Theresa May's hope of a big majority could slip from her grasp

Pic:Prime Minister Theresa May/ REUTERS
Political reporter(wp/es):

Before the Conservatives descend from “wobble weekend” to outright panic, they should remember: we have been here before. 

Every Tory victory since the Fifties has been preceded by at least one campaign poll pointing to defeat or a close finish. David Cameron confounded soothsayers like me two years ago; so did John Major in 1992 and Edward Heath in 1970. Margaret Thatcher had to navigate single polls suggesting she was in trouble.

We should therefore treat with caution latest polls from YouGov and Survation showing the Tory lead halving in a week to nine points. Until more polls are out we cannot be sure whether this is sampling tremor, a blip after the manifesto launch or a lasting shift in loyalties.

That said, Labour was gaining ground even before the headlines about the “dementia tax”, with both Ukip and the Lib Dems losing support. In contrast, the Tories average poll rating has stayed steady for four weeks.

st of my weekly projections combines the latest surveys, not in a crude “poll of polls” but allowing for the tendency of surveys over many years to overstate Labour and understate Tory support.  Without that adjustment I would project an 11-point Tory lead, not the 13 points in the table: I believe the big Labour bias in the polls two years ago has been reduced but not eliminated. But even that 13-point lead, identical to Tony Blair’s victory margin in 1997, would not quite give Theresa May the majority she really wants. 

I estimate the Tories would capture 29 seats from Labour (thanks to Ukip’s collapse since 2015) and six from the SNP. The Lib Dems could pick up a handful of Labour and Tory seats in strong “Remain” areas where there are few Ukip supporters for the Tories to squeeze.  The upshot is a Conservative majority of about 80 had the election been held at the end of last week.

For Mrs May to have the freedom to swat aside rebellions on a compromise Brexit deal she really needs a three-figure majority.  A month ago she was on course — unless she can halt Labour’s rise, it may slip from her grasp.

Church of England made stunning 17% return on investments in 2016

Pic:A focus on ethical investing has long been part of the Church of England’s mandate.
Staff reporter(wp):
The case for profitable ethical investing has been bolstered by the Church Commissioners for England, as the fund announced divine returns on its financial portfolio for 2016.

The body, which manages investable assets worth £7.9bn in order to “support the Church of England as a Christian presence in every community”, said it had smashed targets by making a 17.1% return on investments during 2016 – figures which will be the envy of many high-profile figures in the fund-management industry.

In 2016, Woodford Equity Income – which is run by the UK’s best-known manager, Neil Woodford – returned 3.2% compared with an 8.8% gain for the Investment Association’s UK equity income sector average, according to the financial website MoneyObserver.com.

The church’s fund’s outperformance over the past decade has slightly outpaced even the Yale Endowment fund, which is rated by the Financial Times (paywall)as the most admired in the sector.

The Church Commissioners, whose target is making a return of inflation plus five percentage points, said it had been partly aided in 2016 by sterling’s weakness after the Brexit vote, with the fall in the value of the pound accounting for about half the gains made on its equity portfolio.

First church estates commissioner Sir Andreas Whittam Smith said: “Contributing to this stellar out-turn was a strong showing by global equities (+32.9%), partly reflecting the depreciation of sterling. Equally helpful were our interests in private credit strategies (+33.1%), private equity (+26.1%) and timberland (+24.3%). The combined property portfolios delivered a creditable 11.6% in a relatively weak market environment.

“Consistency has truly been a guiding principle for the fund. Our historic performance over a 30-year period shows annual growth of 9.6% per annum, despite periods of turbulence in the financial markets and our own portfolio – an average of 6% per annum ahead of inflation.”

The Church Commissioners said returns meant it had contributed £230.7m to the mission of the Church of England, although it admitted this was “only around 15% of the church’s overall income – most funding comes from the extraordinary generosity of parishioners”.

The body said it had also been promoting responsible investment, including being “instrumental in filing climate disclosure resolutions at [mining groups] Anglo American, Glencore and Rio Tinto” and continuing “to vote against the majority of remuneration reports”.

Richard Saunders, its head of equities, added: “We have always argued that ethical investing does not put us at a disadvantage – so I’m not going to argue it puts us at an advantage [on the back of these returns]. We have a strong ethical approach and invest over the long term, which we think will be successful. We look to harvest returns over a long period.”

A focus on ethical investing has long been part of the body’s mandate, although some of its investment picks have still provoked debate.

In 2012, it sold its shares in Rupert Murdoch’s media group after the phone-hacking scandal. However, the following year the church’s pension fund was found to have taken an indirect stake in controversial payday lender Wonga, while it has also invested in areas of finance that many view as contentious such as hedge funds.

More than 2.3m people have registered to vote since election was called

Staff reporter(wp):

About 2.3 million people have registered to vote since the general election was called just under five weeks ago, with registrations coming at a faster rate than before the Brexit referendum, the Electoral Commission has said.

This does not necessarily equate to the same number of new voters, as some of the applications could be duplicates from people already registered, said Emma Hartley, head of campaigns for the commission.

Would-be voters have until midnight on Monday to register if they want to vote on 8 June. Applications can be made online in a matter of a few minutes, although people in Northern Ireland have to physically hand in the completed form to a local election office.

“Since the general election was announced on 18 April more than 2.3m applications to register have been submitted,” Hartley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

She said: “We saw similar levels of registration ahead of the referendum, and ahead of the 2015 general election, but because we’re working with such a shorter timeframe ahead of the 8 June general election, it’s a lot of applications within a shorter number of days.”

Some of these would be duplicate applications, Hartley said, but added: “It is a large number of people who are applying. We’ll know the final numbers about the size of the electorate after the polls.”

An estimated 7 million eligible voters are not registered, and Hartley said those most likely to be disenfranchised were younger people or those who had moved recently.

“We know that age and population mobility are the biggest variables that contribute to levels of under-registrations,” she said. “It’s more likely that people who are 34 years old or younger that are not registered – it’s around 30% of that population, compared to only 4% of those aged 55 and older who aren’t registered.

“With population mobility, we know that people who have moved home within the last year tend not to be registered to vote because it’s something that people don’t get around to doing when they have to do a lot of other things when they’re moving house.”

Simon Wooley, the director of Operation Black Vote, which seeks to encourage people from black and minority ethnic communities to engage more closely in politics, said the system of individual voter registration – changed in 2014 from household registration – was “much more complicated than it needs to be”.

He called for a system in which people are automatically registered to vote, saying: “Why would we want to undermine our democracy, with so many people not engaging?”

Wooley said his organisation often found a lack of connection to the wider political system. “A lot of people that we speak to up and down the country say that our institutions don’t look like us, sound like us, and don’t have plans to tackle those persistent inequalities that turn people off,” he said.