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Surely it’s now goodbye from the Governor of Texas? The latest TV debate between the Republican party contenders for President ended like some earlier ones with Rick Perry making a fool of himself. It’s hard to credit it now but barely two months ago he was trading at 6/5 on Betfair while traditional bookies had him at evens If by any chance he were to get the nomination then clips like the one above would be repeated endlessly as “proof”…

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Is this the most critical day of the crisis? Until now the nations caught up in the Eurozone crisis have been small fry. That’s all changed with the heat being on Italy – which is eighth in the world ranking of countries by the size of their GDP. Berlusconi’s announcement that he plans to step down might have had a bigger impact if he had gone ahead and done it. As it is the levels of interest being paid on…

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Welcome – after a day dominated by Italy, PMQs, immigration and the London student march it’s hard to know where to start. But does it matter? The PB NightHawks cafe is PB’s overnight thread where lurkers and those who have never posted before are most welcome and where the conversation is even more unstructured than usual. Please join and have a good evening. @MikeSmithsonPB C

Should Labour/EdM focus on something else? Ed Miliband decided to devote all his six questions at PMQs to the immigration row – and really got nowhere. The problem is that without some new “killer fact” it’s hard to take this forward. Just because this is about “immigration” doesn’t automatically mean that these developments are of interest and neither Cameron nor Miliband sounded totally convincing. Ed needs to do more than to say this is a “fiasco”. Cameron came well prepared…

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Is he right – Europe’s to blame? Today’s Indy has the November “Poll of Polls” compiled by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University. The big change has been a decline in the Tory share across the range of voting intention polls while both Labour and the LDs move forward. Curtice suggests that the blues could be being affected by the split on Europe – as seen a fortnight ago in the commons vote on an EU referendum. He observes:- “The…

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What a day for exits! Silvio Berlusconi is to go after his new budget law is approved and what could be politically explosive for the government the UK Borders Agency Chief, Brodie Clark, has resigned and announced that he’ll claim for contructive dismissal. The PB NightHawks cafe is PB’s overnight thread where lurkers and those who have never posted before are most welcome. Have a good evening. @MikeSmithsonPB

Blair Freebairn looks back and looks forward Thomas Huxley’s observation that many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact is an often ignored truth. Back in 2007 on this site I theorised that the coming 2010 election was going to be decided not in cities, rural areas or Scotland, but in the English towns. So what actually happened? Above are the 2010 results on a map distorted so that each constituency takes up roughly the same area. The…

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Can she go on riding the storm? Several papers are leading with the immigration row this morning and the story does not seem to be going away. After her commons statement yesterday the home secretary and most senior women in Cameron’s government, Theresa May, will be back at Westminster in a few hours facing questions from the home affairs select committee. To me the most significant element of yesterday was the way that David Cameron sat by her as she…

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