Can she win the Ames Straw poll? In a few hours time thousands of Republican party activists will be arriving at the Iowa state university campus in Ames for what has become the traditional kick off in the party’s race to find it’s candidate for the White House. Early next year the state should be the first to hold a primary – in its case through the caucus system – and a good performance today is critical for several of…
Is it the wrong time to assert unearned rights? In the emergency parliamentary debate on the riots this week both David Cameron and Ed Miliband used the disturbances as evidence in support of concepts that are clearly key to how they see their leaderships and what they want to address or to deliver through them: the Broken Society in David Cameron’s case, and the British Promise in Ed Miliband’s. The Labour leader’s is the more interesting of the two at…
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Another poll has voters backing the police over politicians The Guardian has an ICM poll just out asking for reactions on the riots. It was carried out online and the fieldwork finished last night – so it’s much more up to date than the YouGov numbers featured here this morning. The “good job/bad job” figures are shown in the chart above with Dave on 30% for “good job” to 44% for “bad job”. Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin, meanwhile has a…
Henry G Manson on the riots aftermath The Conservatives should win the law and order debate hands down. Always. Their MPs traditionally go further than any other party and understandably there’s a huge appetite for tough action on those involved in rioting. Yet the failure to budge on the 20% cuts to policing leaves the government wide open to attack from Labour and parts of the Conservative-inclined press too. There are so many things to be said about the recent…
Will the police always come out on top? Following the previous post about the reported police reaction to the PM’s criticisms over their handling of the riots I’ve dug up the above YouGov polling that was published on Wednesday. The question was: “Thinking about the recent riots in London and other cities in Britain. How well or badly do you think each of the following are dealing with situation? – The police/Cameron/Boris?” Things have moved on sharply in the past…
Is it wise to open rifts with top cops? The main lead in tomorrow’s Guardian is on the reaction of senior police officers to the wholesale criticisms of their approach to the riots in speeches from the PM and other Tories in today’s commons debate. One of them is quoted as saying: “David Cameron blamed the police for not having a crystal ball and not anticipating the most serious set of circumstances ever seen. The confidence of the police leadership…
Aren’t we in danger of going a bit too far? The home secretary, Theresa May, has just told MPs about plans to curb social networking sites such as Twitter during periods of serious unrest. On the face of it this sounds like a good idea – but don’t these sites also provide an invaluable service providing direct information at times of turmoil like we saw a few night ago. They also provide information to the police. My elder daughter was…