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Category: Coalition

How does Labour deal with a popular George Osborne?

How does Labour deal with a popular George Osborne?

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Are incapacity benefits the new battle-ground? While so many were, it seems, watching the football or discussing the aftermath, the chancellor was giving more details of his plan to attack the country’s massive welfare bill in order to find savings. This has made the front pages of only three of the papers but the scale of his plans is enormous. The idea is to protect as much departmental spending as possible by trying to find big cuts in the £190bn…

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Has the Observer been conned by the MiliEd campaign?

Has the Observer been conned by the MiliEd campaign?

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Observer Did the paper even see the full data? The big story in the Observer, under the heading “Half of Liberal Democrat voters ready to defect after VAT rise” is based, though it is not immediately obvious, on private polling that was carried out by YouGov for the Ed Miliband campaign. There were two questions which are being made public (because it’s a private poll YouGov does not have to reveal the rest) and the first was on the child…

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How big a risk is it for Dave to speak here?

How big a risk is it for Dave to speak here?

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Could this plan go horribly wrong? At the end of what’s been the toughest week for the coalition comes news that plans are being considered for the Cameron and Clegg to speak at each other’s party conferences in the autumn. According to the Guardian the idea will be discussed at a joint political cabinet next month when the two parties will also decide how to co-ordinate policy announcements and how to sell the success of their first few months. The…

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Will making families poorer really boost the blues?

Will making families poorer really boost the blues?

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Was Osborne’s aim to stop Labour doing this again? For me the above Labour PEB was by far the best piece of campaigning by any party at the election. It was designed to sow doubts about what a Tory government would do by focussing on key issues that affect middle income voters. The child credit was its first main point. If there was a single reason why Labour recovered so well in the closing days campaign it was because they…

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Tories hit 42 pc in first post-budget poll

Tories hit 42 pc in first post-budget poll

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Fieldwork Pollster/publication CON LAB LD 22-23 June YouGov / Sun 42 34 17 20-21 June YouGov / Sun 41 33 18 18-20 June ICM / The Guardian 39 31 21 18-20 June Ipsos MORI/Reuter 39 31 19 17-18 June YouGov / Sunday Times 39 34 19 16-17 June ComRes / Indy on Sunday 36 30 23 10-11 June YouGov / Sunday Times 40 32 18 10-11 June BPIX (YouGov) / Mail on Sunday 39 32 19 1-9 June Harris/Metro 36…

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How the tabloids are playing it?

How the tabloids are playing it?

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Is the Mirror the only one to get it right? Above are the front pages from the main tabloids which are not too bad for the coalition. Labour’s only voice in what used to be called Fleet Street, the Daily Mirror, put the emphasis on this afternoon’s final world cup group game for England with only a passing reference to the Chancellor’s statement. We should always be wary of instant reactions to budgets. As a general rule governments tend to…

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Will the “Labour to blame” rhetoric continue to resonate?

Will the “Labour to blame” rhetoric continue to resonate?

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Are the yellows the coalition’s “weakest link”? The fury that’s come from Labour against the Lib Dems today has been a sight to behold – and a reflection of why an LD-LAB deal after the election was never going to happen. First we had the massive barracking of Clegg at his first Deputy PMs questions only to be followed by Labour’s response to Osborne’s budget. The question now, though, is whether the high-tempo Labour budget attacks are going to resonate…

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What should Clegg do about his Kennedy problem?

What should Clegg do about his Kennedy problem?

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Evening Standard blogs Could the ex-leader vote oppose the coalition budget? Reproduced above is part of a piece that was posted last night by the Evening Standard political writer, Paul Waugh. Clearly Kennedy, who was leader of the party until being forced out in the first week of 2006, is not a happy bunny. He is certainly no fan of the coalition – a view he shares with another former leader and one of those who ousted him, Ming Campbell….

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