David Herdson on whether Miliband can breeze to victory on the strength of not being Tory

David Herdson on whether Miliband can breeze to victory on the strength of not being Tory

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Is Labour keeping its powder dry or was that all there is? Like many a football team 2-1 up in a cup tie with ten minutes to go, a cautious defensiveness seems to have settled over the Labour Party, judging by their conference just gone.  The contrast with last year’s headline-grabbing energy price freeze policy was stark.  The big announcements were to increase the minimum wage by about 4p a year more than the average RPI rate for the current…

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Local By-Election Results : September 25th 2014 – UPDATE and a Marf cartoon

Local By-Election Results : September 25th 2014 – UPDATE and a Marf cartoon

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Epping, Hemnal on Epping Forest (Conservative Defence) Result: Liberal Democrats 607 (43% +7%), Conservatives 386 (28% -14%), UKIP 339 (24% +16%), Green 69 (5% +1%) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative with a majority of 221 (15%) on a swing of 10.5% from Con to Lib Dem Lovelace on Guildford (Conservative Defence) Result: Liberal Democrats 555 (61% +47%), Conservatives 255 (28% -43%), UKIP 63 (7%), Labour 32 (4% -11%) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative with a majority of 300 (33%) on…

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Ipsos Mori issues index for September is out

Ipsos Mori issues index for September is out

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The two topics Ed forgot in his speech, remain the public’s top two issues, unsurprisingly, Defence/Foreign Affairs/Terrorism is the biggest riser. The @IpsosMORI issues index for September. The 2 issues Ed forgot in his speech, remain the public's top 2 issues pic.twitter.com/oE54vkmHTx — The Screaming Eagles (@TSEofPB) September 26, 2014 The first Ipsos-Mori issues index was published forty years ago, here’s what the issues were back in September 1974 The first @IpsosMORI issues index was published forty years ago, here's…

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Henry G Manson on where LAB stands post confernence and his views on the leadership

Henry G Manson on where LAB stands post confernence and his views on the leadership

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“A couple of days ago, after Andy Burnham’s LAB conference speech I emailed Henry to get his views on whether Burnham could replace EdM before GE2015. This is his response” – Mike Smithson Hi Mike, there’s a few questions to address before we get to whether Andy Burnham will replace Ed Miliband before the election. First of all when would Ed go? It would have to be in the next month or not at all. The new leader really needs…

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Local By-Election Preview: September 25th 2014

Local By-Election Preview: September 25th 2014

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Epping, Hemnal on Epping Forest (Conservative Defence) Result of last election to council (2014): Conservatives 37, Residents 12, Liberal Democrats 3, United Kingdom Independence Party 2, Independents 2, Greens 1, Labour 1 (Conservative majority of 16) Result of last election in ward (2011): Conservative 951 (42%), Liberal Democrats 821 (36%), Labour 231 (10%), UKIP 185 (8%), Green 83 (4%) Candidates duly nominated: Kim Adams (Lib Dem), Nigel Avey (Con), Andrew Smith (UKIP), Anna Widdup (Green) By-elections held during the conference…

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UKIP claims two more Tories ready to defect: Party secretary says MPs will unveiled within days

UKIP claims two more Tories ready to defect: Party secretary says MPs will unveiled within days

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The betting angle as rumours emerge of 2 more Tory MPs defecting to UKIP http://t.co/aA3iDG9kEl pic.twitter.com/oxsEIjo4DT — The Screaming Eagles (@TSEofPB) September 25, 2014 Today reports emerged that Senior UKIP figures are claiming two more Tory MPs are ‘in the bag’ and will be unveiled as defectors within days. To the alarm of Conservative HQ, Ukip party secretary Matthew Richardson has boasted privately that two turncoats have agreed to switch parties, according to two separate sources.  Mr Richardson has told colleagues…

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Corporeal on constitutional reform

Corporeal on constitutional reform

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If there’s a consistent tradition in British constitutional reform, it’s a philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (and usually to make the fix a patch up of the specific problem, or what Toby Fenwick dubbed an ‘inelegant fudge’). If you wanted to squeeze it into a metaphor (always fun) then it is a long-standing mansion. Ancient in parts, with extensions and alterations added through the years. Bits have been built, rebuilt, done up knocked down, expanded, downsized,…

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LAB’s strategy in Heywood and Middleton is blindingly obvious: Talk up UKIP threat to get tactical anti-UKIP votes

LAB’s strategy in Heywood and Middleton is blindingly obvious: Talk up UKIP threat to get tactical anti-UKIP votes

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Result in Heywood and Middleton at GE 2010 pic.twitter.com/l8HQ2vq4SC — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) September 24, 2014 And you know what? They’ll probably succeed Suddenly the Heywood and Middleton by-election two weeks from today is not looking like the foregone conclusion that it appeared when the vacancy was created following the death of the popular MP Jim Dobbin. In the past couple of days there have been are a wave of stories about the possibility of UKIP taking the hitherto rock…

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