Johnson’s Biggest Risk Yet

COVID has disappeared. It has given up trying to infect us, put on its coat, and left the United Kingdom. Or that’s what government policy would have you believe. On July 19^th, we are going back to normality. The government earlier this week announced that freedom day would go ahead, and Britain would ‘learn to live with the virus’. Clubs, casinos, large events, and festivals have been given the green light, masks will no longer be mandatory – although premises can enforce them, the one metre rule is abandoned, and there will be no restrictions on sports events.

This is, quite frankly, terrible timing, and a big risk. Cases are currently soaring due to the arrival of the Delta variant earlier in the year, with numbers reaching the same levels as January. Hospitalisation numbers and deaths are now starting to rise too, although not the extent of previous waves thanks to the incredible vaccine rollout, which is proving to be effective against all current variants. We are seeing record numbers of people isolating from track and trace, and an increasing number of children learning from home due to breakouts of the virus at schools.

The government is forecasting record case numbers over the next few weeks, but says it is necessary to live with the virus going forwards in the same way we do with flu. But we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t the flu. The mortality rate is much higher, and there’s also long covid, something we don’t even know the full extent of yet, and the toll it takes on our bodies. We also can’t forget the groups of people who couldn’t have the vaccine for various reasons – and will be put at risk.   

A Year of Keir

Just over a year ago Keir Starmer was elected the new leader of the Labour Party, taking 56% of the vote, a landslide. It’s fair to say that Starmer’s first year in the role has been unprecedented. Usually, a party leadership victory would ensure front-page headlines, interview spreads, and immense exposure across the various news channel. However, the extraordinary times we were in meant that the leader sat on the backfoot as the country sat in the grip of a pandemic. Where most opposition leaders could stamp their vision, Keir Starmer did not have the opportunity.

This is especially unhelpful when you consider the state of the party he inherited from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. When Starmer became leader last year Labour was roughly 20-25% behind in the polls. His task was an immense one. Slowly but surely however, the Labour leader found his voice, his own vision, and both he and the party began to eat into the lead.

Simply by not being Jeremy, and by coming across as clearly competent, able to lead and so on, he made great strides in the general standing of the party in the country. Add in his performances within PMQ’s, and the governments shoddy handling of the pandemic, and the early period was a success. Starmer was able to put in place a brand-new general secretary of his choice and built a majority on the party’s NEC. The Labour leader also able to show his ruthless side by sacking Rebecca Long Bailey after she failed to conform with his demands following her support of an anti-Semitic quote, and took the whip away from the former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.  

By the end of 2020, the average Conservative poll lead had dropped from 20-25% to just a couple of points, Starmer was enjoying the highest opposition leader ratings since Tony Blair, and he was even ahead of the PM in most ‘Best PM’ polls. Although only the first step had been taken, it had been a great first calendar year in the role.

Year in Review – 2020

This has obviously been a difficult year for everyone, myself included, but I do look back at the year as a mixed bag with rather a lot of bright spots. I have been incredibly lucky that from March onwards I have been able to work from home full time, so I have not been affected financially by COVID-19, and I have been able to carry on relatively as normal.

One goal I mentioned in last year’s review was that I was hoping to sacrifice less personal time to work this year, as I racked up a few hundred hours of overtime in 2020. Although I averaged less per month this year, I did still sacrifice a lot of time to work in 2020, there were a mix of causes for this. Hopefully in 2021 I will be finally able to work on that and free up some more personal time.

My mental and physical health was tested hugely this year. As I live alone it meant that I spent the first lockdown alone, and I spent a lot of the year not seeing family, friends, and I missed a lot of my nephew’s first full year. I have put on a fair bit of weight in 2020, so that is something that will be front and centre at the start of 2021. One huge positive that really made my year was that I leave 2020 in an amazing relationship, and I am looking forward to the experiences that brings this year.

Below are as usual some of my favourite things I have watched, read, written, and listened to over the last year.

