This speech from Niall Hodson, a Lib Dem councillor from the Brexit heartlands of Sunderland, is the most sane speech heard so far from LibDem conference. He was cautioning against the idea of revoking Article 50, stopping Brexit, without people being given a vote on the matter. The LibDems passed the motion.

The Lib Dems are enjoying one of their periodic resurgences – this time an electoral spasm from frustrated Remainers. The incoherence of their new position will not pass scrutiny in a general election given that in 2010 they campaigned for an In-Out referendum on our membership of the EU.

In 2016 they fought and lost the referendum they demanded. Now they are demanding the referendum result is ignored. The danger is one that only Norman Lamb recognises. They will be punished outside the Remain heartlands…

The Electoral Commission are appealing after their humiliating defeat in the High Court last week. They maintain that the advice they gave regarding the ability of Vote Leave to donate to other campaigns was correct. If they win this appeal then Vote Leave acted properly on their advice, if they lose it confirms they gave dodgy advice during the referendum. Either way this shows up the Electoral Commission to be an utter shambles.

Vote Leave boss Matthew Elliott has called on the Electoral Commission’s CEO Claire Bassett to “at the very least” consider her position:

“Leggatt’s judgement last week would drive a coach and horses through electoral law, so it’s understandable that the Electoral Commission is appealing it. But it also marked a humiliating defeat for the Commission, who were shown to have given duff advice to Vote Leave.

Along with the other Commission shenanigans of recent years, this whole situation raises questions about whether they are fit for purpose. At the very least, Claire Bassett should be considering her position.”

The call for heads to roll at the Electoral Commission is cross party…

Despite all the doom and gloom from the BBC, Faisal Islam, The Times, FT and Guardian, Brexiting Britain is actually happier:

Taking back control feels good, the statisticians cite ‘statistically significant improvements in average ratings of life satisfaction, feeling the things we do in life are worthwhile and happiness for the UK overall’. These are actual ONS figures, not a forecast…

Could this be because all the depressing forecasts of doom and gloom from the government and the media have turned out to be BS? Remember HM Treasury’s official guidance to voters, in a letter sent to each and every household, was that on a Leave vote Britain faced:

• a year-long recession
• loss of 500,000 jobs
• GDP around 3.6% lower

GDP has grown in every quarter by an average of 0.4% since the referendum. Weak growth is not a recession.

GDP is 6.1% higher than the Treasury forecast it would be, according to BrexitCentral.com that is equivalent to £135 billion of extra annual production over their estimate, or just over £2,000 for every man, woman and child.

317,000 new jobs have been created since the referendum, that is 817,000 higher than the Treasury forecast.

The Remainstream media reporting of those Treasury forecasts implied that those of us who wanted to Leave were, in the words of the then Chancellor George Osborne, “economically illiterate”. Leaving aside whether he should have accused us of being “economically innumerate”, it turned out it was in fact him who was totally wrong. 

Is Britain happier because the forecast doom and gloom has not materialised? There will be another happiness dividend when the new Project Fear claims of airplanes not flying, cancer patients going untreated and exports rotting in ports turns out to be untrue…

An academic study by a team of media studies professors* found that the Tory press is biased against Corbyn and the Labour supporting press is more favourable to Jezza. Taxpayers once again wasting money in academic studies of the bloody obvious. Well at least it keeps the hackademics off the streets…

They also found that the supposedly impartial broadcasters – the likes of Faisal and Peston – did give more airtime to pro-Remain voices during the referendum. Guido could have told them that for free…

*David Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Loughborough University; Dominic Wring, Professor of Political Communication, Loughborough University; Emily Harmer, Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough University; James Stanyer, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Loughborough University, and John Downey, Professor of Comparative Media Analysis, Loughborough University

YouGov reports that support for ‘hard remain’ is at just 22% among the electorate as remainers continue to switch en masse to embrace Brexit. As June 8 approaches the electorate is overwhelmingly pro-Brexit, with 68% believing that Britain must come out of the European Union. Leavers have been boosted by ‘re-leavers’ who did not support Brexit but say the government has a duty to carry out the democratic will of the people. YouGov analysis says:

“Simply put, Theresa May is fishing in a massive lake of voters with very little competition. Meanwhile the other parties are splitting the Hard Remain vote among themselves, something that in the first past the post system only serves to make the Conservatives an even more formidable electoral machine.”

May is hoovering up leave supporters regardless of their referendum vote or party allegiance… 

Professor bob Watt, an expert in electoral law from the University of Buckingham, has made a complaint about “undue influence” to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Under electoral law “undue influence” includes the use of “a fraudulent device or contrivance” to “impede or prevent or intend to impede or prevent the free exercise of the franchise”. The eccentric Professor “bob” – he insists on the lower case ‘b’ –  claims there were “instances where the leave campaigns continued to make assertions of fact that were knowingly misleading”. In particular the famous £350 million claim.

He says his “primary aim in seeking prosecution is to try to restore some integrity to our democratic processes.” Good luck with that…

This is beyond quixotic, Vote Leave CEO Matthew Ellliott will simply explain that £350 million is equivalent to the gross weekly payment, not the net weekly payment once the rebate and other transfers are taken into account. Therefore the headline figure is true before those qualifications. Any reasonable person examining the claim – which was widely contested – would understand how the figure was arrived at. In the debates Michael Gove and others conceded that the net figure was less.

Professor “bob” has had success before – he was one of the people behind the election petition against Lutfur Rahman cronies. In that case there was out and out political corruption. Are we seriously expecting judges to rule on the phrasing of political slogans?

UPDATE:

We wish "bob" well @EuroGuido https://t.co/wmYWXYttt7

— Matthew Elliott (@matthew_elliott) November 7, 2016