Bears fan, Conservative, tender consultant, serial volunteer. Formerly Bristol City Councillor (2018-24), Candidate for West of England Mayor (2025)
Bristol, England
Joined February 2009
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Oh good, @BristolCouncil are "keeping Bristol moving" again.
🚧 Work on the A4 Portway, between Bridge Valley Road and Hotwell Road, will take place from 2 Nov to the summer.
It includes improving the pavement, kerbs, drainage and lighting.
Expect lane closures, parking restrictions and diversions.
More: orlo.uk/8M4GO
ALT A view from a car driving along the Portway in Bristol, with the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the distance and Georgian houses to the side.
Steve Smith retweeted
Party Leader Satisfaction Ratings:
Kemi Badenoch (CON): 35% (+7)
Andy Burnham (LAB): 35% (+4)
Nigel Farage (REF): 22% (-2)
Ed Davey (LDM): 20% (-3)
Zack Polanski (GRN): 17% (-1)
via @Ipsos_in_the_UK, 15-22 Oct
(Changes with 15 Sep)
Steve Smith retweeted
When @andyburnham calls for an “honest discussion” it always means he has decided to do something he promised the voters he wouldn’t.
🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Andy Burnham has opened the door to Britain readopting the European Union’s free movement rules, arguing that an “honest discussion” is needed, reports @benrileysmith thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Steve Smith retweeted
The average of all polls now has the Conservatives ahead of Reform for the first time since January 2025.
And that was before this morning's Ipsos poll showing Conservatives 4 points ahead of Reform.
Steve Smith retweeted
From Yorkshire to Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire to Worcestershire, Conservatives won ALL of last night’s council by-elections in England 💙
Three gains and a hold, beating Labour, the Greens and Reform:
🌳 Cllr Amanda Carter, Calverley & Farsley, Leeds. GAIN from Labour
🌳 Cllr Rosemary Bolton, Hertford Kingsmead, East Hertfordshire. GAIN from Green
🌳 Cllr Ben Lavender, Grantham St Wulfram’s, South Kesteven. GAIN from Independent
🌳 Cllr Tony Miller, Hartlebury, Wychavon. HOLD
Steve Smith retweeted
Hiding debt doesn’t make it disappear.
CPS Fellow @TimDier explains why Labour’s approach to measuring debt risks encouraging more borrowing and spending - leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill.
Read the full briefing here: cps.org.uk/research/pufins-t…
Steve Smith retweeted
We aren't trying to stop you asking questions, Dawn. We're trying to answer them.
If Palantir thinks a strongly worded letter will stop MPs asking questions, it’s clearly not done enough research on us.
I’ll keep asking who we’re handing our data and public money to. Feel free to write.
novaramedia.com/2026/10/22/p…
Another prediction (might have to come back to this one in a few years) - by 2030 everyone will have heard of "Puffins" (Public Financial Institutions).
They're the new PFI - an accounting trick enabling government to increase borrowing while pretending it isn't.
In other words, you'll need to be the business equivalent of Monty Python's Black Knight to carry on as Healey weilds the @UKLabour sword.
Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey will aim his first budget later this month at “bloody-minded entrepreneurs” by cutting the cost of business, he said in an interview bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Prediction - Healey will sneak around £20bn of tax rises through the budget as niche taxes on specific sectors. He'll pretend it doesn't affect you.
Reminder - there is no such thing as a tax that someone else pays. High tax has consequences for us all.
I often disagree with Matthew Parris, but he usually makes me think. This, in the @spectator is I think one of the best things he's written.
spectator.com/article/what-w…
There's no such thing as tax without consequence.
It might be tempting to think that more tax on banks is a great idea because they can afford it and it means we won't have to pay. It's free money, right? Wrong....
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c32l…
If the Chancellor takes another £2bn from banks, that's £2bn that they can't lend to growing businesses. It's £2bn that isn't available as dividends to the pension funds which not only pay all our pensions, but invest in the UK economy...
Part 167 of @bristolgreen's plan to return Bristol to the mid-eighteenth century...
bristolpost.co.uk/news/brist…
Steve Smith retweeted
Always be wary of underinformed lists denouncing those who don’t vote (rather than those who vote against). Often MPs are absent on a day for all sorts of reasons - and this list for eg includes two Deputy Speakers (Nokes and Ghani) who *cannot* vote.
16 Tory MP's didn't vote to leave the ECHR today:
Stuart Anderson
Mr Peter Bedford
Saqib Bhatti
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
John Cooper
Alberto Costa
Harriet Cross
David Davis
Sir Roger Gale
Ms Nusrat Ghani
Helen Grant
Simon Hoare
Caroline Nokes
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
Rishi Sunak
Sir Desmond Swayne
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Several listed MPs had no vote recorded, but two (Ghani, Nokes) are Deputy Speakers who cannot vote. Others including Hoare were paired. No Conservatives voted against the motion, which lost 309-113.
votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/…
order-order.com/2026/10/14/sev…
This @UKLabour MP seems genuinely to believe that the only way people could have a different opinion to her is if they'd been tricked and lied to.
Sheer contempt for those she's supposed to serve.
I'm angry that so many of my constituents who voted to Leave the EU did so because they were bombarded by lies. That’s why @andyburnham’s announcement of a National Centre for Information Defence matters, fighting foreign state influence in our democracy.
Steve Smith retweeted
YouGov - Sky - Times voting intention
LAB 24%(-3)
CON 23%(+3)
RefUK 21%(-1)
LDEM 12%(+1)
GRN 11%(nc)
Oct 11-12
Pollster note: The changes are within the margin of error, so it's difficult to distinguish signal from noise, but I suspect there is some degree of "conference bounce" there, with the Tories getting a boost from their coverage, and Labour declining again as the temporary impact of their own conference fades.
It may well be a temporary Tory boost, but for the record it means this is the first time that we have had Reform back in third place since 2024 (it’s technically the first time since early 2024 – but we didn’t poll between the election and January 2025 while we were reviewing methods, so we don’t know exactly when Reform overtook the Tories).