Should Osborne be creating new QUANGOs?

Should Osborne be creating new QUANGOs?

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Is this what Blair/Brown did? The announcement by George Osborne that he’s setting up the grandly titled “Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) sounds all well and good. The objective appears a good one and the announcement itself provides a further peg to have a go “at the last lot”. But isn’t the manner of today’s development straight out of the NuLab playbook? You identify a “good cause” and look as though you are trying to address it through the setting…

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Has the Times now given up on polling?

Has the Times now given up on polling?

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http://www.populuslimited.com/politics-category.html Is this another reason not to sign up? One aspect of the paywall debate and the challenge that newspapers face with declining circulations is that budgets for polling can suffer. Carrying out a 1,500 sample telephone poll, as Populus used to do for the Times every month, is a costly business and you can see this being scaled back. The last one from the firm, according to its website featured above, was before the general election. All this is…

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Is the “Big Society” too nebulous a concept?

Is the “Big Society” too nebulous a concept?

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BBC News Will voters still not get it? The day’s big political news has been David Cameron’s speech setting out more of his ideas for what was a key part of the Tory election campaign – “The Big Society”. It hardly moved opinion in April and after listening to his speech today I am not much wiser. The trouble is that the words themselves are almost meaningless. My guess is that the political motive is to try move on from…

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The Labour race – the Monday round-up

The Labour race – the Monday round-up

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The numbers attached to each of the contenders are from the main Labour party site which is producing regular updates. I think that they are a little bit behind on TU endorsements. Candidate Best bookmaker price Betfair back Betfair lay David Miliband 4/7 Betfred 1.61 1.62 Ed Miliband 5/2 Paddy Power 3.75 3.8 Ed Balls 14/1 Ladbrokes 15 16 Andy Burnham 33/1 Betfred 38 50 Diane Abbott 50/1 Ladbrokes 90 120 Links – Ladbrokes; PaddyPower My main betting during the…

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Will Cassandra the octopus call it right Down Under?

Will Cassandra the octopus call it right Down Under?

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Alexander Drake previews the 21st August Australian election Australia has just started its 2010 election campaign, with the big day on Saturday 21 August. Much has happened in Australian politics since I last wrote an article for PB.com in the lead up to the 2007 federal election. Since then: For much of the 2007-2010 parliamentary term, Kevin Rudd enjoyed stellar heights of polling popularity for an unusually long period of time; The Liberal Party, having lost its long-term leader John…

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What’ll an EdM victory do to the AV debate?

What’ll an EdM victory do to the AV debate?

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Could the FPTP winner lose to the least unpopular? Just on the boat sailing back from Spain and we have internet access at last. Online again after more than 20 hours – how did I cope?? A key political moment when everybody returns from their holidays will be on the afternoon of Saturday September 25th when the results of Labour’s prolonged leadership contest are announced. This could be important not just for the opening of a new chapter in the…

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Meanwhile as the Times paywall flounders…..

Meanwhile as the Times paywall flounders…..

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The May 2010 Circulation figures Newspaper May figures Year on change (%) The Sun 2,936,099 -1.61 Daily Mail 2,096,074 -3.86 Daily Mirror 1,238,145 -6.57 Daily Star 822,934 -2.11 Daily Express 663,627 -7.79 Daily Telegraph 698,456 -16.49 The Times 515,379 -12.82 Financial Times  399,862 -2.69 The Guardian 300,472 -10.47 The Independent 194,501 -4.85 Have we got out of the habit of paying for news?

Election expenses – “The Faustian Pact”

Election expenses – “The Faustian Pact”

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“…The Observer has discovered widespead evidence of a Faustian pact between political parties, with candidates on all sides using ingenious ruses to keep declared expenses below the limit. Some candidates claimed to have begun their campaigns half way through April, although Prime Minister John Major had fired the starting pistol on 17 March. Large amounts of money were spent on techniques such as telephone canvassing, sending free videos to first-time voters and touring on campaign buses. But this appeared on…

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