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Henry G Manson on Livingstone’s prospects in London This week Ken Livingstone launched the first major policy broadside in the London mayoral election. Labour’s mayoral candidate’s proposal is to allocate a portion Transport for London’s substantial reserves to reduce the fares by 5% in autumn 2012 is something of a masterstroke. To back it up, Labour has produced one of its best campaign videos I can recall. It spells out the full extent of the savings over a 4 year…

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Marf on the Eurozone crisis The cartoon, of course, is by Marf. If you would like to purchase an original or a print please contact her at marfcartoons@btinternet.com

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