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Category: Labour

Does Brown have too many deputies?

Does Brown have too many deputies?

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Can he cope with Harriet, Mandy and Ed at the same time? Just as every Prime Minister needs a Willie, as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, so the present incumbent believes he needs Balls. She was right; he may not be. While Balls isn’t Brown’s deputy, he is almost certainly his closest political confidante within the cabinet, his position unassailable and his views taken very seriously by Brown. Alongside him, Peter Mandelson having returned to government and risen to the lofty…

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Has Cameron found the election dividing line – honesty?

Has Cameron found the election dividing line – honesty?

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Indy online Is this going to be the core Tory theme? Usually one of the most consistent Saturday morning political “reads” is Andrew Grice’s column in the Independent and today he speculates on what he think what the Tories are planning to make the election all about. He suggests that Tory riposte to Brown’s “investment versus cuts” will be “to invite voters to choose between “Honest Dave and Dodgy Gordon”. Grice goes on: “When Andrew Lansley, the shadow Health Secretary,…

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Does this blow apart Gord’s “10% cuts” rhetoric?

Does this blow apart Gord’s “10% cuts” rhetoric?

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YouGov What does he do now in the face of these numbers? Thanks to Andrew Sparrow in the Guardian for spotting the above numbers in the latest YouGov poll for they seem to blow a big hole in Brown’s core general election strategy – to reduce the argument down to a choice between “Labour investment” and “Tory cuts”. The key premise of the Brown approach is that voters will believe that by curtailing budgets to key services then inevitably those…

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But what if he’s right?

But what if he’s right?

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Could he have the winning formula after all? The largely settled view of commentators and punters alike is that Labour will lose the next general election. No pundit has predicted that Labour (still less Brown) will be running government after polling day for some time, and the betting markets make the Conservatives heavily odds-on to win an outright majority, never mind most seats. Labour’s implied percentage chances of keeping a majority are stuck in single figures. However, a slim chance…

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Can he make it to the parliamentary recess?

Can he make it to the parliamentary recess?

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Will the “dignified exit” then come in September? Ever since his survival after the June 4th elections disaster there’s been talk that a deal was done with Mandelson during those critical few days for Brown to be allowed to stay so he could have a “dignified exit” at a less frenetic time. This, I believe, is the sub-text of much of what is going on at the moment with Simon Carr putting it clearly in the Indy this morning. “And…

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Could Bercow be a future PM?

Could Bercow be a future PM?

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What do we think of Paul Linford’s speculation? Labour inclined blogger, Paul Linford has an interesting post under the heading “Could it be Prime Minister Bercow one day?”. His article looks at some of the historical precedent and then concludes: “..Bercow has said he will do nine years in the Chair, effectively two full Parliaments plus the toe-end of this one. That will make him 55 when he stands down – younger than Gordon Brown was when he became Prime…

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Who’s winning the Dave-Gord numbers war?

Who’s winning the Dave-Gord numbers war?

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BBC Online Will voters get bored by the details? Yet again today’s PMQ was dominated by the Tory leader trying to get the PM to admit that his answers a week ago and other public statements on cuts were not accurate. He was, in fact, being called a liar. The Tory strategy seems to be two-fold – to portray Brown as untrustworthy through his use of “dodgy” numbers and to get over that Labour is having to make cuts as…

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Will my mate Pat ask a planted question?

Will my mate Pat ask a planted question?

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Or will be continue his customary independence? Pictured above is Pat Hall, MP for Bedford since 1997, my general election opponent in 1992 and my colleague for adjoining divisions on Bedfordshire county council from 1989-1996. Today at the first post-Michael Martin PMQs he’s down to ask the first question and I wonder whether he’ll succumb to the whips and ask a planted one? Although we are of different parties Pat is generally a good guy and I was delighted when…

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