Andrew Stuttaford
A
ndrew was born in England far, far too many years ago, but his day job (working in the international financial markets) took him across the Atlantic in 1991 and he has been resident in New York City ever since. Andrew writes frequently for a number of publications about a wide range of cultural and political issues. He is a contributing editor of both National Review and National Review Online and can often be found on the Corner, particularly at the weekend. He tweets as @astuttaford and a sporadically updated archive of his work can be found at andrewstuttaford.com. Andrew can be contacted at stuttafordNRO@gmail.com.
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A few weeks ago, a British actor died at the grand old age of 90 (probably). Peter Wyngarde’s death was accompanied by wryly affectionate obituaries and, among Brits of a certain age, a certain sadness: For a brief iridescent moment, ... -
Drug War Update: Aspirin an ally, Imodium Not So Much
Drug warrior Jeff Sessions has come up with a suggestion to help combat opioid abuse: “I am operating on the assumption that this country prescribes too many opioids,” Sessions said Wednesday as he touted the Trump administration’s efforts to ... -
Nigel Colley (1960-2018)
Nigel Colley died last week, far, far, too soon. His is not a name that will be known to many readers of this Corner, but, in his own modest, determined way, he played a part in changing the course of ... -
Unhappy Valley
Despite the headline (“Trump Damaged Democracy, Silicon Valley Will Finish It Off”), which probably wasn’t chosen by Joel Kotkin, the author of the intriguing and alarming piece it introduces, Kotkin has very little to say in it about Trump, ... -
Oprah, Subjective Truth and Salem 2.0
Over on the homepage Philip Devoe rightly laments Oprah Winfrey’s fondness for pseudoscience and New Age ‘thinking’. It would only be fair to also mention the role she played in the 1980s Satanic ritual abuse panic. Writing in the ... -
The GOP's Tax Plan: 2018 and all That
Some bracing reading from Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight , not least for those who have been arguing that being seen to ‘do something’ is what counts (my emphasis added): A party that can’t do anything, this line of thinking contends, ... -
Oberlin and the Bakery
Exactly a year ago today, Michelle Malkin wrote a piece for the home page describing how a small business, Gibson’s Bakery, had fallen foul of Oberlin’s (yes, Oberlin again) for allegedly racist behavior. The dispute rumbles on. CBS: ... -
Tax 'Reform': Motivating the Wrong Base
One of the reasons for the speed at which the Republican tax proposals are being pushed through has been the belief that the GOP needs to have a major legislative achievement to its credit before the midterms. There’s something ... -
Tax ‘Reform’: Pyrrhus meet McConnell
If you shoot yourself in the foot, it is, I suppose, a victory over your foot, but I’m not convinced it’s the wisest of victories to win. Even the circumstances of the GOP’s narrow win in the ... -
Tax Reform: The GOP’s Upscale Class War
Buried within this CNN comment (much of which is, of course, as you would expect) on the Republican tax plans is this interesting observation (my emphasis added). But the congressional GOP, with Trump’s acquiescence, now has advanced proposals that ... -
Tax Reform: ‘Just Do Something’
Politico: Republicans also believe that the need for a big legislative accomplishment ahead of next year’s midterm elections will help sway any holdouts. That rather assumes that the ‘accomplishment’ will be positive – and popular. It’s less than clear ... -
Germany: Slouching Towards GroKo
My record of successful predictions is…mixed, but, as I guesstimated the other day, it does indeed look as if there is a decent chance that the GroKo, Merkel’s ‘grand coalition’ with the center-left SPD, is going to be ... -
Merkel's Mess
In their editorial on Angela Merkel’s failure (for now) to form a new government, NR’s editors drew attention to the decisive role played by the Free Democrats (FDP), a party that once came as close as Germany could ... -
Highway Robbery: Mandating Driverless Cars
In the course of a recent, strangely optimistic piece, Kevin Williamson (who appears to have forgotten that he’s a conservative: We’re meant to be the pessimists, Kevin) writes: Autonomous cars won’t have to route around traffic jams ... -
Post-Democracy and The 'Two Brexits'
