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What will the impact of the next economic storms be? The coming and going of the G20 this week without any meaningful progress on currencies, trade imbalances or indeed anything much else is hardly a surprise. The immediate global crises of the credit crunch and recession are over and there are too many conflicting interests to get a serious deal done in a couple of days, even with preparation beforehand. That’s a missed opportunity because this week’s seen some strong…

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Can the Woolas factor be so easily sidestepped? The first proper by-election of the 2010 parliament looks set to be a cracker. All three main parties in contention but with Labour having a particular local problem, the Lib Dems well down in the polls from May and the Tories starting in third place it’s surely all to play for – especially once any number of minor candidates are thrown into the mix too. You wouldn’t think so from the betting,…

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Did the opposition over-egg the imminence of the cuts? Now that this week’s spending review has been and gone, some people might be surprised to find that not only does the world continues to turn but pretty much everything else carries on as before, for now. Certainly, there will be restrictions on spending and some functions of government will find their budgets under a lot of strain – but not yet. Likewise, there are tax rises in the pipeline (literally…

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Is this the week we find out just how strong the coalition is? Back in May, it all looked so easy, relaxed and natural. Cameron and Clegg joking at the press conference in the Number Ten garden, negotiations concluded smoothly between the parties, ministers working together round the cabinet table and so on. This week, it was a lot harder, with Lib Dem MP’s voting for huge rises in tuition fees and Tory MP’s voting for the UK’s contribution to…

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Do Miliband’s appointments prevent the settling of old scores? Back in 2006 and early 2007, I predicted that the Blairites and Brownites would stop their infighting once Blair retired, as the Blairites would no longer have a champion to fight for and the policy differences between the two camps were too small to be worth the candle. Not the best prediction there’s ever been. One of the main reasons that didn’t happen, despite Blair’s departure from the scene is that…

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Would a secret ballot have improved Ed’s mandate? It’s quite rare for any vote to be cast publicly in an election, except maybe when it’s on behalf of someone else.  As party members have their own vote in Labour leadership elections, that explanation doesn’t apply so for the party to make its MPs preferences public is unusual.  It’s not something the other parties do, for example. What it does do is add pressure to vote in the way an MP would like to be…

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