Is trying to make excuses a dangerous strategy? So far during riot week Ed Miliband has played a very straight bat and has been careful not to be seen to be making excuses for the arson, looting, mugging and now murder. His rhetoric has been focussed on the need to restore public order combined with calls practical help and cash. As Michael White puts it in the Guardian his approach has been to treat it as if the rioting was…
How much will electorates take from their representatives? It’s easy to think of democracy as the natural political system for the majority of the world. It’s widely aspired to in those countries that don’t have it and even dictatorships usually feel the need to legitimise their rule through some form of elections, no matter how fraudulent they may be in reality. History tells us however that the route to democracy is not a one-way street. Of the 27 current members…
Henry G Manson on a possible Blue-Yellow clash So far public tensions and skirmishes between the two Coalition parties have centred on social policy such as on the NHS or democratic reform such as AV and the House of Lords. The greatest unity appears has been on the government’s economic agenda despite significant pre-election differences between the parties. That could soon change. There has been a growing frequency number of nods and winks from the Treasury that George Osborne intends…
But was this a factor in the likely gloomy news? The big story today and, possibly longer, will be the economic growth figures for April – June 2011 (Q2) that are due out this morning. The signs are that the figures are not good and one of the explanations being put forward is that so many people took extended breaks at the time of the royal wedding. It will be recalled that this took place on Friday April 29th three…
Is Glover right: the coalition could be fighting for its life? One of the best Monday morning columns today is by Julian Glover in the Guardian in which he ponders the consequences if tomorrow’s Q2 growth figures are negative. He writes: “….Everything else, more or less, is survivable: but the coalition could not outlast a collapse of confidence in its economic plans. And with ..the figures confidence will be shaken again. Climbing food and fuel prices, a domestic recovery made…
BBC news How serious is the debt crisis going to get? It is a measure of how preoccupied the media has been with the phone-hacking scandal and the associated stories of the aborted NewsCorp takeover of BSkyB that prior to Thursday, one or other aspect of it formed the subject of Robert Peston’s previous sixteen blog entries. It is without doubt a major and developing story and fascinating to the Westminster Village as it involves so many of them. But…
Are the unions losing the war of words? A ComRes/ ITV News poll on the public sector strikes has found that the public is negative about both the prospects of success and reveals a warning to strikers that they will win little sympathy for strike action in the present financial climate. More than half (54%) say that the public sector strikes ultimately stand no chance of succeeding in changing government policy spending cuts. To another question 63% warn that ‘public…
..or does it present an opportunity for EdM? So far there hasn’t been any specific polling on the strike threats over public sector pensions though I would expect the pollsters that are out in the field this weekend, including ICM and I think MORI, will have included something on what could be the big issue in the coming months. What’s going to be critical is public opinion and whether voters buy the line that all this is inevitable because we are…