Will the June elections be the pre-text for a move on Brown? Above are the outline results of the 2004 Euro Elections where Labour came in with just 22.6% of the national vote excluding Northern Ireland. The party, was, of course doing far far better in the Westminster voting intention surveys than it is at the moment and it can be argued that it’s performance on June 10th 2004 was inflated by two factors that won’t exist on June 4th….
Could he be the stalking horse to bring Brown down? LabourHome is carrying a piece suggesting that “former Cabinet Minister is rumoured to be prepared to stand as a stalking horse candidate to trigger a leadership election” Clarke has always been one of Brown’s most furious Labour party critics and quite often when “former cabinet minsters” are quoted on Brown-related issues the assumption is that it’s the former home secretary. Certainly Clarke has never been at the top of Gord’s…
The Independent Is it really all over over for Gord? With the Prime Minister due to face another difficult vote in the commons let’s spare a thought this morning for the person who will be preparing the daily press summary at Number 10 for Gordon Brown. For even though BBC News regarded the defeat on the Ghurkas issue as a minor down-bulletin story yesterday (a disgrace showing an inept sense of news priorities which opens them up to a charge…
Mail Online How risky is putting his authority on the line? Given the backlash from Smeargate, the post-budget poll moves against Labour and the widespread ridicule over his YouTube video you would have thought that the last thing the Prime Minister should be doing at the moment is to put his authority on the line in a commons vote on MP expenses. Yet that was the message coming out of Number 10 last night in what the Guardian describes as…
Can they be won back by the election? Tucked away in the detailed data of the latest ComRes poll is one scary statistic for Brown Central. A total of 240 of those surveyed said they had voted for the party that was then led by Tony Blair in 2005 – Yet over the weekend when the fieldwork was taking place only half of them, precisely 120, told the pollster that they planned to do so next time. This is the…
What are we to make of Reid getting involved again? Last Wednesday on budget day a power Labour voice from the past was wheeled out to argue the government’s case in interview after interview. He was powerful, he was lucid and most of all he was persuasive in a way that not one of the current crop Labour front-benchers can manage. Although he might have a bit of back history and is planning to leave the commons at the election…
The People Will Ed swap jobs with Jacqui in June? I’ve just caught up with the above is story from The People which on reading sounds highly plausible. Ed Balls is hugely ambitious and as, so it is said, Brown’s choice as successor we should expect Number 10 to do everything to help. And what could help Balls most in his positioning for the leadership than to be holding or have held one of the three main offices of state?…
SERVER SOFTWARE HAS BEEN UPDATED, HOPEFULLY THERE WILL BE NO PROBLEMS! BUT THERE MAY BE SOME ISSUES IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS How will the Budget be viewed by football fans? So, Alistair Darling did go for Clear Red Water after all, as some of us predicted he might last week. The new 50% top rate of tax has been one of the main headline-grabbers of the budget, alongside the record-breaking predictions for borrowing. Much of the criticism of the…