Tuesday, January 7, 2025

All praise to Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, and James MacCleary, Lib Dem MP for Lewes. According to Survation's analysis of a survey of 1,000 local councillors, they are the two MPs at the middle of the left-right spectrum of the House of Commons. 

The survey, by Prof Chris Hanretty and Vasil Lazarov for Royal Holloway and UK in a Changing Europe, uses an unusal method, asking councillors to compare two local MPs and say which is more left-wing or right-wing than the other, and then aggregating the findings for all MPs. 

Most attention will be devoted to the extremes: Nadia Whittome, Labour, is the "most left-wing" MP according to this method; Suella Braverman, Conservative, is the "most right-wing". 

But as a Blairite I bow down before the true winners of this double-ended league table: those in the middle. 

Written by John Rentoul

What did election results in Winchester in 1997 and Fife North East in 2017 have in common?

Answer at the bottom of today's email 

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Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for 

There will be no shortage of material for Kemi Badenoch at the first Prime Minister's Questions of 2025 at noon, but Conservative MPs will be hoping she picks the right issues this time after her recent choices.

One option will be the controversy over grooming gangs. The Tories are not letting this one drop and will try to amend the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which comes up for its second reading after PMQs. Their amendment, calling for a national inquiry into "the institutional and political failings", is most unlikely to be passed, but will keep up the pressure on Keir Starmer.

The Commons will start at 11.30pm with questions on science. Later David Davis, the Tory former minister, will stage a short debate on the role of expert witnesses and the trial of the nurse Lucy Letby. He believes it is "highly probable" she is innocent. 

The pick of the select committees will be a timely first hearing of the health committee's inquiry into social care. At 9.30am it will hear from the economist Andrew Dilnot, whose recommendation for a lifetime cap on individual care bills has been shelved.

Sara Khan, the former anti-extremism tsar, will appear before the Women and Equalities Committee's inquiry into community cohesion at 2.20pm. The energy committee will quiz officials from the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, at 3pm. 

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"It means we're going to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down"

Mark Zuckerberg, announcing changes to moderation policy for Facebook and Instagram

Quiz answer: They were both won by a margin of two votes, the smallest since the war, by the Lib Dems and SNP respectively, although the Winchester result was declared void by the High Court and the election re-run – the Lib Dem, Mark Oaten, won with a majority of 21,000

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