Can Labour open up the Tory EU wounds?
Guardian Could the blues be vulnerable on the bail-out costs? Patrick Wintour in the Guardian has an interesting piece about a Labour plan to “to work with Eurosceptic Tories to reduce the size of UK contributions to the bailout of troubled eurozone nations and to cut the timescale of UK liability.” He writes: “Labour is weighing up an alliance with increasingly fractious Tory Eurosceptics over two specific issues likely to return to the Commons in the next few months –…
Could Labour’s polling position just evaporate?
Ten weeks in Scottish politics – what are the lessons? I’ve been meaning to put up this chart for some time because I’m sure that the polling experience leading up to the Holyrood election on May 5th will be referred to time and time again. This shows the regional list where the changes were most pronounced. From a position just ten weeks before election day where Labour had a 14 point lead over the SNP voters on the day gave…
Next to exit the cabinet betting? BUY Lansley – SELL Huhne
Sunday Telegraph Extracts from the Sundays The Indy on Sunday: “Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has dominated the headlines for three weeks now. The intensity of media interest is justified by the seriousness of the allegations against him. It is not so much the matter of an eight-year-old alleged speeding offence. It is the allegation that he asked someone else to take his penalty points, which would be an attempt to pervert the course of justice. And…
Which Huhne punters are going to end up winners?
Will he really be out of the cabinet by Tuesday? For the fourth weekend in succession it looks as though the Lib Dem energy secretary, Chris Huhne, is going to figure prominently in the Sunday papers. The business with speeding point allegations has prompted a lot of coverage and we seem to have a pattern – what’s predicted on some websites never quite lives up to the billing when the papers arrive. For punters there’s been a lively betting on…
What odds an early election?
How likely is brinkmanship to go wrong? The continuing struggle within the coalition over the fate or ultimate nature of the NHS reforms is as good an indicator as is necessary that the May elections and AV referendum really did mark a watershed in the Coalition’s history. The Lib Dems, as Clegg promised, have been much more vocal and active in pressing their case, even where – as with the NHS bill – it reverses their previous stance. This approach…
Should you be taking the 8-1 Lansley next exit bet?
Daily Mail How serious is his resignation threat? According to the Daily Mail the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, is threatening to quit over his NHS reform plan. The paper’s Jason Groves says that Lansley has told the PM that he would reject a face-saving plan to switch him to another role and if it came to it would quit the cabinet. The report goes on: “In an outspoken public intervention ..he said driving through the health reforms was now his…
Is Labour being marginalised in the NHS stand-off?
How do the reds get a look in when it’s a Blue-Yellow spat? There’s a poignant piece by Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy about the challenges for Labour when all the political focus is on the coalition partners. He wrote: “At 9am yesterday morning, Labour shadow health secretary John Healey gave a speech calling for the NHS bill to be scrapped because it essentially meant the end of the NHS..At around 11am Nick Clegg gave a press conference and pretty…