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Category: Labour

Will Labour’s tribalism see Ed Home?

Will Labour’s tribalism see Ed Home?

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Does it matter what supporters think of Miliband? I’m must ploughing through the hundreds of pages from Michael Ashcroft’s massive polling project for the Tories which tries to work out how the blues can win a majority. You can get the full details of the various segments here. I was quite struck by this finding: “Ed Miliband was a very much less important factor for Labour voters than David Cameron was for Conservative voters. Of those who thought Labour were…

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Can the Labour YES poster help turn it round?

Can the Labour YES poster help turn it round?

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Is attacking Dave/George going to resonate? I am told that this ad is being used in strong Labour areas, particularly in the north. To me the linking of the local elections, the referendum and using the Labour logo is quite smart and for some audiences might be quite effective. This is all part of the Mandy attack strategy that we saw last night – put the focus on Cameron/Osborne not on Clegg. We shall see if it works. UPDATE The…

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Jonathan on five targets for Labour

Jonathan on five targets for Labour

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And Easter greetings from Marf May’s elections are important. Not only will they decide who controls millions of pounds, they will set the tone of politics and party morale for the year ahead. They are the first real indication of how votes stack up in the Coalition era. And outside the English cities, they will establish the activist base on which the parties will fight the next general election. The elections are most important for Labour. Out of office, the…

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How many candidates has Labour been able to field?

How many candidates has Labour been able to field?

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Could a big increase be good news for the blues? At midday nominations closed for the council elections that will take place in most of England on May 5th When they are published we’ll get our first indicators of how Labour is approaching the coming fight and also about the current health of the party. Harriet Harman’s goal is that the red team will have more candidates for up to 30 years. The chart above shows what’s happened in five…

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Could Labour end up winning 1,000+ seats on May 5th?

Could Labour end up winning 1,000+ seats on May 5th?

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English local elections battleground May 2011 (Rallings and Thrasher LGC) CON defending LAB defending LD defending OTH defending Metropolitan boroughs: 815 seats in 36 councils 186 393 199 37 Unitary authorities: 1928 seats in total in 49 councils 909 501 380 138 District councils: 6647 seats in 194 councils 3931 726 1287 703 Total 9484 seats 5026 1620 1866 878 How will the parties do in the first test since the general? May 5th, just five and a half weeks…

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Jonathan’s Sunday Slot

Jonathan’s Sunday Slot

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Labour meets the Four Horsemen Opposition is hard. In the past month, Labour was rudely reminded of the weakness of opposition and just how difficult it will be to regain power. There are four political horseman of the apocalypse that can doom any opposition party. In March, Labour received visits from all of them. Fortunately for Labour, their visits came early, weren’t fatal and the party should learn from the experience. Who are they? Irrelevance. Opposition parties rely on the…

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Should Labour expel Hutton for his public sector pensions study?

Should Labour expel Hutton for his public sector pensions study?

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How far should ex-ministers go in helping the coalition? With the big domestic political story being the publication of the public sector pensions review there are calls by left of centre bloggers that the man who carried out the study, ex-cabinet minster John Hutton, to be expelled from the Labour party. On the Liberal Conspiracy site Owen Jones links Hutton’s cooperation to that of his fellow ex-minster Alan Milburn:- “..both Hutton and Milburn were appointed not for their expertise, but…

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Introducing Labour’s big idea for 2011

Introducing Labour’s big idea for 2011

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(Mrs Thatcher stepped down as PM on November 28th 1990) Thanks to Paul Waugh at PoliticsHome for spotting this – the latest campaign material being used by Labour ahead of tomorrow’s by-election. A big challenge in what is a super-safe seat will be getting the vote out and it’s revealing that the party feels that the Thatcher message is the strongest card. Even allowing for the fact that in the centre of what was the Yorkshire coalfield hostility towards the…

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