… and Morus on Miliband

… and Morus on Miliband

Comments 0 Comment

Is anyone satisfied with his leadership? With Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats receiving a pitiful 2.2% and losing their deposit in the Inverclyde by-election, and David Cameron’s government inspiring multi-union strikes and protests over pensions reform, it is simply astonishing that Ed Miliband is the major party leader under the most pressure at the moment. With many on the Left furious that he has taken the line that “the strikes are wrong”, he has not helped his case with the single…

Read More Read More

Was this worse than Paxman v Howard?

Was this worse than Paxman v Howard?

Comments 0 Comment

Click to play Henry G on Friday In defence of Michael Howard it was rottweiler interviewer Jeremy Paxman who made him repeat himself 14 times. What is Ed Miliband’s excuse? This is a truly weak and bizarre spectacle and entirely self-inflicted. There is a growing feeling that ‘he’s not up to the job’. On a wider point I don’t think Ed Miliband appreciates how much damage he has done to himself over his weak folding over industrial action. If he…

Read More Read More

Will the “official” campaigns become even more important?

Will the “official” campaigns become even more important?

Comments 0 Comment

Are voters waiting longer to decide? It is received political wisdom that most general elections are won or lost not in the three or four weeks between the dissolution of Parliament and the day of the election, but in the months and years beforehand. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is true. Even in 2010 where the performance of Nick Clegg in the first leadership debate shook-up the polls, betting markets and media commentary, it is…

Read More Read More

Why Huntsman’s candidacy matters

Why Huntsman’s candidacy matters

Comments 0 Comment

Is he more important as a foil for Romney? Nothing would make me happier than for Our Genial Host to better his May 2005 50/1 bet on Barack Obama to become the next POTUS by seeing Jon Huntsman win him the 200/1 bet made in November 2008. I still don’t think it likely – the Republican Party has not yet served its ‘Time in the Wilderness’ and been brought back round to the hungry pragmatism that oppositions need to generate…

Read More Read More

Have you invested in Inverclyde yet?

Have you invested in Inverclyde yet?

Comments 0 Comment

Ladbrokes Will this be a Glasgow East – or a Glenrothes? There’s just one day of campaigning left before the polls open in what’s becoming a hard-fought by-election in Inverclyde – on paper, an easy hold for Labour, but that was before May’s Holyrood election saw most of the Scottish electoral map repainted in SNP yellow, and it goes without saying that a poor result here will put even more pressure on Ed Miliband. Political big guns have been visiting…

Read More Read More

Will the public ever learn to love the Conservatives?

Will the public ever learn to love the Conservatives?

Comments 0 Comment

Is detoxification harder when the party is in power? One of the lessons from the 2005-2010 Parliament was the need for the Conservative Party to go much further in tackling its image problem – “detoxifying” its brand – before it was able to develop (or at least articulate) a detailed programme of serious policy commitments. This was a strategic decision taken long before the economic collapse resulted in the parties necessarily having to rethink their policy goals. The evidence from…

Read More Read More