Will her deputy victory last year put her in a strong position? I’ve had a soft spot for Harriet Harman as a betting prospect after tipping her in June 2007 when she was 9/1 to become the Deputy Leader of the Labour party. Now, according to today’s Daily Mail, she is quietly pitching herself as the best option for a stand-in prime minster should a vacancy occur. The paper says that MPs acting on her behalf are quietly testing opinion…
Why should we believe them this time? Yet again this morning’s papers feature “senior ministers” who don’t want to be identified warning of dire consequences for Gordon Brown if Labour fails an upcoming electoral test. Sounds familiar? Yes – we’ve heard it all before. Just go back only a couple of months and the same was being said ahead of the local elections and the London Mayoral contest. Labour did badly and what happened? Brown stayed. Then later in May…
Will Glasgow East see the first sign of an exodus? There has been much written already about the potential fortunes of the Labour Party in Glasgow East, and as remarkable as it seems, the 13,507 majority currently enjoyed by David Marshall was not even enough to prevent the SNP from being ‘bookies’ favourites’ when the markets first opened. The punters on the site, far more knowledgeable on the specifics of this constituency than I, have made me wonder how we…
How much does this add to the problems of Darling and Brown? In terms of public interest the main story in the Times this morning will probably have less immediate impact on public opinion than last night’s news of the rejection by the commons of the proposals to deal with MPs’s expenses. But if the paper, which appears to have this as an exclusive, has this right then it will, surely, be another hammer blow to what used to be…
Guest slot by HenryG Manson Brown’s first year has been a real rollercoaster ride and most of us in the Labour Party are feeling rather unsettled and at times wanting to get off. To read the views Westminster commentators you’d be hard pressed to find anyone you thinks Brown can successfully tie his shoe-laces at the moment, never mind lead a dramatic poll recovery. The named leader polling offers grim reading. At the moment David Cameron is winning on pretty…
Would Tory leads be as big if older methodologies were still used? One factor that has completely changed the backcloth against which UK political life operates has been the almost total overhaul of the polling industry since the 2001 election to deal with what was the systemic problem of Labour over-statement. It is my contention that if the 2001 line-up of pollsters and polling methods were still in place then the current Labour poll deficits would be on a much…
What is going to bring Brown’s position to a head? Yet again it is Gordon Brown’s future that continues to dominate UK politics. In her Monday Guardian column the former Brown enthusiast, Jackie Ashley, makes a powerful call on leading ministers and others within the Labour party to take some action to “end the drift”. Either they should come out and support the Prime Minister or they must act to get rid of him and this, she argues, has to…
Is it just recently or have you thought so all along? It’s becoming very difficult to find anybody any more who still says positive things about Gordon Brown’s electability. One after another in recent months former great supporters of the ex-Chancellor have come to the same conclusion about the man they cheered into Downing Street at the end of June last year. But when did you start to realise that he did not have it? When did you conclude that…