Over at Semi-Partisan Politics, there’s a long post by Sam Hooper on the two debates surrounding Brexit, the one economic, and the other, which, for want of a better term, I’ll call politico-cultural. Sam touches briefly on the ... -
Communism, Memory and 'Forgetting'
Writing in the New York Times, Bret Stephens takes aim at the curious mix of indulgence, amnesia and ignorance that envelops the subject of Communism. How many know the name of Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin’s principal henchmen in ... -
There's No You in AI
This thoughtful piece on what ‘robots’ are going to do to employment by Kevin Drum might be published in Mother Jones (and it comes with quite a few Mother Jones flourishes), but take the time to read it, (very) stiff ... -
Andrew Cuomo's Unscientific War on E-Cigarettes
New York Times: Electronic cigarettes, the popular vapor substitute to traditional tobacco cigarettes, will soon be banned from public indoor spaces in New York State — just like the real thing. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday signed a bill to ... -
Austria’s Election
As John Fund notes in his piece (on the home page) on Austria’s election, the right’s success (including a strong showing for the populist Freedom Party and a shift to the right within the establishment-right People’s Party) ... -
Germany’s Election – Merkel Stumbles (But Still Wins)
Well… Angela Merkel, Germany’s worst postwar chancellor, but the leader (to some) of the free world and paramount defender (to some) of ‘liberal values’ appears to have stumbled (just a bit, at least: She still won) in today’s ... -
The Nazis’ Supernatural Obsession
Adolf Hitler once argued that National Socialism represented “a cool and highly reasoned approach to reality based on the greatest of scientific knowledge and its spiritual expression.” If there are any people foolish enough still to fall for that, they ... -
The Uses of History
When it comes to the crimes of communism there has been a dangerous forgetting (to ascribe this phenomenon to simple forgetfulness is to imply too passive a process: Much of this failure of historical memory has been engineered). Roger Scruton, ... -
Automation: Meat Grinder Update
Bloomberg: Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc. during the financial crisis, said developments in technology could see some 30 percent of banking jobs disappearing in the next five years. Artificial intelligence and robotics reduce the need for staff in roles such ... -
Automation: You, Robot
Financial Times: Deutsche Bank’s chief executive John Cryan has asked colleagues to embrace their “revolutionary spirit” as employees for the bank already working “like robots” begin to be replaced by actual robots. Mr Cryan warned that a “big number” ... -
Automation and Employment: The Narrowing Path
As promised/threatened, more from that fascinating article on Silicon Valley by Joel Kotkin in Newgeography. I don’t agree with everything that he has to say, but this, I think, is close to spot on: Americans justifiably take pride ... -
Ever Closer Disunion
Here, for some Monday cheer, is historian Niall Ferguson, writing in the Boston Globe and anticipating a “systemic crisis”: Regardless of who is president of the United States, the crisis is coming. The networked world born in Silicon Valley was ... -
Britain's War on Free Speech (Continued)
Writing for Spiked Online, Naomi Firsht gives details of Britain’s latest attack on free speech (my emphasis added). Hate is hate’, says Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions, explaining the new Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidelines on hate crime. ... -
Another Corporate Gift for the Southern Poverty Law Center
The Wall Street Journal: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co is planning up to $2 million in donations to human and civil-rights organizations following the recent clashes in Charlottesville, Va. The largest U.S. bank by assets will donate $1 million split between ... -
Opioids: Politicians Should Not Play Doctor
Back in January 2013 I put up a post over on Ricochet on moves to cut access to prescription painkillers by then Mayor Bloomberg and the rather better qualified FDA. As the New York Times reported, the FDA explained (my emphasis ... -
Silicon Valley and Free Speech: Tim Cook Edition
