Does the manner of Sarah’s selection make her “party-proof”?

Does the manner of Sarah’s selection make her “party-proof”?

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S Telegraph What can the whips do about the open primary winner? Of all the 650 MPs who were elected last May Sarah Wollaston was almost unique. For she became Tory candidate following an open primary in July 2009 in which every elector in Totnes, irrespective of their party allegiance, was sent a postal ballot. Other Conservative candidates were selected by so-called primaries but only in the Devon seat and in Gosport did the blues go to the expense of…

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Will an air campaign be enough?

Will an air campaign be enough?

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Or is a ground war the only way of removing Gaddafi? Lots of developments tonight following the launch by the coalition forces of the joint military action to protect civilians in Libya. The worry is how this will come to an end and isn’t there a danger that Gaddafi will just be able to stay in place unless there’s a ground campaign to remove him? Saddam, after all, managed to remain in place in Iraq with a no-fly zone above…

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Could the Salmond factor give the SNP the edge?

Could the Salmond factor give the SNP the edge?

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Might leader ratings be a better pointer in Scotland? We’ve just had two new Scottish polls, from, ICM and YouGov, and both point to reasonable leads for Labour over the SNP in both the constituency and regions sections. But both firms also had leader-related questions that make the picture less rosy for the red team. ICM asked “Putting aside your own party preference, which one of the following do you think is best qualified to be First Minister of Scotland?“….

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Will Libya restore Dave’s self-confidence?

Will Libya restore Dave’s self-confidence?

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Does the Tory poll decline result from a lack of advocacy? One thing that struck me from PMQ’s this week was how much David Cameron skirted round defending the greater competition that the reforms to the NHS will bring, assuming that the bill goes through more or less as currently presented. It’s not that there wasn’t passion there – he was robust in his responses to Ed Miliband – but each time the Labour leader questioned him about provisions for…

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New Scottish ICM poll has Labour just 4 ahead

New Scottish ICM poll has Labour just 4 ahead

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Could the top pollster from 2007 be right again? There’s a new ICM poll of Scotland that is showing quite a different picture of opinion in the country compared with other recent surveys from other firms. The figures are as follows:- The constituency voting intentions show: Lab 39, SNP 35, Con 12, LD 10, Oth 4 The regional voting intention shows: Lab 37, SNP 34, Con 13, LD 9, Grn 4, Oth 7 The actual constituency breakdown from 2007 was…

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Would the Tories have held onto this seat with AV?

Would the Tories have held onto this seat with AV?

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Could the new system dilute the UKIP threat? I don’t usually pay much attention to local by-election results but this one from last night might cause some concerns in Tory ranks. A seat in Tunbridge Wells is lost following a huge surge in the UKIP vote while the Lib Dem support was not much down on what happened on general election day last year. It doesn’t take a skilled mathematician to work out that if the election had been under…

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Will Labour EVER be able to shake off the blame?

Will Labour EVER be able to shake off the blame?

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How key is this to the next general election? If you think that there’s a glut of polling from Ipsos-MORI polling at the moment you are right. For as well as the regular MORI political monitor for Reuters there were also special pre-budget questions for the Economist – details of which are now available. The most significant findings politically related to that subject that we’ve touched on a fair bit on PB – who is to blame for the cuts?…

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