Will there be a referendum on May 5th? With time running out for referendum and constituency bill to complete the parliamentary process so that the referendum takes place, as planned, on May 5th it looks as though we are in for a long night. The bill is back in the commons looking at the amendments passed by the upper house. Once this stage is completed it will then need to go back to the Lords again. The Electoral Commission have…
Why don’t the blues use the system they espouse? I’ve was taken with this First Past the Post (FPTP) comment by Mark Thompson on the LeftFootForward blog:- “…the Tories also do not trust FPTP to elect their own leaders. Instead they whittle them down round by round with the MPs as the electoral college (which is a bit like AV) until they reach the top two in this respect and then put the two candidates to a vote of the…
Will celebrity endorsement really influence people? With the AV referendum and constituencies bill about to go through its final intensive period at Westminster the YES campaign has unveiled what looks set to be its key strategy in the coming campaign – celebrity endorsement. While the NO side has a line up of political heavyweights such as John Prescott, David Blunkett and Margaret Beckett the YES plan, it appears, is to keep politicians. past and present, completely out of sight. Instead…
Who is mostly to blame for cuts to local council services? (YouGov) All sampled CON voters % LAB voters % LD voters % Local councils for not cutting their wasteful spending 27 57 9 37 Central government for reducing local council’s funding 29 9 49 21 Both equally 37 30 38 35 Should the coalition be relieved by these numbers? Hardly a day goes by at the moment without the local council cuts stories. For much of the burden of…
And is EdM right: This is re-contaminating the Tory brand? Ever since the “Big Society” concept was launched by Dave during the election campaign I’ve been a sceptic simply because nobody is really clear what it means. Well we are about a year into it now and Cameron’s staged another re-launch to keep the initiative going. After one U-turn after another on policy issues, the forests being the latest, I just wonder what Cameron’s refusal to quietly drop this one…
Is this why it’s floundering in the polls? If the government’s business managers are able to get the referendum and constituencies bill through both houses then the referendum of voting reform will be put to the British people on May 5th – just eleven weeks away. Away from Westminster the big developments in the past few days have been a move to the YES camp in the polling. With two firms asking very different questions showing the same trend then…
Did we see the future at Treasury Questions? I enjoyed watching Treasury questions this week. It was a fascinating parliamentary occasion that provided a window on the future and posed lots of questions. We were treated to the initial skirmish of Osborne vs. Balls, the political fight that will probably determine the next election. We got a showcase of fresh talent on the front benches. And we were reminded just how closely the coalition parties are aligning themselves. Why waste…
Where will the big cuts fall? Ken Clarke’s comment that ‘the middle classes are unaware of the scale of the government spending cuts that will hit them this year’ has, not for the first time in his career, set off a bit of a political storm. It’s true that in order to make cuts of the order necessary to close the structural deficit by 2015, there’ll have to be painful decisions taken. What’s interesting is his focus on the middle…