration, and is, broadly-speaking, in favour of Scottish nationalism, and a Lab-Lib coalition with the SNP.

Vote tactically. Keep The Nasty Party out of landslide territory. Give them a difficult time at the ballot box...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...