Browsed by
Category: Coalition

How well has the government picked its key 2011 battle?

How well has the government picked its key 2011 battle?

Comments 0 Comment

Are the Hutton pensions reforms the right place to fight? The reforms to the public-sector pensions that John Hutton, the former Labour Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, proposed in his report for the government earlier this week have understandably dropped out of the news. They will, however, be back. Even without the need to reduce the deficit, public-sector pensions were becoming more and more expensive, given rising life expectancy. Hutton has given the government all the political cover…

Read More Read More

What’ll Japan do to Britain’s nuclear power strategy?

What’ll Japan do to Britain’s nuclear power strategy?

Comments 0 Comment

BBC news Could the leak slow down the planned expansion? Perhaps the biggest domestic victim of today’s appalling events in Japan could be the plan to expand nuclear power. In recent years there has been a shift in favour of nuclear again because of it being a source of power without the CO2 implications. The main argument against has always been safety – something that might be magnified following the radiation leak in Japan. The fact that this happened in…

Read More Read More

What’s this news going to do to Lib Dem conference coverage?

What’s this news going to do to Lib Dem conference coverage?

Comments 0 Comment

Could some yellows be a bit relieved? There was a time when the Lib Dems looked to their spring conference as a platform that, hopefully would lead to some media coverage in the run-up to the May local elections. This year things look set to be different with the narrative framed by the challenges of being in coalition and their 6th place in the Barnsley by-election. But could all that be much reduced by this morning’s terrible news from Japan?…

Read More Read More

Should Labour expel Hutton for his public sector pensions study?

Should Labour expel Hutton for his public sector pensions study?

Comments 0 Comment

How far should ex-ministers go in helping the coalition? With the big domestic political story being the publication of the public sector pensions review there are calls by left of centre bloggers that the man who carried out the study, ex-cabinet minster John Hutton, to be expelled from the Labour party. On the Liberal Conspiracy site Owen Jones links Hutton’s cooperation to that of his fellow ex-minster Alan Milburn:- “..both Hutton and Milburn were appointed not for their expertise, but…

Read More Read More

AV referendum betting: The money moves to NO

AV referendum betting: The money moves to NO

Comments 0 Comment

AV betting – March 10 2011 Latest prices YES price NO price Ladbrokes evens 8/11 William Hill 5/6 5/6 Bet365 evens 8/11 PaddyPower 4/5 10/11 Victor Chandler evens 8/11 Betfair 11/10 4/5 Smarkets 11/10 0.83/1 YouGov’s 17% lead sparks off a mini-spurt Tuesday’s poll from YouGov showing a 17 point lead for NO has caused the first real shift in AV referendum betting since the markets were set up. Until then the traditional bookies had both sides at about 5/6…

Read More Read More

Will Hague’s position be Ed Miliband’s target at PMQs?

Will Hague’s position be Ed Miliband’s target at PMQs?

Comments 0 Comment

Has the foreign secretary lost his appetite for the job? If body language and his general demeanour in public are anything to go by then William Hague looks like a man who has had enough and would like nothing more than to disappear from a high profile political role. When pressed on his commitment at a press conference yesterday his response seemed to raise more questions than it answered. He looks nothing like the super confident William Hague of old…

Read More Read More

YouGov finds only 8 percent saying they WON’T vote on AV

YouGov finds only 8 percent saying they WON’T vote on AV

Comments 0 Comment

Why don’t the pollsters focus on those most likely to vote? There’s yet another YouGov AV poll out with its 141 word-long question that has been totally over-taken by events and starts “The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government are committed to holding a referendum…”. It finishes “If a referendum were held tomorrow on whether to stick with first-past-the-post or switch to the Alternative Vote for electing MPs, how would you vote?” Hasn’t the online firm woken up to the fact that the…

Read More Read More