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How will this affect the election PR war? What strikes me as the most significant story of the day in terms of the next general election is the letter by Sir Michael Scholar, to Jeremy Heywood, Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, on yesterday’s knife crime statistics. For one of the dead easy ways that Brown Central can get onto the next bulletins is by announcing some statistics and its always possible to play about with them to show…

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CONSERVATIVES 39% (-2) LABOUR 35% (nc) LIB DEMS 17& (+1) Tory lead at lowest level since April Further confirmation that Labour and the Tories are getting closer comes in the latest Populus Poll bfor the Times tomorrow. The figures above show Labour steady but the Tories down a touch and the Lib Dems up. This will be a massive disappointment for the Tories who had really been hoping for something better – given the surveys by ICM and MORI just…

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Will Canada’s Conservative PM still be in office next spring? It’s less than eight weeks ago that I (and in contrast to the US election night, probably few fellow Brits) had an “all-nighter” to watch the Canadian election results come through live. With the exceptions of Quebec and Newfoundland, the Conservatives performed strongly, turning three-figure majorities into five-figure ones, while the Liberals had a disastrous night under the hapless Dion and the NDP made progress. But now, although Harper’s Conservatives…

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So where does Greengate go from here? The News of the World is reporting that neither Damian Green nor the Home Office mole will be charged: “…Damian Green and his Home Office mole will NOT be charged in the leak scandal, the News of the World can reveal. Prosecutors say papers seized from Mr Green’s Commons office cannot be used as evidence in a trial. They add that cops FAILED to conduct a proper search in Westminster. The conclusions, in…

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Mail on Sunday Could two Labour ministers be giving secret tip-offs? Potentially the most explosive story in the Sunday papers is a long report in the Mail on Sunday in which the Tories are saying that they have received direct leaks from the heart of Gordon Brown’s cabinet. A letter to Brown from shadow minister, Chris Grayling, is reproduced in the paper and there’s little doubt that this steps up the ante in the ongoing leaks row. For it suggests…

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Ipsos MORI Issues Tracker On what issues will the next election be fought? On Tuesday-last, Double Carpet and I attended the Ipsos MORI ‘End of Year Review’ in the CBI Conference facility at Centrepoint in London. Over 300 delegates were in attendance, mostly from public sector organisations who rely on Mori for social research, and we got to meet Julia Clark who frequently comes onto PB.com to answer our questions – I am indebted to her for providing me with…

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Is the aim to muddy the pitch? For those who agreed with Mike’s initial assessment of Greengate, the Labour Party’s response must have seemed a little strange. The ‘points of order’ from the Labour benches following the Speaker’s statement on Wednesday seemed determined to draw partisan distinctions between those who supported the operational independence of the police and the neutrality of the civil service, and those who clearly (in their view)* cared only to assert the rights of Parliament and…

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