Reuters: Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook has joined a chorus of business leaders who have voiced their opposition to President Donald Trump after he blamed white nationalists and anti-racism activists equally for violence in Virginia over the weekend. “I disagree ... -
Google and Debate
Writing in New York Magazine (you’ll have to scroll down a bit), Andrew Sullivan discusses the Google mess. His comments on what James Damore wrote deserve to be read in full, and it’s worth following some of the ... -
North Korea – A ‘Basic Position of Solidarity’
Well, North Korea is—how shall I put it—in the news, here’s an extract from something written by one Andrew Murray, then a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s executive committee back in 2003 (my emphasis ... -
Automation and the Voters
Too simplistic? Quite possibly, nevertheless the conclusions from some new research out of Oxford are food for thought (my emphasis added): A new research paper from the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment provides the first evidence that automation ... -
L.A.’s Olympic Folly
There are a diminishing number of takers for the ruinous ‘honor’ of hosting the Olympic Games these days, so the International Olympics Committee (like the U.N., only worse, or is it the other way round?) has locked in two ... -
Merkel, Germany, the Media, and Free Speech
From the Financial Times earlier this week: German media were too uncritical in their coverage of the 2015 refugee crisis, giving Angela Merkel’s open-door policy a free pass and failing to represent the legitimate concerns of ordinary people alarmed by ... -
Exploiting Space: To Greedily Go (and That’s a Good Thing)
I posted something here yesterday about efforts to regulate commercial exploitation of the moon — and beyond, among other matters citing the activities of For All Moonkind, a group that is reportedly pushing the United Nations to protect the six Apollo ... -
To Boldly (But in Compliance With Applicable Regulations) Go
The prospect of the commercial exploitation of the resources that might be found beyond this planet of ours is beginning to worry some people. In the course of reporting of an auction of some moon rocks, Bloomberg News is reporting ... -
An Immigration Horror Story
Trigger warning: This is strong stuff. The LA Times is running a horror story about the effects of a decline in available cheap immigrant labor on the agricultural sector. The $47-billion agriculture industry is trying to bring technological innovation up ... -
Engels Returns to Manchester (2)
I posted something last night about the decision to put up a Soviet era statue to Friedrich Engels in Manchester. The statue was first unveiled as part of a live film event called Ceremony. Friedrich Engels — philosopher, writer, radical thinker — ... -
Engels Returns to Manchester
A statue of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s accomplice and benefactor, has gone up in Manchester. Engels was also the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), a book based on what he’d seen — little of ... -
The Pope's 'Distorted Vision'
I don’t know whether his views on this matter are driven by authoritarianism (Peronism dies hard), a theocratic contempt for national borders or simple bone-headedness, but, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica Pope Francis has now ... -
Looting Google: When Mercantilists Turn to Theft
Politico: The European Commission issued Google a fine of €2.42 billion Tuesday for abusing a dominant position over internet search, concluding a landmark inquiry that dragged on for seven years and handing Silicon Valley its largest regulatory setback to date. Margrethe ... -
Progressivism, The Right Side of History and All That
Some wise words from Ed West at The Spectator, writing from a British perspective, but with some applicability over here (my emphasis added): [I]t’s an illustration of how progressivism has become internalised that even generation rent can’t ... -
Corbyn or ‘Soft Brexit’: Choose One
Theresa May has just three key matters to attend to in what ought to be the death throes of her shattered premiership. The first is to cut a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party good enough to give ... -
Britain’s Election: 1974 Redux?
The BBC has just updated its exit poll in a way that suggests the Tories might scrape very close to a majority. The pound remains very weak. There is, of course, chatter about the possibility of Corbyn as prime minister, ... -
The Ides of May?