Don’t Confuse 2020 with 2016

In 2016, we entered election day almost expecting a Clinton win. That was wrong of us. We made the mistake of believing that someone like Trump could not win the presidency, and we mistook a 70-80% chance of a Clinton victory as being a done deal. Ironically, entering 2020, people are now making the opposite mistake. Trump enters the 2020 election with a slimmer chance of victory than 4 years ago, with most forecasters giving him roughly 10-15% chance of victory. However, the general gut consensus seems to be that his chances are understated, and a Trump victory would be the fitting way to end such a terrible year. But this is wrong. This election is vastly different to its predecessor, and here are a few reasons why.

Incumbency – Trump is fighting this election as the incumbent president rather than the outsider maverick. Many Trump voters swung his way because they wanted something different and thought he might shake things up. Of course, there may be many that believe they made the right call, but there will also be a lot of voters who regret that decision. Trump has been in the White House for 4 years, and now has a record to defend, and there will not be many voters across the country who have not made their mind up on the president.

The Hilary Factor – One huge advantage for Trump in 2016 was his opponent. Hilary Clinton was a very divisive figure across the country, and her approval ratings were not good. In the final week before the election Clinton had an average net approval of -12.6, compared to Trump’s -21. If we compare this to the final week before the 2020 election, Trump has a net approval of -12.8, and Biden +6.2. Whereas Trump was seen as the best of a bad choice for many 4 years ago, the same cannot be said now.

Narrow Path to Victory – When it comes to today’s election, there are of course the usual swing states to keep an eye on. The big difference between now and 2016 is, according to current polling, there is a much narrower path to victory for Trump. 4 years ago, Trump was polling significantly better across the rust belt (WI, PA, OH, MI), which meant even if he did not perform across the sun belt (FL, NC, GA, AZ), his plan A, there was still a route for him to the White House. The polling across the rust belt for Trump is much worse this year, which means that Trump needs to sweep the sun belt, and hope to hold PA. Although anything can happen, if Biden holds PA (Pennsylvania), Trump’s chances of re-election are tiny.

COVID-19 – If COVID-19 had never existed, this election would be vastly different, and almost certainly much closer. Trump’s handling of the pandemic has been an absolute shambles, meaning the country has never had a handle on cases, and the US is arguably the worst affected country worldwide. The timings of state case waves will also hinder the President. Many of the sun belt states had huge waves over the summer, and in the run up to the election the rust belt has seen some of the biggest case increases, highlighting Trump’s poor handling of the crisis. Not good news for the President, who is already polling significantly behind across the rust belt.

Trump can of course still win this election, but it would take a large polling error larger than that of 2016. If Biden holds WI, MN, MI as expected, then winning PA would signal the end for Trump. Even if Trump takes PA, there are a lot of routes for Biden through the sun belt states of FL, AZ, NC, or GA. Trump needs everything to land just right for victory, but maybe that would be 2020 summed up.

The Turning Point on Coronavirus

Tonight, Boris Johnson is set to announce a slight easing to Britain’s lockdown after just 7 weeks. These changes look set to include a new set of slogans, increased exercise time, and the possible reopening of garden centres, should they be able to conform to social distancing. On social media, there has been a huge backlash towards the expected measures, and to many, this feels like the latest car crash in what has been catastrophic handling of the pandemic since the start.

As of today, Britain has the highest death rate in Europe, and the second-highest worldwide, after the US. The current figure stands at 31,587 deaths, although this is the minimum, the number is likely to be a lot higher. Should the lockdown be eased too early, this number could skyrocket to 100,000 by the end of the year, as highlighted by John Johnston for Politics Home today.

The big question on everybody’s lips is whether Britain is ready to ease lockdown, and most statistics point to no. It is important to remember that Britain was one of the last countries to enter lockdown, yet we are one of the first to contemplate easing lockdown. There is no doubt we have passed the peak of wave 1 of the coronavirus, which hit around 4 weeks ago, but the descent of the curve is noticeably much less steep than the ascent.

Modelling the daily numbers has always been difficult due to under-reporting at weekends, however, as per the government’s slides the 7-day rolling average is currently around 580, the peak was around 900-950, and we entered lockdown when the rolling average was around 60. If we model this with death per million persons in the graph below courtesy of Our World in Data, we can see there is still a long way to go to reach pre-lockdown levels.