Could the emerging opposition “attack dog” damage Brown? Go into Google, type in “Chris Grayling MP”, click on the “news” search button and the above is what you get. A whole series of references to attacks that he has made on the government which might not be commanding the big headlines at the moment but, I am told, are starting to irritate the Labour hierarchy. For the 46 year old Epsom MP and shadow work and pension secretary is fast…
Will the Tories do disproportionately better in Ashcroft-funded seats ? This is Michael Ashcroft who in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List was placed in position 87 with an estimated wealth of £800m. He has been a major donor to the Tory party and before the 2005 general election, as was reported here, he hand-picked a group of Tory candidates in marginal constituencies and then was responsible for providing extra attention and funding to help them with their campaigns. As…
Would a “back me or sack me” move stop the whisperings? I don’t know what the look on David Cameron’s face was like when he heard the Ealing Southall result in the early hours of yesterday but could it have been as bad as this Daily Mail picture taken at the count in Stafford at the 1997 General Election when he lost a Tory seat to Labour. Ealing Southall, like his first bid to become an MP ten years ago,…
Has Cameron got the most problems this morning? Judged by the standards of normal mid-term by elections the reduced Labour majorities in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield were sensational victories for Labour. To have kept its average vote share loss in both seats down to 10.7% was something that the party can take real comfort from. But these are not normal times and these cannot be judged as normal mid-term by elections. We have what’s being presented as a change of…
Would he have a chance of beating Ken? While everybody has been focussed on Gordon’s first PMQs the other political story that’s developing is a suggestion that Boris Johnson could be the Tory candidate for Mayor of London. According to BBC Online the suggestion follows the abortive attempt to engage the ex-BBC Director General Greg Dyke. Clearly who ever it is has to be a big character if the Tories are to have any chance of ending Ken Livingstyone’s eight…
Could the issues all link together over Ming Campbell’s future? The Betfair betting exchange has opened five new political markets as part of its desire to increase the range of options available to punters. That there should be betting on the two by elections is no surprise but it’s good that the firm has wasted little time in setting them up. Even though Labour starts from extraordinarily strong positions in both seats, as the general election figures show, by elections…
Who came out best on the constitutional exchanges? This afternoon, a day earlier than expected, we saw the first exchanges between David Cameron and Gordon Brown. The occasion was Brown’s announcement on the constitutional changes and they gave the Tory leader the opening to raise the “English Votes for English Laws” issue as well as an EU referendum. After being out of the limelight for so long the exchanges gave him a platform for two seemingly populist policies which might…
Will Roger be proved right in tomorrow’s poll? The boss of Populus, Andrew Cooper, has just confirmed to me that their monthly survey for the Times has taken place a little earlier this month and should be appearing in the paper tomorrow. Normally fieldwork starts over the first weekend over the month and that would normally have meant next week. The survey was carried out from Friday to Sunday so that the majority of the 1,500 respondents will have been…