Why doesn’t he mention the change of law that’s going through? This is the video clip of Mandy denying that he has plans to stand for the Labour leadership using a form of words, incidentally, that were deployed by Michael Heseltine repeatedly ahead of the ousting of Mrs. Thatcher in November 1990. His reason – that he is a life peer and “In this country if you are made a life peer it’s for life. It’s like a life sentence”….
Can the Tories “steal” one of Labour’s main words? At one level the current verbal spats between Labour’s lone capable communicator, Peter Mandelson, and George Osborne look like standard silly season stuff when there’s not much other political news about. The Independent is presenting it this morning as a “grudge march” between the two key strategists in the main parties following last autumn’s fiasco about what happened in Corfu. But it is I believe much more than that. What we…
Will his 2009 PB prediction be as good as his 2007 one? In the week of the 2007 Labour conference, on September 28 2007, the Observer columnist and writer, Nick Cohen, made an extraordinary prediction in a comment that he posted here on Politicalbetting when general election speculation was at its height. Nick wrote: “My colleagues think that if Brown backs off after marching his men to the top off the hill the commentariat will turn on him. The press…
Did Gord’s honeymoon end with his visit to Iraq? My third extract to help us understand that defining first week in October 2007 is a Newsnight interview between Jeremy Paxman and Bob Ainsworth which took place in the aftermath of Brown’s trip to Iraq and the statement on British troop reductions but before Brown’s famous interview with Andrew Marr. Paxman’s normal manner is aggressive but the core of his case was that there had been some fiddling of the figures…
Spectator Coffee House Is Gordon reconciled to going down with the ship? The Coffee House blog has picked up a fascinating quote from the FT about a Number 10 source which could change the whole dynamic of the next ten months – Brown thinks he’s going to be defeated. It reports: “One Downing Street insider said the prime minister was more relaxed because he now realised that he was certain to lose the next election and was powerless to defy…
Is this why going negative is more effective? The YouTube from Labour’s unsuccessful 1970 re-election campaign is pretty feeble by modern standards but highlights a challenge faced by all governments when they seek re-election – how to campaign on their record? For in every general election people are looking forward and reeling off numbers about the past often does to resonate. It can sound tedious and boring and in any case who cares? What voters want to know is that…
Did Balls think the election was still on? While we are going though a very quiet period with almost no political betting going on I thought it worth concentrating further on that first week of October 2007 which we might look back upon as the period that defined Labour’s third term. The clash in the clip was of a discussion before the non-election announcement. What I find striking is how pumped up Ed Balls was – even more so than…
Is it all doom and gloom? I’ve just accepted an invitation to give my thoughts on the general election outcome at a fringe event at the Labour conference in Brighton. This will be the first time I’ve been and I like the idea that it’s at somebody else’s expense. There’s a similar session at the Tory conference the following week. What I’ve been pondering is what on earth can I say in Brighton that is not going to go down…