A week ago, the Henry Nowak case was the story dominating the news agenda. Then Belfast caught fire — literally — and two separate stories became one. Percy and Joseph work through how a murder in Southampton and a knife attack in Northern Ireland became one national tinderbox.

What we got into:

• This week's number: minus six. Nigel Farage's net approval on his handling of the Nowak case — the worst of any senior leader in Britain. Andrew has a Boris-shaped theory about why it might not matter.
• Two nights of Belfast riots. Water cannon in Newtownabbey, twelve injured officers...and expectation that a third night will rage on. Why Northern Ireland's fire burns on different fuel than England's.
• Why hasn't Canada had its Southampton? Same immigration anxieties, same online ecosystem, no riots. Andrew's answer involves dinghies, hotels, and what people can see from the war memorial.
• The thug problem. The rioters are making it harder to fix the very system some of them claim to be angry about — and the only winners are the actual far right.
• An opening for Kemi? Badenoch sits at plus twelve and keeps quietly stacking strong performances. We ask whether anyone will notice before they have to.
• Starmer's "island of strangers." The line that resonated, the 180 that followed, and what it says about who's allowed to talk about immigration.

Also discussed: Vancouver's curiously invisible World Cup, the case against $500 tickets, why Andrew is boycotting Belgium over his grandma's tortoiseshell cigarette case, and his suspiciously great skin and hair on CBC.

For Last Orders: Joseph is finally on to Wind of Change, the podcast asking whether the CIA wrote a Scorpions power ballad — and Andrew remembers Baroness Meta Ramsay, the softly spoken Labour peer he treated like his grandma on foreign delegations, who turned out to be one of MI6's most senior officers. Obituary linked below —https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/meta-ramsay-death-mi6-spy-b2985761.html.

If you haven't yet, find us on Apple Podcasts and YouTube, leave us a five-star rating, and drop your questions in the comments — that's what the Postbag is for.

Over the weekend the BC Conservatives picked the candidate the smart money had written off — and half the commentariat instantly called it a gift to the NDP. We're not convinced. A party that went from a rounding error to Official Opposition in a single election just told us exactly what kind of party it wants to be.

What we got into:

• The recession nobody can feel. Two negative quarters, a textbook technical recession — and the economists shrugged while Pierre Poilievre reached for the megaphone. We get into which number actually moves a voter, and why 0.1% of GDP isn't it.
• A conservative won the Conservative party. Less obvious than it sounds. Kerry-Lynne Findlay ran as the only "true" conservative in the field and made everyone else argue on her turf — a purity test, inside a party stitched together from the refugees of a rival coalition.
• "Half the province is tied to a tree; the other half is trying to chop it down." Andrew's field guide to why nobody wins British Columbia as a conservative — you win as a coalition, or you don't win at all.
• The transfers that didn't transfer. When the third-place candidate dropped off, a sizable chunk of his vote wouldn't land on either finalist. We dig into what that says about a party with a split personality.
• The seat she doesn't have. Can you lead an opposition you can't sit in? The Carney precedent, Andrew's parliamentary traditionalism, and the awkward family math of getting Findlay into the legislature.
• A gift to the NDP, or lazy analysis? Cometh the hour, cometh the woman. Or cometh the disaster. We make the case both ways.

Also discussed: a Postbag full of Alberta alienation, and the conviction out west that Ottawa abandoned them first; Carney quietly losing an MP over climate policy; Howard Anglin's contrarian case for a looser confederation (my Last Order, linked below); and Andrew rediscovering San Francisco after 26 years, with the brewery that justified the detour.

Beating the NDP is the easy part to imagine. The hard part is whether the right can resist its favourite hobby — fighting itself — long enough to get there.

Anglin's piece is linked here, and the Postbag's always open — find us in the YouTube or Spotify comments.

Last week, we recorded with Evan Menzies about the brewing Alberta referendum — and within hours of us hitting publish, Premier Smith unveiled the actual ballot question. So we're back at it.

It's also the first outing of the revamped format — a number, a postbag question, the deep dive, and last orders. Tell us what you make of it.

What we got into:

- The 7-point question. New Angus Reid polling shows that simply rewriting Alberta's 37-word ballot question in plain English moves support for staying from 60% to 67%. The wording is doing campaign work — and 51% of Albertans, including 38% of UCP voters, say the official version is confusing.

- A listener's smell test. After my conversation with Kyla, a listener asks what actually backs Pierre Poilievre's claim he can do better on the economy. Andrew on why opposition leaders rarely get to prove anything — and why, on credibility right now, Canadians have already chosen.