BBC Exit poll: The survey taken at polling stations across the UK suggests the Tories could get 314 MPs when all the results have been counted in Thursday’s election. Labour would get 266, the Lib Dems 14, UKIP none and the SNP 34, ... -
After London
Almost immediately after the terrorist attack in London, Donald Trump took to Twitter, and (as so often) none too wisely. One of his tweets read: “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘... -
CNN — Taking the Spice out of Pepper
If we needed yet another reminder of just how joyless and just how pious our establishment media has become, this CNN article suggesting who would be on a reworked Sgt. Pepper cover today is not a bad place to start. ... -
Meet Mr. Corbyn
Two years ago, in a vivid reminder of why Mensheviks have a way of losing out, Jeremy Corbyn was handed the chance to run for the leadership of Britain’s Labour party by some soft-headed members of the soft Left. ... -
Trump in Europe, Festivus in May
Airing of Grievances Feats of Strength
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History Doesn’t Take Sides
The “wrong side of history” is a phrase, wrote Robert Conquest, the great historian of the Soviet Union (and much, much more besides), with a “Marxist twang” about it. Put less politely, it is nonsense. History doesn’t take sides. ... -
China: Holy See No Evil
It’s no great secret that Roman Catholic ‘social’ teaching, normally seen as a form of corporatism, is a touch difficult to reconcile with free market economics, even more so in the era of Pope Francis, a man who absorbed ... -
The Idea of 'Fake News' and Its Abuses
Over on the Home Page, David Harsanyi looks at the way that the campaign against ‘fake news’ could be twisted into a threat to free speech, even in the land of the First Amendment: It’s difficult, it seems, for ... -
Oprah and McMartin Preschool ‘Retrials’
In a post yesterday, I mentioned the contribution made by Oprah Winfrey to the ritual satanic abuse witch hunts of the 1980s. One of the most notorious cases of that era was the McMartin preschool trial, and I quoted this ... -
Fake News, Real Censorship
There is little over the Atlantic that bears much of a resemblance to the First Amendment, an absence (envied, sadly, by quite a few over here) that has often been exploited by a European political establishment that shows every sign ... -
Sweden and the Politics of Denial
Paulina Neuding, writing in the New York Times: This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg [Gothenburg], Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, ... -
Tax Reform: “Unintended Consequences”
There’s a lot that’s wrong with the GOP’s tax overhaul, and much of it can be put down to the speed at which it has been flung together, speed that, given the breadth of the proposed changes ... -
Tax Reform: Perfecto?
Ramesh writes: Many Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Susan Collins, have suggested that the tax cut will do so much to expand the economy that the new tax code will raise more revenue than the old ... -
Tax Reform: Il Faut Reculer Pour Mieux Sauter
CNBC, yesterday: Sen. Bob Corker said Tuesday a “backstop” to curb future budget deficits could help to win his crucial vote for the GOP tax bill. The Tennessee Republican and others are seeking the protection in case the nearly $1.5 trillion ... -
Norway, Immigration and some Myths about the Economics of Immigration
There have, essentially, been two ways in which the Nordic democracies have dealt with the rise of the populist ‘right’ (yes, a far from precise label) that has risen usually, but not exclusively, in response to high levels of immigration ... -
Tax ‘Reform’: Don’t Pinch the SALT deduction
True tax reform should aim to satisfy four main ‘fiscal’ principles: It should aim at a tax system that is flatter (with lower nominal rates), broader (as many people as possible should have skin in the game), simpler and, even ... -
The GOP’s Tax Plan: Paving the Way to a Democratic Majority
Like the Titanic steaming towards that iceberg, the GOP’s tax plan is reported to be moving forward at some speed. No, no, what am I saying? For all his faults, the Titanic’s captain did not actually design the ... -
Tax ‘Reform’: Good for Senator Collins
Veronique, like you, there are plenty of things I do not support in the House and Senate tax bills (bills that, at the moment, are, overall, of (I’ll be kind) uncertain economic value, but will come in very handy ... -
