New polling in Manchester from YouGov:
Manchester uses the SV voting system, which automatically redistributes second-choice votes of all those ballots whose first choice was someone not in the top two. YouGov says:
“YouGov surveyed 2,200 people in Greater Manchester and finds that although Craig is set to fall short of the 50% of the vote needed to be elected after the first count, she holds 38% of first preference votes in our model’s central estimates. Joining Craig in the second round is likely to be her fellow Manchester councillor Sian Astley of Reform UK, who takes 24% of first votes.
Once the second preferences of eliminated candidates’ supporters are accounted for, our model projects that Bev Craig is on course to win on the second count by a margin of 62% to 38%.”
Labour’s changes to the voting system making things a little easier – nothing to see here…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”