BBC Daily Politics Was Labour right to attack the messenger? There seems to be have been a determined effort by leading Labour figures to deal with part 1 of the Telegraph expenses expose by attacking the messenger – the paper itself. Veteran MP Stuart Bell was on the Daily Politics programme and others this morning were making the same point as though it was not the fault of greedy MPs at all but the beastly press who might have even…
Is he today’s biggest loser from the expenses fracas? This is David Miliband – third favourite in the betting to succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour party and someone who less than a year ago looked as though he might succeed. How the party must be relieved today that his half-hearted bid for the top last July/August fell flat? For otherwise party spinners would have to be explaining such things as why he’d sought to reclaim from us…
Will you stay with it for the WHOLE 15 hours? The BBC Parliament Channel has developed a splendid tradition of re-showing a full general election results programme from the past on Bank Holiday Mondays. You get it as though it was live as it happens and it lasts a very long time. For political anoraks these re-showings are quite an occasion and can sometimes be exciting even though, of course, we know the outcome. You also get insights which very…
Just listen to Nick Robinson on his return from holiday Yesterday I suggested that the West Yorkshire seat of Morley & Outwood might be good for a speculative punt because this had the makings of being the sensation of election night – a bit like Michael Portillo’s defeat at the 1997 general election. This, of course, is the new seat that Ed Balls will be fighting and on the face of it there is a pretty solid Labour majority. But…
Guardian.co.uk Ex-Brown loyalist Jackie Ashley puts the knife in The daily press get their first chance this morning to mull over the McBride-Draper smear campaign and for me there is one column that stands out – not the least because it comes from someone who was once one of Brown’s most vociferous media cheer-leaders, Jackie Ashley. In her Monday Guardian column she describes the tactics that over the years that have characterised the Brown style. She writes of “the ideologically…
Updated CON 41(nc) LAB 31(nc) LD 17(+2) Is this too close to hung parliament territory? The March YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is now out and the numbers might cause a touch of concern in Team Cameron and offer a little bit of hope at Brown Central. For taking these numbers and assuming a uniform national swing and we are not far from the outcome being a hung parliament. But I must totally disagree with this statement in the…
RBS Will this be another big headache for Labour? One of the big services that the taxpayer-owned bank provides is RBS Streamline – a mechanism by which retailers and other others can offer credit/debit card facilities. As we move more and more away from cash this side of the bank’s business has grown and grown and RBS is now a leader in its field. So how come that the firm is now, apparently, subjecting those merchants who want to use…
Is Pickles right – there’s no substitute for personal contact? Hardly a day goes by, it seems, without one grouping or another promising us great things “because of the internet”. Look at this week. We had the launch of “The Jury Team” party where everything is supposed to happen magically because of the internet. Funding? No problem – we’ll raise money on internet. Finding and selecting candidates? No problem – it’ll all be done via the internet….and so on. Then…