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Guardian Is it time for the veteran broadcaster to bow out? The Guardian is reporting that David Dimbleby is in a row with the BBC over a plan to move the production centre of his weekly Question Time programme from London to Glasgow as part of the overall objectives to shift activities out of the capital. The paper reports that David Dimbleby is furious about the resignation of the QT editor Ed Havard, whom he hand-picked to run the show….

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Why go to Gateshead for today’s big event? One of the big political stories of the day has been the big speech by Ed Miliband in Gateshead at which we’ve seen a new Labour slogan (Helping families get on) and a new idea – the “British Promise“. The latter, he said, was the notion that that every generation will do better than the last – something that is now under threat. He argued that “there is now a real and…

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Is putting the emphasis on Clegg the right approach? Tim Montgomerie, originator of the above poster concepts and editor of the Michael Ashcroft-owned Conservativehome beleives that the best way to stop AV being introduced is for the NO camp to put the focus on Nick Clegg. He writes:“… A model is the defeat of the Maastricht Treaty in France in 1992. Maastricht wasn’t rejected because the French people had turned against the European project but because President Mitterrand was hated….

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Or will he be out within days? The drama in Tahrir Square being played out on TV screens round the world goes on but the latest news does not look good for the incumbent. The Egyptian Army chief has told the BBC that it will fire at pro-Mubarak ‘protestors’ if they attack anti-Mubarak protestors. That surely must signal the start of the end game. Without their support the president is surely finished. He says that he wants to serve out…

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BBC news Is TV experience key in the political PR battle? As someone who spent a chunk of my early career as a BBC journalist and editor I think that Cameron has made the right call in choosing a broadcasting news man to be head of communications at Number 10. The move is in sharp contrast with Ed Miliband who has recently appointed two senior newspapermen to fill his key communication roles. I’ve no knowledge of Craig Oliver himself but…

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BBC news

Newspaper circulation figures December 2010 January 2000 Change +/- Daily Mirror 1,133,440 2,270,543 -50.08% Daily Star 713,602 502,647 41.97% The Sun 2,717,013 3,557,336 -23.62% Daily Express 623,689 979,042 -36.30% Daily Mail 2,030,968 2,353,915 -13.72% The Daily Telegraph 631,280 1,022,263 -38.25% Financial Times 390,121 435,478 -10.42% The Guardian 264,819 401,560 -34.05% The Independent 175,002 222,106 -21.21% The Times 448,463 726,349 -38.26% ***Total*** 9,128,397 12,471,239 –26.80% What are declining circulations doing to their political influence? On Andrew Neil’s “This Week” last Thursday…

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January council by elections Votes Cast % Votes Cast Seats Won Change Conservatives 7297 44.05% 3 -2 Liberal Democrats 3774 22.78% 3 +1 Labour 3682 22.23% 2 +1 Green Party 739 4.46% 0 nc UKIP 546 3.30% 0 nc Independents 381 2.30% 0 nc BNP 52 0.31% 0 nc Others 93 0.56% 0 nc Are there any pointers to May’s big elections? And so starts a new year of local by-elections, and for the first time since July 2010, the…

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