SkyNews How potent is the rising jobless total? So as expected there’s been another big increase in the number of jobless and we are now back at levels not seen since the mid-90s when the Tory government was in power. The news comes on the same day that that ex-Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, unveiled plans costing nearly £3bn a year, to get half a million people off benefits and into work. This is not party policy but the funding…
Politics Home poll Could this be one of the big election themes? Over the past week I’ve been surprised by the public reaction to the compulsory vetting regime planned for those who have contact with children who are not their own. If I’d been asked to venture a view before this blew up I’d have said that virtually anything that helped clamp down on paedophiles would have been applauded by the Great British Public. Maybe it’s the way the initial…
Guardian online What does this say about Brown’s decline? Lots of very uncomfortable reading for Number 10 in this morning’s papers – perhaps nothing more so that this in the Guardian by Martin Kettle. Something, surely, has got to give? HAT-TIP ChristinaD on the previous thread. Bedford Tory Mayoral primary: I’ll probably be doing a piece here or on PB2 later about the extraordinary events at last night’s hustings and election overseen by Tory Chairman, Eric Pickles with Iain Dale…
Mail Online Do we now have a stalking horse? Probably the most significant political move this morning is the above story by Tim Shipman on the Mail website about the plans of Barry Sheerman MP to make a stand in coming secret PLP elections as the anti-Brown candidate. The outline of the process was first revealed by Shipman last week but this takes it a couple of steps forward. Firstly long-standing Brown critic, Sheerman, is named and secondly there’s a…
Guardian Has the movement forgotten what made Blair electable? In days gone by the TUC conference (it starts today by the way) used to be a high profile event that kicked off the season of political gatherings and would be given almost as much coverage as the Liberal, Labour and Tories ones that followed. That was when the unions were much larger and much more powerful than they are today and, of course, when the country still had a significant…
Times Online Can the former student rebel turn it round for Gord? Inevitability as we edge towards the final party conference season before the general election the Sundays are full of political stories relating to the coming battle. Two of items are linked – but only indirectly. Simon Walters in the Mail on Sunday is reporting on the problems that Brown is having building up a team for the general election and notes three figures who played key roles in…
CON 41 (+1) LAB 27 (nc) LD 17 (-1) Tories up one – LDs down one The striking consistency of national Westminster voting intention polls that we’ve seen all summer has continued with the latest YouGov survey for the Sunday Times. Tories up one the Lib Dems down one is the sum total of the movement – all within the margin of error. The online pollster has been showing the biggest Labour shares of all the firms during the past…
Why doesn’t she take the trouble to look at the polling? This is a graph that was produced by John Cruddas for his big speech to the Compass conference during the week in an attempt to underline his case that there is a near-permanent progressive consensus in British politics. One of the participants, Guardian writer and former SDP-member, Polly Toynbee was reported as saying that “the graph showed that the Conservative Party had never, in the post-war era, had a…