How does Labour deal with a popular George Osborne?

How does Labour deal with a popular George Osborne?

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Are incapacity benefits the new battle-ground? While so many were, it seems, watching the football or discussing the aftermath, the chancellor was giving more details of his plan to attack the country’s massive welfare bill in order to find savings. This has made the front pages of only three of the papers but the scale of his plans is enormous. The idea is to protect as much departmental spending as possible by trying to find big cuts in the £190bn…

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Has the Observer been conned by the MiliEd campaign?

Has the Observer been conned by the MiliEd campaign?

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Observer Did the paper even see the full data? The big story in the Observer, under the heading “Half of Liberal Democrat voters ready to defect after VAT rise” is based, though it is not immediately obvious, on private polling that was carried out by YouGov for the Ed Miliband campaign. There were two questions which are being made public (because it’s a private poll YouGov does not have to reveal the rest) and the first was on the child…

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Are we heading back to two-party politics?

Are we heading back to two-party politics?

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Is the flow of the past decades being reversed? At the general election on May 6th the proportion of the electors voting for the two main parties hit an all-time low. The total number of voters going blue-red was fewer than two in three of all votes cast. But are the exceptional circumstances of 2010 creating an environment in which two party politics can return? In the overnight polling ICM’s C41-L35-LD15 had the aggregate at 76% while YouGov’s C43-L36-LD16 put…

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Lib Dems take huge hit from both ICM and YouGov

Lib Dems take huge hit from both ICM and YouGov

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Fieldwork Pollster/publication CON LAB LD 23-24 June ICM/Sunday Telegraph 41 35 16 24-25 June YouGov / Sunday Times 43 36 16 22-23 June YouGov / Sun 42 34 17 20-21 June YouGov / Sun 41 33 18 18-20 June ICM / The Guardian 39 31 21 18-20 June Ipsos MORI/Reuter 39 31 19 17-18 June YouGov / Sunday Times 39 34 19 16-17 June ComRes / Indy on Sunday 36 30 23 10-11 June YouGov / Sunday Times 40 32…

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Ken picks up the UNITE endorsement

Ken picks up the UNITE endorsement

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The 2012 race for the London Mayoralty has seen two developments in the past 24 hours: Lembit Opik has said he’ll go for the yellow team’s nomination while the big uniion with massive influence in the Labour movement, UNITE, has said that it’s endorsing Ken. Voting amongst London party members and levy-payers in the trade unions will take place at the same time as the election for next Labour leader. This is further good news for the former Mayor who…

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How big a risk is it for Dave to speak here?

How big a risk is it for Dave to speak here?

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Could this plan go horribly wrong? At the end of what’s been the toughest week for the coalition comes news that plans are being considered for the Cameron and Clegg to speak at each other’s party conferences in the autumn. According to the Guardian the idea will be discussed at a joint political cabinet next month when the two parties will also decide how to co-ordinate policy announcements and how to sell the success of their first few months. The…

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Is Banana-man becoming unstoppable?

Is Banana-man becoming unstoppable?

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The shopworkers go with Mili-major At the end of September it will be the second anniversary of the famous picture of David Miliband with the banana which could coincide with his victory in Labour’s leadership election. For whatever you think of his unworldliness you cannot but admire the efficiency with which he has gone about his campaign. He roped in the most MPs to nominate him and now he’s opened the rush to get union support with a decision today…

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