Will they never know what it’s like to be the opposition? Unless there’s a dramatic change in the fortunes of the main parties in the next twelve months it’s likely that the number of seats changing hands could be approaching, or may even be higher, than that which we saw in Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997. Then John Major’s Conservatives had a net loss of 171 seats with Labour seeing a net increase of 147 and the Lib Dems 26….
Coffee House Once again… can she survive?… and is Darling in trouble too? From James Forsyth at the Spectator’s Coffee House blog: “These revelations are so damaging because they will lead to the voters just laughing at the government. When the electorate rages at a government, its members can at least console themselves they are being taken seriously. But when they are being mocked, there is no such consolation… Labour should prepare itself for a year that will be even…
David Herdson’s first post as guest editor In another recession, in another country, in another decade, an aide to a presidential candidate once declared that one of the three key themes to their campaign was “the economy, stupidâ€. In fact, it was the key issue; no-one remembers the other two (which is ironic, as one was “don’t forget healthcareâ€). The candidate was of course Bill Clinton and he duly went on to defeat the incumbent president later that year. However,…
Would PM Straw/Johnson/Denham save more marginal seats? Just watching Gordon Brown on SkyNews this morning I was struck by the way he sometimes deals with difficult questions by seeking to deny the main premise. Thus he was pressed on Mervyn King’s comments earlier in the week and, to the great frustration of the interviewer, he seemed to be stating that the governor of the Bank of England did not say what we all heard him saying before the commons committee…
Has he been defeated by the markets and the Bank? After Tuesday’s forthright comments on Number 10’s economic strategy by the governor of the Bank of England and the failure of yesterday’s UK auction it was always going to be difficult for Brown to continue with his plan for a further economic stimulus. So the comments in New York highlighted by the Guardian perhaps come as no surprise. But how damaging is the apparent change of direction to him personally…
Bloomberg Could the crisis spark off an early general election? I don’t claim to be an expert in the financial markets but just how seriously should we take the news the the latest British bond fails to find enough buyers? It sounds awful – but is it? The idea that the markets will no longer fund the government is something that sounds coherent and most people will grasp it. The question whether or not it is serious? On Spectator Coffee…
Has he gone too far with his comments about Dave? We are getting to stage when almost every comment by a senior Labour MP is being looked at in the context of what might happen in the party after a general election defeat. And the latest “on stage”, as it were, is the Dagenham MP who built up his position in the party two years ago with good bid for the Deputy Leadership when he finished third, John Cruddas. For…
Voting in the PB March 2009 Prediction closed at 6pm and above are the charts showing the number of seats site users believe each of the parties will get at the election. In retrospect I think that we tried to do too much and perhaps ought to have just left it with the three polls featured above. For it was noticeable how voting dropped off as you went down the page. The first survey on election party leaders attracted nearly…