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LD peer Lord Oakeshott says if the Tories renege on Lords reform then the new boundaries won”t go through.bbc.in/zmHzhp — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) February 26, 2012 LD peer links Lords reform to the boundary changes Two days ago I suggested that the coalition could collapse over the house of Lords reform programme agreed between the Tories and the Lib Dems in the 2010 coalition agreement. My post stated that if Tory MPs rebelled then the Lib Dems could pull the…

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Was this like Gordon Brown’s “Elvis” moment? On Wednesday night Mitt Romney had a big success in the effort to stop Rick Santorum in the final candidates’ TV debate of the campaign. Almost all the polling in the immediate aftermath had Mitt improving his position in relation to Rick Santorum. Nate Silver reckons that it has given him a 4% boost. Then he went on to Detroit to make what was billed as a big speech on the economy. The…

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How’s it going to do? The big news about the news overnight will be the launch of the Sun on Sunday which seems to have been developed at break-neck speed. Given it was less than a fortnight ago that Rupert Murdoch made his intentions clear it is really amazing that we have got to this stage so quickly. Part of this is, of course, a reaction to the dramatic arrests at the paper earlier in the month. This is Rupert…

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Ipsos-MORI Notice how the tide turned after his June 2007 exit? The February issues index from Ipsos-MORI came out a couple of days ago with the firm always producing a range of historical charts so we can see trends. MORI has been asking for 37 years in exactly the same way an unprompted question on what issues interviewees sees as the “most important facing Britain today”. As can seen the economy moved up sharply in 2008 and has remained high….

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Are we in for a more level playing field after Super Tuesday? Ever since the 2012 presidential election campaign got underway, Mitt Romney has had the best-funded campaign. That fact, combined with his position as consistently one of the two top-polling candidates and his opponents real weaknesses, has always enabled him to go negative against his principle opponent at the time. It hasn’t always worked. Caucuses tend to have different dynamics and much lower turnouts, meaning a broad but shallow…

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Is daddy sucking up to Mitt so his son can be V-P? Over the past 24 hours there’s been a big gamble going on for Rand Paul, son of Presidential contender Ron, for the Republican Vice Presidential nomination. Yesterday I got on with Ladbrokes at a tasty 50/1 – a price that was withdrawn almost immediatly. This morning 33/1 was available but soon shifted to 10/1 then 8/1 and now, at 1530 as I write, to 7/1. What’s driving this…

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What’ll happen if CON MPs block the move? For the first time since the coalition was created in May 2010 I think that there’s a serious chance that it won’t survive the full five year term. The rumblings from both sides are getting louder and the issue of Lords reform is emerging as the most dangerous area. In the coalition agreement in May 2010 three main constitutional moves were agreed by the two parties. The first was the AV referendum….

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Welcome again to PB’s overnight open thread I’m pretty tired after staying up late to watch last night’s GOP debate in Arizona so I’ll be going to bed early. Unlike most Thursdays I don’t think that there any council by-elections tonight – but we do have Question Time on BBC1. Have a good night. @MikeSmithsonOGH