Is Whelan risking his job by backing Balls?

Is Whelan risking his job by backing Balls?

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Why’s UNITE’s man not supporting EdM? The big development in Labour’s leadership battle before everybody went on holiday was the overwhelming decision by UNITE’s political committee to give its backing to Ed Miliband. But today, in the Mail, the political director of that union, the loyal Brownite , Charlie Whelan makes no secret of his continuing backing for Ed Balls. This has prompted PB’s Labour observer in the north east, Henry G Manson to drop me an email: He writes:…

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How much bottle does Dave have to make sensitive cuts?

How much bottle does Dave have to make sensitive cuts?

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Will the free milk U-turn make next time much harder? Last weekend, the government performed a U-turn so quickly that it may as well have spun round on the spot. Within a few hours of a junior minister being seen to propose scrapping the remaining universal free milk provision for under fives, restricting it to the neediest and saving £50m, Downing Street had squashed the idea. In one sense, it was very probably the right move. £50m is less than…

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The post general election polling weightings

The post general election polling weightings

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Party ID/PV YouGov ID ICM past vote Populus PV ComRes PV CON 28.5 25 26 24 LAB 32.5 21 21 20 LD 12 16 19 16 OTH 3 7 7 7 NONE/DK/Rfsd 24 31 28 31 How the four firms try to get “balanced samples” I’ve put the above table together as a reference point for whenever the contentious subject of political weighting comes up. YouGov, ICM, Populus and ComRes all seek to ensure that their samples are politically as…

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Will Dave’s “more sunshine” plan win the day?

Will Dave’s “more sunshine” plan win the day?

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How will Scotland react in the run-up to next year’s elections? Several of the papers are giving coverage on this August morning to the PM’s backing to moving the clocks forward an hour throughout the year so people can enjoy longer evenings. There would be two options – to switch to the time zone which is almost standard throughout the EU – an hour ahead – with the clocks changing as usual in April and October or for there to…

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Would 600 equal seats have helped the Tories most?

Would 600 equal seats have helped the Tories most?

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UPDATED Country/area Before After Change England 533 503 -30 Scotland 59 52 -7 Wales 40 30 -10 Northern Ireland 18 15 -3 UK total 650 600 -50 English regions Greater London 73 70 -3 South West 55 53 -2 West Midlands 59 54 -5 North West 75 68 -7 North East 29 26 -3 Yorkshire and Humber 54 50 -4 East Midlands 46 44 -2 East of England 58 57 -1 South East 84 81 -3 But would it be…

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…but the advantage remains with DavidM

…but the advantage remains with DavidM

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BBC News Betfair Politics The main Labour leadership story today has been on the amounts of money raised – and although there are big donations for Ed Balls and Andy Burnham it’s David Miliband who continue to out-perform the field on this measure by quite a distance. From the mainstream bookmakers Bet365 still has the best EdM price at 21/10. But the money continues to pile on DaveM and the best you can get is 2/5 from Ladbrokes. It’s hard…

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What’ll this do to Huhne’s re-election chances in Eastleigh?

What’ll this do to Huhne’s re-election chances in Eastleigh?

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Guardian How can there now be a full-blooded Tory campaign? A big political story in the papers this morning is the coverage of the joint political press conference by Tory chair, Baroness Warsi and the LD cabinet minister, Chris Huhne. This was a joint move to attack Labour to try put the blame on what the coalition is having to do on the former government. For me the greater significance of this is not what they said but what it…

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Will the big unions now get behind Ed?

Will the big unions now get behind Ed?

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Is the next fortnight crucial? In the thread on the Labour leadership last Thursday our Tyneside Labour expert, Henry G Manson, suggested that the unions who had backed Ed Miliband were a tad reluctant about putting their campaigning resources behind the man that they have endorsed. For punters that could be a crucial piece of information. For if we are to believe the only poll of actual voters in this election this showed DavidM well ahead in both the membership…

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