Junk Science, a Presidential Commission and Opioid Myths
Over at Reason, Jacob Sullum does the work that the political class is either too idle, or too nervous or too blinkered to do—and takes a look at what lies behind some of data surrounding today’s opioid crisis: ... -
The Bolshevik ‘Beacon to Humanity’
Writing in NRODT as the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution approaches (read the whole piece, incidentally), Douglas Murray had this to say: [W]herever you turn in the world today, it seems that the virus of Communism — in every Marxist, ... -
Halloween, Elsa and the Index Simulacrorum Prohibitorum
Kyle has already discussed the controversy over Halloween Moana here, concluding as follows: The Left used to insist on seeing people as individuals, not as members of groups. The goal used to be that kids of different races would play ... -
Britain's Tories: From Edmund Burke to Burke & Hare
Edmund Burke (via Wikipedia): In the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals.Subsequently, in the twentieth century, he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. Burke and Hare (via Wikipedia): The Burke and ... -
Republicans Against the 401(k)
Once again, the GOP is behaving as if it believes that it will be running Washington in perpetuity. Scrapping tax ‘breaks’ that have hitherto been thought to be politically untouchable, such as the mortgage interest tax deduction, a sensible deduction ... -
Hef
So Hugh Hefner has died at 91 and will not, it seems, be remembered with universal approval around here. And, yes, the way he has arranged to be buried in the vault adjacent to Marilyn Monroe’s is more than a ... -
Helping Jeremy Corbyn - May's Florentine Fail (2)
It’s a grim little task, but I’ve been thinking some more about British Prime Minister Theresa May’s vacuous and ill-considered ‘big speech’ about Brexit yesterday, and specifically its political implications. Best guess: her damp squib will blow ... -
Machiavelli Laughs: Theresa May's Florentine Fail
Something strange happened in Florence today. Visitors to the Basilica of Santa Croce, one of that fine city’s finer churches, were left with the unmistakable impression that they heard the sound of laughter from Machiavelli’s tomb. It was, ... -
Vaping, #Science and Public Health
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to make things easier for cancer by making things more difficult for vapers. As John Tierney explained in a recent article for the Wall Street Journal that’s bad news for New ... -
Steve Bannon, the Catholic Church, and Immigration
If there’s one thing that you can say about Steve Bannon is that he’s not afraid to go there. The Washington Post: Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, lashed out at leaders of the Catholic ... -
De Blasio's Anti-Tobacco Jihad Continues
Earlier this week, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio reminded New Yorkers that in his view the authority of the state knows very few limits. Bloomberg: New York boosted the minimum price of a pack of cigarettes by 24 percent ... -
Free Speech and Its Enemies: Merkel, Maduro – and Silicon Valley?
It ought, by now, to be no secret that Angela Merkel, that alleged defender of liberal (in the proper sense of that word) values, is no friend of free speech. Her hectoring of social media has now been given legislative ... -
The Keller Case – A Wrong Put Right, but Too Late and Insufficiently
Events on today’s campuses are just the latest reminder of how dangerous it can be when some new mania fuses with the seemingly perpetual urge to persecute. Perhaps the worst example of this in recent years—at least in ... -
The Business of Business ought to be Business
The New York Times headline was warning enough: The Moral Voice of Corporate America Oh please. Wearily I turned to the wise, too often neglected words of Milton Friedman: In a free-enterprise, private-property system, a corporate executive is an employee ... -
Automation, Unemployment and Moravec's Paradox
Writing in the Guardian, here’s Larry Elliott on automation. The whole article is well worth a read, even if it’s too simplistic to argue (as he does) that the Luddites were wrong. Over the longish term they most ... -
The Attacks in Catalonia: ‘Blind’ Violence?
