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Category: Coalition

How’s the government comparing with its predecessors?

How’s the government comparing with its predecessors?

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Ipsos-MORI The 32 year view from Mrs Thatcher onwards This is a chart that Ipsos-MORI produces on most months in order to put current government approval ratings figures in an historical context. It shows how the satisfied-dissatisfied numbers moved month by month in the first year after a general election. So at this stage, the chart is based on February’s polling, the coalition is doing substantially better than John Major’s 1992 government and a touch better compared with nine months…

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Why was Dave so unprepared on the NHS?

Why was Dave so unprepared on the NHS?

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A victory for EdM this week As predicted here last night Ed Miliband used his PMQ opportunity this week to open the potential split within the coalition on the NHS changes and put Cameron on the spot over what’s being proposed. The PM’s lack of response to Miliband’s point about the NHS being opened up to EU competition law was very telling. It appeared that he was not up to speed on what’s in the government’s bill. The danger for…

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Votes for Prisoners – will the Supreme Court let Dave off the hook?

Votes for Prisoners – will the Supreme Court let Dave off the hook?

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Sean Fear investigates The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that this country’s blanket ban on prisoners voting is unlawful has handed Cameron’s political opponents a handy stick with which to beat him. The Commons has made it absolutely plain that this ruling is anathema, yet at the same time, Kenneth Clarke, and the Liberal Democrats, are adamant that the ruling must be complied with. Right wing newspapers are arguing that Britain should withdraw from the European…

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Will Dave do to Lansley what he did to Spelman?

Will Dave do to Lansley what he did to Spelman?

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What’s he going to say to Ed about the NHS reforms? You don’t have to be much of a political pundit to work out that the main domestic focus of Ed Miliband’s questions at PMQs tomorrow will be on the government’s troubled plans for the NHS. For not only will he have a raft of material from Saturday’s debate at the Lib Dem conference to refer to there’s also today’s decision by the BMA calling for the withdrawal of the…

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Will Dave get the blame if AV is passed?

Will Dave get the blame if AV is passed?

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Did the blues make the wrong call last May? On the previous thread Laptop posed the question of whether, in the light of what’s happened over the past ten months, the Tories would have been better going for a “supply & confidence” arrangement with the Lib Dems rather than full coalition? Certainly looking at the way the polls and and Barnsley have gone things look bleak for the yellows as they face the May 5th English locals and the devolved…

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Are the NHS reforms a bridge too far?

Are the NHS reforms a bridge too far?

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Jonathan’s Sunday Slot Is the Coalition doing too much to reform the NHS? Last May it embarked on reform at a frenetic pace. No area of government has been left untouched. Arguably its agenda is more ambitious than any government since 1945. But does trying to do everything at once incur serious risks? Cracks are already showing. Ministers look tired. Can Cameron hold things together and will his NHS reforms prove a bridge too far? The coalition programme is already…

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Will the Tories now have to pull back over the Lansley plan?

Will the Tories now have to pull back over the Lansley plan?

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Could the future of the coalition be on the line? My strong sense from all that has come out in the past 24 hours from the Lib Dem conference in Sheffield is that the partnership between the blues and the yellows is about to face its biggest test over the Andrew Lansley NHS changes. From the amendments that the Lib Dem leadership had to accept yesterday the party’s contingent of MPs is going to find it almost impossible to go…

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