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How’s this version going to go down at Number 10? There’s a must-read column by Julian Glover in the Guardian this morning in which he tries to unpack those critical few weeks last autumn when the banking system seemed on the point of collapse. The following gives a sense of it:- “….The turning point came on Friday 10 October, a day of market panic. Over the next few days the Treasury engineered its emergency part nationalisation. Few would can deny…

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Why aren’t Labour using by-elections as practice? There can’t be many Labour supporters who were glad to hear that Ian Gibson had resigned forcing a by-election in Norwich North. They might not have been much happier at the prospect of fighting the SNP for Michael Martin’s old seat either. Both are potential losses for the Government, so it should be a case of finding silver linings. The only benefit to by-elections where you can only lose or hold on (with…

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Where’s the upper limit to Tory ambitions? Yesterday’s opinion polls showed the figures returning to something like the position they were in immediately following the local and European elections in June – yesterday’s YouGov poll produced similar results to one on 7 June which had a Con/Lab/LD split of 40/24/18 and a ComRes poll of 12 June had a split of 38/22/20. In each case, all the comparable figures are within 2% between now and then. So, not much change, although…

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CON 42% (+2) LAB 25% (+1) LD 18% (+1) YouGov have Tories over 40%, ComRes say not quite ITN have announced a new YouGov poll which has the Conservatives increasing their lead over Labour to 17 points, but all major parties gaining slightly at the expense of ‘Others’. This implies that the mistrust of the major parties over expenses at the time of the European elections has largely died away, which won’t be good news for the Greens in Norwich…

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How can £20bn be justified without more helicopters? The main story of the weekend is the ongoing row about how well resourced British troops in Afghanistan are, and what needs to be done to lessen the recent casualty rate. Sir Richard Dannet and Sir Jock Stirrup have both been widely quoted, and David Cameron and Nick Clegg have also piled the pressure on the government. The other defence story this weekend is the delay to the decision about Trident. Afghanistan…

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FT.com Should you be taking the 50/1 on him getting the job? At the start of the year I took out a bet at 200/1 with Ladbrokes that Peter Mandelson would be Prime Minister on December 31st 2009. This always seemed remote because Mandy took a life peerage last October which would make it impossible for him to sit again in the house of commons. But late last night the above story appeared in the FT which goes on:- “On…

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