- Carney's "dangerous bluff." The Prime Minister came out swinging this week. Is naming the bluff plainly leadership — or does telling Albertans their vote is undemocratic just hand the Yes campaign exactly the grievance it feeds on?

- Why Brexit is the wrong analogy. Andrew calls it sloppy — then uses it himself three times, because Scotland 2014 is the real playbook. Better Together won, but won ugly. Project Fear, the Telegraph's referendum-day Burns poem, and why "you'll be poorer" lands badly on people who already feel poor.

- Andrew's best line. "For a lot of separatists, it's not so much they want to leave Canada. They feel Canada's left them." The whole Remain messaging problem in one sentence.

- The 25% threshold. I bring in Damon Centola's Change — why 35% Yes, with no campaign yet run, is closer to a 50/50 fight than dismissive eastern punditry wants to admit.

Also discussed: Andrew's accidental field trip to Leavenworth, Washington (a town that looks like Bavaria because of a 1960s economic-development study), why people in Vancouver can't walk in a straight line, my pick of Derek Thompson's Plain English on the global fertility crisis, and a brief debate over whether fewer humans on the planet is, on balance, a bad thing.

In February, Dave Cournoyer told us Alberta was sliding toward a separation referendum the pro-Canada side wasn't ready to fight. Three months later, the referendum is both stalled and very much alive — a court has locked the separatist petition in a drawer, and the government's backup plan collapsed when it announced a result before the vote happened.

So we brought in Evan Menzies — Crestview Strategy VP, former director of communications for the United Conservative Party and the Wildrose caucus before it, with a front-row seat to the 2017 merger that created the UCP. He's spent years mobilizing grassroots support for Alberta's energy sector — so on the separatist base, he isn't guessing. And he's just written the conservative case for staying in Canada, the conversation we really wanted.

What we got into:

• The gong show, explained. A court ruling, a botched press release, and 700,000 signatures across two petitions — how Alberta ended up with two referendum questions and a constitutional headache.
• One question, two messages. "Do you want to leave Canada?" or "Do you want to stay?" — the wording is the whole ballgame, and the gentler version is both the Premier's escape hatch and the separatists' grievance.
• The establishment stitch-up. Andrew brings the Scottish and Brexit playbook: block the vote people want, and you don't kill the movement — you grow it.
• Gasoline and a match. Evan's sharpest line, on the pitch for a blank-slate constitution — building a country from scratch and hoping it works out "after the explosion."
• The pipeline clock. Shovels promised by September 2027, conveniently just before an election. What happens to the temperature if the ground is still frozen?
• The conservative case for Canada. Vimy Ridge, a Team Canada jersey, and why Evan thinks giving up on the country is the least conservative thing an Albertan could do.

Also discussed: why one in four Albertans you meet arrived in the last five years (we suspect Evan's own boosterism is to blame), the National Energy Program as Alberta's inherited trauma, why a Stéphane Dion unity tour is a federalist's nightmare, and Joseph's campaign to draft Evan as Alberta's next lieutenant governor.

Evan's read: the separation debate is mainstream now, the next four months are "a tornado," and the fight that matters may be the election that follows, not this fall's vote.

Find Evan's writing on Substack.

Sixty episodes ago, James Wharton came on the show with a Labour government struggling to find its sea legs. 15 months later, Keir Starmer is fighting for his job.

So we brought James back. Lord Wharton of Yarm — former Conservative MP for Stockton South, the kind of Red Wall seat Reform now eats for breakfast.

What we got into:

• Why Starmer probably survives the week. The would-be regicides aren't coordinated, aren't coalescing, and the PM has called their bluff. The catch: being a process-driven lawyer who decides he wants to stay is a survival strategy until it isn't.
• The Streeting moment that wasn't. Reports that the Health Secretary tried to see Starmer one-on-one after cabinet, and was told to wait. Why that matters more than it sounds.
• The Burnham brand puzzle. Why does the press keep calling the Mayor of Greater Manchester the saviour the Labour Party's been waiting for, when the by-election ground nearest his door just went Green? James and Andrew both served alongside him. Both have thoughts.
• Reform's ceiling problem. 1,453 councillors gained, 14 councils taken, breakthroughs in Scotland and Wales — and vote share still down from last year's locals. James on why this might be peak Reform, not the launchpad it looks like.
• The non-aggression pact question. Should the Tories cut a deal with Reform? James's answer is emphatic, and Andrew brings in the Canadian comparison — what actually had to happen before Reform and the PCs merged in 2003.
• The Carney contrast. James's best line of the episode: Carney is pulling off the trick Starmer was elected to do.