Pope Francis on last year’s Nice attack (via the National Catholic Register): Pope Francis condemned the attack on Bastille Day Celebrations in France, calling it an act of “blind violence.” While Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the man who drove a ... -
Confederate Statues and the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn
Via PBS: “It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments,” said Jonathan Horn, the author of the Lee biography, “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington.” In his writings, Lee cited ... -
Google Needs a New CEO
If nothing else, the fiasco at Google is yet another reminder that the current onslaught on free speech is not going to be confined to the academy. Students graduate and when they join the workplace they will bring with them ... -
Germany: About that Legacy, Angela
Euro Intelligence: The substantive issue is not whether diesel is doomed in the long run – even the German car industry accepts that – but how this should happen, and the time frame. The German car industry is not ready to supply ... -
Sanctions, Russia and Nord Stream 2
He may not be entirely happy about it, but (as Alexandra noted earlier) President Trump has signed into law new sanctions legislation directed at Russia, North Korea and Iran. In terms of relations with the EU—and specifically Germany—it’... -
Good Sense from a Kinnock
Now there’s a headline I never thought that I’d write, but, here, writing in the Financial Times, is Steven Kinnock, son of Neil (the former Labour leader), and himself Labour MP for Aberavon. It’s possible to disagree ... -
Dial 1984 for Wiltshire Police
Wiltshire is a pleasant county in the south-west of England, but as for some members of its police force, well… @wiltshirepolice tweeted this on July 24: You can’t hide from us if your spewing abuse from behind a computer screen. ... -
Automation: This Byte’s For You
Writing for City Journal, Mark Mills warns that the robots (to use the shorthand) will be gnawing their way far higher up the food chain than we have seen before. Here’s the dirty little secret about automation: it’s ... -
Gove’s ‘Green Brexit’
The story of Britain’s Michael Gove is a sad one. Clever, able, and a genuinely original thinker, he was a successful conservative education minister (until moved on by David Cameron for annoying the wrong — which is to say right — ... -
Macron: L’état c’est lui
If there’s one thing of which we can be sure about 2017, it is that one of its more paradoxical moments was the election of Emmanuel Macron to the French presidency. Writing in Law and Liberty, Guillaume de Thieulloy: Macron ... -
Robots, Again
Kay Hymowitz has written a piece in City Journal that is well worth your time. Some extracts: People have feared artificial intelligence since Mary Shelley introduced the world to Dr. Frankenstein’s hideous creature. The Luddites, who battled against the ... -
Brexit, 'No Deal' and the Perturbation Multiplier
Britain’s prime minister is still claiming that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” nonsense wording of a type that has become something of a Theresa (“Brexit means Brexit”) May trademark. In a piece on CapX today (on ... -
Messing Up Brexit
Messing up? Well, this is a family-friendly site, but, believe me, there are other less seemly ways of describing the British government’s current approach to Brexit. The Financial Times: Senior ministers have rejected calls by British business leaders for ... -
Meet Jeremy Corbyn’s Bad Lieutenant
John McDonnell, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s principal lieutenant and — Jezza is not the brightest red in the asylum — much of his brainpower too, isn’t that enthused by this democracy thing. McDonnell, who is also Labour’s “shadow” chancellor ... -
Cultural Appreciation Update
Yahoo News: Indigenous advocates from around the world are calling on a UN committee to ban the appropriation of Indigenous cultures — and to do it quickly. Delegates from 189 countries, including Canada, are in Geneva this week as part of a ... -
May, Fly
Charlie makes a strong (and, to me, persuasive) case for British Prime Minister Theresa May to stand down — and sooner rather than later. He also asks “what…is the case for her staying on.” Good question. The problem for the ... -
Britain’s Election: Long Night Ahead, Long Knives Ahead
So, it’s now being said — and not just by bitter-enders — that the exit polling may understate the Conservatives’ support. The very first results from the Northeast suggest that a significant slice of ‘old Labour’ UKIP may be going to ... -
Britain’s Election: May to Make It?
Both anecdotal accounts (neatly backed up by a friend — and generally objective analyst — who has been canvassing for the Conservatives in the British Midlands) and the polls suggest that the Corbyn tide may be receding. May could be looking at ... -
No Enemies to the Left, Few Enemies in the Gutter: The Company Corbyn Keeps
With the polls continuing, it seems, to grind away at the Tory lead (Ipsos MORI has it down to five percentage points) in the British general election (voting will be on Thursday), many thanks to the reader who alerted me ... -
Theresa May (Not Win)
I don’t agree with The Spectator’s take on the ‘dementia tax’ (which is/was bad politics and bad policy), but much of its new editorial on the failings of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s election campaign hits ... -
Dismay
It may well be that the current concern over the Labour Party’s surge in the opinion polls will be remembered as one of those panics (“wobbly Thursday” from 1987 comes to mind) that occur from time to time in many ... -
Corbyn Draws Closer
First Brexit, then Trump, then…. Corbyn? The latest opinion polls from Britain make unnerving reading. The Independent: Labour has slashed the Conservatives’ lead in the polls to just five points, the latest YouGov/Times results show. The party has made ...