Can a new consensus be found? Last night, I attended the launch of the Open Left project – run by James Purnell MP on behalf of the think tank Demos. Purnell was joined by Jon Cruddas MP, Will Hutton, Jess Search of Channel 4, and Lewis Iwu (recently OUSU President and tipped as a future Labour leader if Shadsy is reading). The project has a simple aim – to redefine what it means to be Left wing in the face…
Has the Observer columnist fallen into the 1990s polling trap? As PB regulars will know one thing that makes me absolutely furious is when pundits seek to compare the polls of the 1990s with modern day numbers. For back in the run-up to the 1997 election almost all the pollsters were in their unreformed mode and there was a systemic over-statement of Labour – something that we do not see any more. The pollsters from that era have either moved…
ICM Guardian – July 6 1996 CON 30 LAB 45 LD 21 General Election Result May 1 1997 CON 31.4 LAB 44.4 LD 17.2 ICM Guardian – July 15 2000 CON 35 LAB 42 LD 17 General Election result June 7 2001 CON 32.7 LAB 42 LD 18.8 ICM Guardian – July 18 2004 CON 30 LAB 35 LD 25 General Election result May 5 2005 CON 33.2 LAB 36.2 LD 22.6 Comparing the July pre-election polls with what happened?…
News of the World What do we think of the paper’s emphatic defence? There’s a furious response in the News of the World to Thursday’s story in the Guardian about the actions of NOTW journalists. The paper denies the allegations in very strong terms and then focuses its fire on the Guardian itself. “….So let us remember that it was the Guardian that knowingly, deliberately and illegally forged a cabinet minister’s signature to get an exclusive story. It was the…
Has he the power to defer the election until 2013? While I was researching the deadline for nominations for the Norwich by-election (4pm today), I found a fascinating research paper from the House of Commons – as reliable a source as could be wished for. It details the timetables for elections to various parliaments, assemblies and councils within the UK as well as giving detail on background and procedure – and contains an amazing loophole relating to the deadline by…
Is he anything like as smart as his billing? Yesterday’s big statement, Brown’s latest re-launch, is the first such major government move since Lord Mandelson was promoted to his unique new position in charge of just about everything. So how come it got such a terrible press this morning. How come that the work of the “great communicator” failed to add the “Mandelson magic” to the programme? Where was the skilled rhetoric, the thread that would bind it together, or…
Is Speaker Bercow going to follow through on his warning? Last Wednesday in his statement after PMQs Speaker Bercow made it clear that the first place ministers should make announcements was to the house of commons. Well what’s he going to do about Peter Mandelson’s radio comments this morning that the spending review will be postponed until after the election? Surely this big news on the government’s management of the economy should have come first in a statement to MPs?…
Would a change give Labour more hope? There’s a sentence in John Rentoul’s weekend piece that is worth examining. For in assessing prospect for the election Rentoul notes “I assume that the Labour Party will recover from its current trough of unpopularity, by which I mean that it replaces Brown with Alan Johnson..” Rentoul, of course, is a Blair biographer and is no fan of Brown Central. He’s also been tipping an Alan Johnson switch-over ahead of the election for…