Is Brown right to acknowledge that the deployment might fail? We are in for a glut of opinion polls in the coming days on the question of Britain’s continued presence in Afghanistan – the latest being on C4 last night from YouGov which had 73% wanting an immediate or early pull-out. Today, according to the Telegraph, Mr. Brown is to make a key speech on the issue in which he will acknowledge that the British mission which has cost so…
CON 41%(nc) LAB 27%(-1) LD 17%(+1) And 73% want the troops out of Afghanistan A new 1,021 sample YouGov poll for Channel 4 where the fieldwork took place yesterday and today has a slightly increased Tory lead the result of Labour slipping a notch to 27% and the Lib Dems increasing by one point. The total for “others” is at 16% but we do not know what the breakdown of that figure is. Even the detailed data released this evening…
Will the Lisbon compromise mean the Tories are up or down? It’s welcome back to PB’s cartoonist, Marf, with a new drawing this afternoon neatly linking linking the Tory polling position with all the publicity about the plinth in Trafalgar Square. For the next round of surveys, including the latest exclusive poll for PB from Angus Reid Strategies, might set key pointers to the eventual general election outcome. Will the Cameron switch on the Lisbon referendum, as Labour hopes, lead…
BBC news What a terrible day for UKIP for this to come out? On the day after the Tory change of heart on the Lisbon referendum the anti-EU party that did so well last June, UKIP, must have been hoping for better headlines than this. This was the opportunity, surely, for them to be presenting themselves as an alternative to Cameron’s Tories. And what happens? We get the news from Southwark Crown court and UKIP has to deal with terrible…
Politics.co.uk Would this mean a by-election in South Shields? There’s a story runnnig, which appears to be an exclusive, on the Politics.co.uk website suggesting that David Miliband has accepted” the top EU foreign affairs role that he was being tipped and, indeed, is current favourite in the betting. Well done to Wibbler on the previous thread for the spot. According to the site’s Emmeline Saunders the information has come from “a Labour source” and that this could all be announced…
Could today prompt a Tory seepage to the anti-EU party? The big danger for Cameron’s Tories from today’s EU policy announcement is that this could lead to a seepage of support to UKIP at the general election. If you read ConservativeHome or believe their statistically-suspect “poll” of Tory members you would think that the world was coming to an end. Yet when it comes down to it the issue at the election will be whether voters want Brown’s Labour government…
BBC news
Are we seeing a new approach from the speaker? The main feature for me of a fairly subdued PMQs was the readiness of the speaker, John Bercow, to stop Gordon Brown from using his replies to attack opposition policy – something that has become almost common place. It happened in a reply on the first question on the NHS. Brown was just about to launch into an attack on some comments that shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley had made when…