A couple of North-West PBers are putting together a gathering in Manchester on Wednesday June 23rd 2010. The venue has yet to be finalised. I’ll be travelling north to join them. If you think that this might be of interest please indicate in the thread below. At this stage we are trying to establish the level of interest. Mike Smithson
Observer Are the new LD ministers the ones who ousted him? Spare a thought this May Sunday for the former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, as he surveys what is happening to his party four and a quarter years after he was ousted. How does he feel about the fact that many of the colleagues who are now being driven about in ministerial limos are the same ones forced the issue of his leadership in January 2006? And the Prime…
ICM Labour leadership poll Who would you back? David Miliband 32% Harriet Harman 11% Ed Miliband 9% Ed Balls 8% Andy Burnham 2% John Cruddas 2% The above figures are from the latest ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph and are the views of the electorate as a whole – not just Labour supporters or even those who’ll be able to vote in the coming election. An issue of course is that Gordon Brown’s approach to the leadership meant that…
UPDATED to include ICM ICM for the S. Telegraph ICM: “…is the coalition the right way forward for Britain after the general election resulted in a hung parliament…” AGREE All surveyed including non-voters 64% Tory voters 87% Lib Dem voters 77% ComRes for the S. Mirror/IoS “… the Lib Dems appear to have sold out on their principles.†AGREE DISAGREE All surveyed including non-voters 41% 47% Lib Dem voters 34% 61% “I believe Nick Clegg should have opted for a…
Ladbrokes are offering 1/3 that it’ll be one of them So far the only two people to declare themselves as candidates for the Labour leadership have been the Brothers Miliband who are first and second favourites in the betting. At the moment David is odds-on while you can get Ed at between 3/1 and 4/1. So if you think it is going the Miliband family way which should you choose? There were a couple of revealing Tweets from ex-Observer writer,…
Will she really allow an all-male shortlist? The Labour leadership contest is being dominated in the early stages by David Miliband, who is heavily odds-on with all outlets. While the usual rule for Labour Leadership elections is that the favourite wins, there just look to be too many variables at the moment to justify such short odds on the former Foreign Secretary. Perhaps the biggest variable is what the field will be. Other than the Milibands, there are no other…
“Do you approve or disapprove of the coalition..?” ALL CON LAB LD Approve 60% 87% 25% 69% Disapprove 33% 13% 68% 24% Given the way that this has been reported in the past few days it is hardly surprising that it should have got so much backing and I would expect other polls this weekend to show the same broad picture. What YouGov does not have are new post-election voting shares for the three parties. My guess is that these…
Would a speaker ballot be a proxy to register opposition? The remarkable thing so far in this brave new world of coalition politics is how well the Tory right has behaved. Yes there have been a few rumblings but not on the scale that might have been anticipated. I wonder whether the re-election of John Bercow as speaker could act as a focus for their dissent. For it only requires one MP to object when the new parliament opens and…