Also discussed: why Hackney's transgender-sanctuary-and-Palestine-twinning agenda doesn't speed up the bin collection, why Labour quietly cooled on votes at 16 once 16-year-olds started voting Green, and the evening with Liz Truss we both attended the night before recording.

Five-party politics, no majorities anywhere, and a Prime Minister whose own MPs can't decide whether to push him or just let him quietly tip over.

For forty years, the Conservative Party owned cost of living. Not anymore — and Kyla Ronellenfitsch has the polling to prove it.

This week on Craft Politics: pollster and data scientist Kyla Ronellenfitsch joins Joseph Lavoie to answer whether the CPC has quietly lost its forty-year brand on the economy, with new data showing Mark Carney's Liberals now lead Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives on managing the cost of living.

We discuss:

• Why the Liberals lead the Conservatives by five points on managing the cost of living, and what that means for a forty-year Conservative brand asset
• The favourability ladder and why its order matters more than the horse race
• Why Poilievre's rebrand kept snapping back to attack mode, and whether the Davos speech quietly locked in Carney's brand
• The narrative reset on young Canadians — the CPC has gone from +35 to +5 with young men in sixteen months

Chapters:0:00 — Joseph admits he's been wrong on cost of living1:23 — Is cost of living still Canada's top issue?5:54 — The +5 disaster: how the Liberals took the CPC's brand11:15 — Carney halo vs Poilievre bad vibes14:42 — The Davos speech that wouldn't quit17:29 — The favourability ladder, top to bottom20:25 — Why Poilievre's rebrand snapped back24:41 — Stop saying young Canadians are conservative29:53 — The elder millennial sweet spot35:30 — Avi Lewis and the anti-corporate lane the NDP keeps missing40:42 — The single number to watch in twelve months

Find Kyla on Substack: https://relaywithkyla.substack.comListen to her podcast Culture Lab on Air Quotes Media

—

Craft Politics is a cross-border political podcast where Canadian and British experts come on to answer one political question per episode. Co-hosted by Joseph Lavoie (former senior advisor in a Canadian Prime Minister's Office) and Andrew Percy (former UK Conservative MP).

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/craft-politics/id1790715962Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Zaw8zZHe7qiFYIby7lKRBWeb: https://www.craftpolitics.fm

Joseph Lavoie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephlavoie/Andrew Percy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-percy-b996b431a/

Guest inquiries: [email protected]

#CraftPolitics #CanadianPolitics #Polling #PoliticalAnalysis #PoliticalResearch

We brought in Rudy Husny — former senior advisor to Ed Fast at International Trade, two-time federal Conservative candidate in Outremont, 2020 Conservative leadership contender, and one of the most thoughtful federal Conservative voices on Quebec politics — to make sense of what has happened in the last 10 weeks.

What we got into:

• Why the CAQ is inching back. New premier Christine Fréchette is quietly stealing votes from the Liberals without really announcing anything. The "Fréchette as Mark Carney" framing is everywhere — Rudy explains why it's lazy.
• Charles Milliard's Bill 96 stumble. Three clarifications on the notwithstanding clause in one week. Rookie error or structural problem? (Probably both.)
• PSPP's doubling-down problem. He'd gain eight points by dropping the referendum promise. He won't. Even Lucien Bouchard has told him to walk it back. Rudy on why the rigidity actually matters.
• The Bill 21 wildcard. A Supreme Court decision is pending and could drop during the campaign. Why the outcome matters to every province, not just Quebec.
• Caucus management as stock exchange. Rudy's best line of the episode: when you're high in the polls, invest in your caucus — that's when you'll need the return later. A warning for Carney, and a post-mortem on Poilievre.
• The federal Conservative puzzle. Why Quebec keeps breaking the CPC's heart, and whether Dan Robertson's radical idea — stop running Conservative candidates in Quebec entirely — has any merit.

Also discussed: why Quebec staffers are quitting cabinet jobs now rather than six months from now (we've both been there), why "Premier of the West Island" isn't the same as Premier of Quebec, and how Fréchette showed up in Ottawa, demanded answers from Sean Fraser on the notwithstanding clause, and walked out looking like the strong woman in the room.

Three scenarios, minority government most likely, and the CAQ and the PCQ are both still very much wildcards.

Find Rudy on his French-language podcast https://www.youtube.com/@Danslescouloirs

Carney has his majority — 174 seats after sweeping all three by-elections. First time a Canadian minority has become a majority through floor-crossings and by-elections. But the bigger story is the Conservative collapse underneath: worst by-election losses in a decade, per Eric Grenier at The Writ. The last time results looked this bad? 2014 — the year before Harper lost.

