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Should Labour/EdM focus on something else? Ed Miliband decided to devote all his six questions at PMQs to the immigration row – and really got nowhere. The problem is that without some new “killer fact” it’s hard to take this forward. Just because this is about “immigration” doesn’t automatically mean that these developments are of interest and neither Cameron nor Miliband sounded totally convincing. Ed needs to do more than to say this is a “fiasco”. Cameron came well prepared…

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Is he right – Europe’s to blame? Today’s Indy has the November “Poll of Polls” compiled by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University. The big change has been a decline in the Tory share across the range of voting intention polls while both Labour and the LDs move forward. Curtice suggests that the blues could be being affected by the split on Europe – as seen a fortnight ago in the commons vote on an EU referendum. He observes:- “The…

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What a day for exits! Silvio Berlusconi is to go after his new budget law is approved and what could be politically explosive for the government the UK Borders Agency Chief, Brodie Clark, has resigned and announced that he’ll claim for contructive dismissal. The PB NightHawks cafe is PB’s overnight thread where lurkers and those who have never posted before are most welcome. Have a good evening. @MikeSmithsonPB

Blair Freebairn looks back and looks forward Thomas Huxley’s observation that many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact is an often ignored truth. Back in 2007 on this site I theorised that the coming 2010 election was going to be decided not in cities, rural areas or Scotland, but in the English towns. So what actually happened? Above are the 2010 results on a map distorted so that each constituency takes up roughly the same area. The…

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Can she go on riding the storm? Several papers are leading with the immigration row this morning and the story does not seem to be going away. After her commons statement yesterday the home secretary and most senior women in Cameron’s government, Theresa May, will be back at Westminster in a few hours facing questions from the home affairs select committee. To me the most significant element of yesterday was the way that David Cameron sat by her as she…

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What will you be doing at 10pm on May 7 2015? At exactly ten o’clock in the evening three and a half years on from tonight the polls will be closing in the 2015 general election. For the previous half or so so a select group of people will already have a good idea of the outcome. These are of course the team carrying out the exit poll and the senior members of the election teams at the major broadcasters….

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How can the Labour leader build public awareness? The Indy has now put right the online version of this morning’s editorial about Ed Miliband’s comments on the St’ Paul’s demo. But, alas. it’s there for posterity in the printed edition and I got a screen grab – see above – earlier. But what a stupid cock-up. Surely the un-named journalist who is a main leader at the paper should not have allowed this to happen? For the paper this’ll be…

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Telegraph Should you be backing the HomeSec for next cabinet exit? The main lead in the Times and the Telegraph this morning is what the latter is calling the “scandal” of the relaxation of border controls during the summer. This is how the Telegraph’s James Kirkup is describing it:- “The Home Secretary will be accused of being responsible for the most serious immigration scandal to face the Coalition since it took office last year. Events at the UK Border Agency,…

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