Welcome to the brave new world of nationalised banking After the most dreadful few days on the markets last week it will be back to business this morning though with a huge difference – large sections of the UK banking industry will now find that the government is the biggest shareholder and that they’ve got much more capital to play with. The details, as I write, are sketchy and a formal announcement is expected this morning – but the papers…
Would his failing eyesight be the reason? In the early of this morning the poster Diogenes linked to the above story and asked the questions “Is this significant? Is it a potential route to a graceful early retirement?” I’ve been thinking about it hard for the past few hours and believe that he might be onto something. Certainly it would be a valid reason for him to go and certainly it would explain the very clear change in his whole…
Should he avoid appearing as though he is enjoying the crisis? After all he has gone through in the past twelve months you can perhaps forgive Brown for feeling a sense of relief that he has now an issue to deal with that apparently plays to his strengths. But is he looking too pleased with himself? He appears to be enjoying the crisis just a little bit too much. Isn’t there a danger that his demeanour might be seen as…
Could the move to Gord be in the heartlands – not in the marginals? Firstly the caveats: As I’ve been saying for weeks polling during the conference season is almost always very odd and we need to wait until the end October surveys at the earliest before we can start drawing conclusions. Secondly looking at sub-samples in polling data can often deceive. But on Saturday the Guardian’s polling writer whose judgement I respect, Julian Glover, produced an analysis on the…
Will ministers be thanked or get the blame? Reproduced above are some of the front pages this morning – different papers all telling the same story. Could October 6th 2008 go down as reference point we will look back to in the years to come – or is there much worse on the way? Who knows? We are in uncharted territory and for those who like forecasting elections and betting on political outcomes some of the certainties appear to be…
Is Jackie Ashley right – is it now “Emergency Labour”? I thought that we could not let this day pass by without recalling that it was exactly a year ago, on October 6th 2007, that Gordon Brown recorded his fateful interview with Andrew Marr calling off a late autumn general election. Everything about the current political situation derives from that point which saw a U-turn in both Brown and David Cameron’s fortunes. For the extraordinary media honeymoon that Brown had…
Is the new Cabinet “a supergroup or a sad tribute act”? Peter Mandelson’s return to Cabinet for a third time has given the Sunday papers plenty to consider. The man himself gives an interview to the Observer in which he states that he is “joined at the hip to the PM”, who will lead the party into the next election. The paper says that Miliband’s leadership ambitions are now dead in the water as the Blairites rally round during the…
It’s 10/1 that he won’t make it to the general election? On July 29th 2004, just as Peter Mandelson was about to take up his role as EU Commissioner, we suggested here that the 3/1 that was then available on him leaving the role early was worth looking at noting that “looking at the form book this might be a good bet!” So another PB tip comes good and I must check with William Hill to find out how much…