More bad news for Brown in the Sundays 2009 now very much has the feel of 1996 – a government holding onto power in the hopes that “something will turn up”, but now looking increasingly likely that they will, like John Major’s Conservatives, be boxed in all the way to a May 2010 election which they will lose heavily. Kicking off the bleak news for the government this weekend was of course Friday morning’s announcement that the UK economy is…
What’s the electoral impact of the Harman “U-Turn”? The Guardian is running with a story that ‘fear of [a] backlash’ has forced the Government to abandon plans for so-called ‘all-blackshortlists’ in its new Equalities Bill, sponsored by Harriet Harman. The Bill is already a target for those who would claim the codification of ‘political correctness gone mad’ and Thursday’s close second place for the BNP in the East Wickham ward (Bexley) by-election seems to have been the straw on the…
How will this affect Dawn’s re-election chances? As we’ve discussed before here one of the most interesting constituency battles in in Brent Central in north-West London where because of boundary changes two women MPs are fighting to stay in parliament. Five and a half years ago, in a political environment dominated by the Iraq War aftermath and the death of David Kelly the Lib Dem, Sarah Teather, beat off a fierce Labour onslaught to take Brent East in a by…
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Which of the Euro “Big 3” will have the first meeting? William Hill has just put up a new market on which of Europe’s ‘Big Three’ leaders will be the first to hold an official meeting with new President. Brown is favourite at evens, Merkel is 2/1 with Sarkozy the 3/1 outsider. (UPDATE Now 5/2) The terms of the bet seem to favour Brown given there’s the G20 meeting scheduled for April – but Downing Street is already suggesting that…
You can see more from Marf at LondonSketchbook.com.
CONSERVATIVES 44% (+5) LABOUR 30% (-5) LIB DEMS 17% (+2) More will follow later in the evening.