Peter Kellner, Freelance Journalist Profile

Articles

Who would benefit from a Reform-Tory pact?

2 days ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Peter Kellner

Conservatives who advocate an electoral pact with Reform might usefully start with a short news item in the Times of 3rd October 1903. It reported that the Liberals would run only one candidate in the two-seat constituency of Leicester and make room for a Labour candidate.
Labour is learning the wrong lessons

1 week ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Peter Kellner

Like a driver hurtling towards a cliff-edge who chooses to press the accelerator, Labour risks responding to last week’s elections in precisely the wrong way. It has time to draw back from the precipice, but not much. The argument that needs to be scotched goes like this. Reform is now Labour’s main threat. Its voters are committed Brexiters. Any whiff of friendship with Brussels will cost the party votes it can’t afford to lose.
Both Labour and the Tories should be terrified

1 week ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Peter Kellner

Last week, previewing yesterday’s Runcorn & Helsby by-election, I suggested a political version of the Micawber principle: victory by 50 votes, the result happiness; defeat by 50 votes, result misery. OK, Reform’s Sarah Pochin won by just six votes. But the principle holds; and by the same token Labour can celebrate three narrow mayoral victories overnight. However, Labour’s vote fell alarmingly in each of the mayoral contests; and early indications from county council contests confirm the pattern.
Prime Minister Farage?

1 week ago | kellnerp.substack.com | Peter Kellner

Friday evening update. My analysis this morning, below, was too cautious. Reform has done even better than I expected, and Labour and the Conservatives even worse. With most results now declared, Reform will end up with almost half of all county council seats on less than one-third of the vote. According to the BBC, yesterday’s votes convert into projected national shares of Reform 30 per cent, Labour 20, Liberal Democrats 17. the Conservatives 15 and Greens 11.
The local elections are a four-horse race

3 weeks ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Peter Kellner

Last week I discussed the long-term trends in party support. This week: the short term—what the coming elections can tell us about what is going on right now. In some ways next week’s contests are a weird group. There are no elections in Scotland, Wales, London or any of the great cities of the Midlands and north of England. Some areas have had their elections postponed ahead of a partial reorganisation of local government. As a result, fewer seats than normal are up for election.
The UK’s Labour-Tory duopoly is over

4 weeks ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Peter Kellner

In the months after a decisive election, voting intention polls have no predictive value. That is why I have largely ignored them so far. But tracked over time, they do tell us something. That is why I am writing about them now. They confirm that this time the century-long Labour-Tory duopoly really does look to be on the way out. The latest polls show a tight three-way race in mainland Britain, with Labour, Reform and Conservative all around 22 to 25 per cent.
Peace for our time?

1 month ago | kellnerp.substack.com | Peter Kellner

Below is the text of the Times editorial on October 1, 1938, on the Munich agreement which Neville Chamberlain had negotiated with Adolf Hitler. First a brief recap. Following the Anschluss in March 1938, when Germany annexed Austria, Hitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia. Around one in four Czechs were German speakers, mostly living in Sudetenland, close to the German border. With Hitler’s encouragement, the Sudeten Nazi party agitated for autonomy.
Eight million reasons to end this scandal

2 months ago | kellnerp.substack.com | Peter Kellner

At last I have good news for Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer. Their government can do something important to improve our democracy without ruining the public finances. It’s worth doing for its own sake but, as it happens, it would help Labour (or, more accurately, remove a hidden anti-Labour bias in the present system). A pilot scheme is underway in Wales to test how it would work. The Electoral Commission is keen on the idea. What’s not to like?
Tony Benn's lesson for Donald Trump

2 months ago | kellnerp.substack.com | Peter Kellner

In less than four years Donald Trump will be gone. No president may serve more than two terms. On January 20, 2029, his successor will be sworn in. In these dark days, that’s a crumb of comfort. Well, maybe. The two-term limit is enshrined in the 22nd amendment to the US constitution. It was passed in 1951 and decrees that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”. That seems pretty conclusive.
Americans already hate their president

2 months ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Peter Kellner

When Keir Starmer enters the Oval Office, Donald Trump is likely to boast about how popular he is and how strong his poll ratings are. Last Thursday he told reporters:“Let me just tell you that I have today the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had. I have today the highest poll numbers of any Republican president ever.”And in his speech given the same day at a dinner for Republican governors, he said: “I had an approval rating today of 71 and another one of 69.