We dig into what the majority actually unlocks (committees, not just vibes), whether Carney governs like he has a new mandate, and what the by-election numbers really tell us about where the Conservatives stand.

Then across the Atlantic: UK May elections are three weeks out. Reform projected to control 60 councils. Labour bracing for historic losses in England, Scotland, and Wales. Andrew breaks down what four-party politics actually looks like on the ground.

Plus: Orbán loses Hungary, and Quebec's October election just got a lot more interesting — the PQ is fading, the Liberals are surging under Charles Milliard, and the CAQ just chose Christine Fréchette as their new leader.

A deeper Quebec dive with a guest expert is coming soon.

Eric Grenier's analysis at The Writ: https://substack.com/home/post/p-193964435

Everyone has a story about winning, and almost none of them hold up.First up, the Iran ceasefire. After nearly six weeks of Operation Epic Fury, the US and Iran agreed to a two-week pause in the fighting — announced on Truth Social less than two hours before Trump's own deadline, the one where he threatened to send Iran "back to the stone ages." Both sides declared total victory. The problem is the Strait of Hormuz is still largely closed, over 400 tankers remain anchored in the Persian Gulf, and Iran is now demanding tolls for ships passing through what used to be an international waterway. Joseph and Andrew break down what the stated war aims actually were, whether any of them were achieved, and why Trump's inability to set modest goals — and stick to them — has handed the Iranian regime a survival story it will tell for decades. Andrew puts it plainly: if you're going to take on a despotic regime, you have to do it from the moral high ground. Threatening to wipe out a civilization is not that.Then, the floor crossings. Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu became the fifth MP to cross to the Liberals since last April's election, bringing Carney's seat count to 171 — one short of a majority. With three byelections on April 13th in Scarborough Southwest, University–Rosedale, and Terrebonne, a Liberal majority is now a question of when, not if. What makes Gladu's crossing so striking isn't just the number — it's who she is. An MP who aggressively challenged the COVID response, pushed back on vaccine policy, fought the conversion therapy ban, and voted to restrict abortion is now a Liberal. Joseph and Andrew credit Fred Delorey for the framing: what we're seeing isn't just Conservative dysfunction — it's Mark Carney operating as a ruthless political player. The whole caucus is now available for picking, not just the red Tory wing. And for Pierre Poilievre, Andrew draws the parallel nobody wants to hear: Jeremy Corbyn nearly won in 2017, and by 2019 the public had moved on. Moments pass.Finally, Hungary. On April 7th — five days before the election — US Vice President JD Vance flew to Budapest, stood on stage with Viktor Orbán, called Trump on his phone so the crowd could hear "I love Hungary and I love Viktor," and told voters to stand with Orbán at the polls. He did all of this on the same day he called EU behaviour "one of the worst examples of foreign election interference I have ever seen." Andrew doesn't mince words on the hypocrisy — and draws on his own experience as a British MP who did Council of Europe election monitoring to explain just how extraordinary Vance's visit actually was. Joseph flags the Russia angle: the Financial Times has reported a Kremlin-linked operation flooding Hungarian social media to boost Orbán — and now you have the US and Russia aligned on the same side of a European election. Andrew's line: the MAGA obsession with strongmen is being used by Putin like a useful idiot.The Hungarian election is April 12th. Independent polls have Tisza up 16 to 19 points. We'll see.

Last night, President Trump addressed the nation for the first time since launching Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28. Joseph and Andrew break down a speech that offered no new information, no clear exit strategy, and no plan for the Strait of Hormuz — 32 days into a war that's sent gas prices past $4 a gallon and oil past $100 a barrel.

They cover Trump's complete inversion of the standard wartime communications playbook — waiting a month to make his case while public support eroded beneath him. They dig into the regime change contradiction: Trump encouraged Iranians to rise up in the first days of the war, now says regime change was never the goal, and claims the remaining leadership is "less radical." Joseph and Andrew aren't buying it.

The conversation turns to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran's IRGC is running a de facto toll booth — charging ships $2 million to pass, with China potentially assisting in the collection. Trump says the Strait will "open up naturally." Andrew argues the conflict isn't over until it's resolved, and that if the U.S. and Europe both refuse to secure it, Iran has no incentive to give up its leverage.

Andrew offers a provocative thought: the endgame might look remarkably similar to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up. And both hosts question whether Western leaders — Starmer, Carney, and others — have anything resembling a plan to deal with the economic fallout hitting consumers at the pump and the grocery store.