Connect will be tweeting updates throughout the count night. In advance we thought we would give you a guide to some of the declaration times and ten potential key moments of the count to watch for. Read more
Connect Communications has changed ownership following a management buy-out by Andy Sawford, Sarah King and Laura Blake. The following public statement has been issued:
Old habits die hard in the Westminster village where the media and commentators see local and devolved elections as a verdict on the party leaders and an indication of the next General Election. Read more
Connect’s 2016 graduate trainee programme is now open. For further details click here. Read more
Things are starting to get lively on the Devo front! A rash of star studded conferences and events are now on the fixture list and we have already seen one major Devo deal being struck in 2016: a deal which will see Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire work together under one elected Mayor for the North Midlands (not East Midlands!). Read more
Jeremy Corbyn has backed down from imposing a three-line Whip on Labour MPs over Syria. He may have been impressed by the argument that MPs should be able to vote with their conscience, or perhaps struck by the potential hypocrisy, having spent thirty years defying the Whip. But what is more likely is that Corbyn stepped back from the abyss when it became clear that he would face resignations from the frontbench. Labour MPs will now be given a ‘free vote’. Read more
News that one of the Home Secretary’s closest advisers and a long-standing Conservative campaigner will leave the Home Office to campaign to leave the EU shows that Westminster insiders are already picking their sides. Stephen Parkinson, Theresa May’s longest-serving special adviser, will join Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings (former Gove SpAd) at Vote Leave – an offshoot of Business For Britain. For the campaign this is a prize hire – Parkinson has experience as the national organiser for the NO to AV campaign, served in CCHQ and in Lord Ashcroft’s target seat campaign. How long before others follow suit? Read more
Sadiq won the contest to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor by a clear margin today. He is a very smart, thoroughly decent guy who will make a good Mayor, if he can beat the Tory’s likely candidate, Zac Goldsmith. Here are three quick thoughts on today’s result. Read more
In the second installment of a new Public Affairs News feature, PRCA director general Francis Ingham dines with Connect Communications chair Gill Morris in Shepherd’s restaurant.
At Connect HQ we were up all night watching the results come in. Our David Button takes a look at the 10 key moments of the night… Not necessarily in chronological order (and not including Boris). Read more
