Professor Philip Cowley writes an article in Prospect on whether the Conservatives have done enough to improve on their 2017 general election performance. He writes: “True, this time the Prime Minister will be able to explain, in fairly simple language, why he is going to the polls. Ironically, the need for a bigger majority to legislate on Brexit was one of Theresa May’s motivations too, but here, as elsewhere, she struggled to articulate it. The Johnson message—we need to get Brexit done; Parliament is stopping it happening—will be easier to articulate and has enough truth in it to land much better with voters. Given what’s already been announced, it’s clear that this time around there will be no attempt to use the Conservative manifesto to engage with difficult societal issues, such as long-term residential care, from which there would be losers as well as winners. And in Boris Johnson, the Conservatives probably have a better campaigner than Theresa May, even if that is a rather low bar. The rest, however, seems moot.”Find out moreProfessor Cowley also published an article in The Times’ Red Box about his former economics teacher, Charalambos Stamboulieh, who also taught the Chancellor Sajid Javid.