Guardian Is this a Number 10 bluff – or a double bluff? Just four days to go before voting starts in Labour’s election the Guardian is reporting that the contender that David Cameron fears most is David Miliband. Now how should we treat this? Is it on the level; is it a bluff or is it a double bluff? Could Number 10 be trying to impede DM’s chances by letting it be know that they fear him most? We all…
Amazon.co.uk Widgets How difficult will their revelations make it for him? History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as autobiography. Or something like that. It seems almost obligatory now for retired cabinet ministers to set down their version of the time in office, their influence on events and their view of – amongst other things – their colleagues. The number of these memoirs being written always starts to increase when any party’s been in power for a…
Is he’s going to run to get his old job back? So far there’s been very little activity on the next UKIP leader market and only Ladbrokes have deemed it important enough to quote prices and lay bets. At the moment everybody’s waiting to see if ex-leader, Nigel Farage, will enter the fray in the fight to head the party that came second in the 2009 Euro election. Farage, as will be recalled, stood down in order to devote himsellf…
How many will actually use 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices? In just 29 days time the results of Labour’s leadership contest will be announced after a prolonged battle that has only this week started to attract serious attention from the mainstream media. This lack of attention has probably helped David Miliband because what polling there has been is likely to have been affected by the name recognition factor – and the former foreign secretary is much more widely known than…
OpenDemocracy Could you write a PB guest slot? At the start of September I’m going to be out of the country for a few days and I’m setting up some guest slots in advance. Rod Crosby has been commissioned to write a “The case for voting YES” in the AV referendum and I’m looking for someone to present the NO argument. Dont’ write anything yet but if you’d like to have a bash email me first here. I’ll need it…
Should they back him for International Development Secretary? According to Guido Gordon Brown is taking soundings about making a return to the Labour front bench as Shadow International Development Secretary. When Labour is in opposition the members of the shadow cabinet are not decided by the leader but by the parliamentary which votes on the 19 places. The plan is for this to take place once the new leader is in place. If Gordon is serious about this, and we’ve…
Guardian Should the red team look at its own recent history? One of the most provocative political columns this morning is John Harris’s look at Labour’s view of the Lib Dems by in the Guardian. He concludes:”… Miserable poll ratings may serve to bind the Lib Dems in, for fear of another election and a real calamity. And one other thing: never forget their deep, burning and often understandable hatred of the Blair and Brown governments – which, given the…
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