Is Kettle over-doing it on Dave?

Is Kettle over-doing it on Dave?

Guardian According to PoliticsHome the political piece that’s getting most attention at the moment is Martin Kettle’s Guardian column in which he lavishes much praise on Cameron. It should be said that his views are not being universally welcomed by those Guardian loyalists who have responded. This is Kettle’s closing point: “These are still very early days. The coalition has to get through difficult votes on AV and negotiate the most difficult spending round in a generation. The economy may…

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Has the hapless Gove rescued the Balls leadership bid?

Has the hapless Gove rescued the Balls leadership bid?

What’ll the schools fiasco do to the race? We’ve still got about two months to go before the Labour movement starts voting on its next leader and I’ve long argued that it’ll be the political environment at the time that will determine the outcome. It’s how Labour collectively feels about itself in eight or nine weeks time that matters and I just wonder whether Ed Balls has been given a golden opportunity to show his prowess with the Gove school…

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How open is the Labour Party to persuasion?

How open is the Labour Party to persuasion?

Is this now a contest between the brothers? Early on in the Labour leadership battle, Mike drew what I thought was potentially a good analogy between David Cameron’s succesful campaign for the Tory leadership in 2005 and Andy Burnham’s candidature for Labour this time round. Young Burnham, he surmised, could turn out to be the Cameron of this campaign – a relative unknown coming from behind to win while better-known front-runners faltered. As it is, Burnham has hardly achieved lift-off.  …

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And now the daily poll..forever

And now the daily poll..forever

Couldn’t this devalue their output? According to YouGov senior executive and the man behind UKPollingReport, Anthony Wells, this week marks the start of daily polls being published by the firm – seemingly forever. The idea was started during last year’s autumn conference season and was revived in February for the run-up to polling day. Both those moves seemed logical given the proximity of the general election. But what are we to make of this latest development? Do we really want…

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What’s Bercow doing to PMQs?

What’s Bercow doing to PMQs?

Is his high-handedness making it all a bore? There’s a fair bit of criticism developing over Speaker Bercow’s “management” of that great parliamentary tradition, PMQs. His warnings and threaten to sin-bin offending MPs led to what many are saying was one of the dullest ever sessions today. This guy simply doesn’t get it. He gives the impression of wanting to be the star of the show and his speech last night has diminished him. Come on John – you are…

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What now for the Guardian?

What now for the Guardian?

The paper’s promotional material states:- SocietyGuardian is the most dedicated national quality supplement for the public services and charity sector. Published every Wednesday with the Guardian, and constantly updated online on SocietyGuardian.co.uk, it offers unrivalled reach of public sector professionals • 285,000 senior professionals working in the public sector read the Guardian every day. That’s more than any other daily quality title. • Over 200,000 senior public sector professionals visit SocietyGuardian.co.uk every month All areas of the public sector are…

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Was “Shy Labour” the cause of the 2010 polling disaster?

Was “Shy Labour” the cause of the 2010 polling disaster?

Proportion who did what they said ICM Re-poll CONSERVATIVES 95% LABOUR 93% LIB DEMS 87% New study looks at what went wrong As we all know the 2010 general election wasn’t a good one for the pollsters. The Lib Dems were very much over-stated with the Tories, and to a much greater extent, Labour being under-stated. The one bright spot was the remarkable success of the exit poll which for the second election running got the leading party seat total…

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