Could the “Turnip Taliban” undermine his leadership? There’s now a betting market on the situation in the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk where the move to de-select the PPC, 34 year old Elizabeth Truss, is opening up all sorts of issues over the powers of local parties and charges of sexism. Last week the local executive decided by 19 votes to 14 to put Ms Truss’s candidature back to a special general meeting in a fortnight’s time because…
Is Labour really less certain than it was? With the by-election in Glasgow North East due to take place a week on Thursday there’s been an easing of the Labour price and a tightening of the SNP in the battle to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Michael Martin. Quite what’s driving this is not clear but the two leading contenders had a lot of activists out over the weekend and maybe the SNP are starting to get…
Telegraph Is the sky the limit for the Penrith PPC? There’s a lot been written in recent days about Rory Stewart who has just been selected as Tory PPC for the safe seat of Penrith. By any standard he’s got an extraordinary CV and even went to Eton followed by Oxford which seems to be the standard background for so many. But just read this from Anna van Praagh’s Sunday Telegraph profile: “Britain doesn’t make men like Rory Stewart any…
How come he was even thought to be a contender? The splash leads of both the Times and the Guardian won’t make happy reading at the home office this morning. For the David Nutt resignation looks set to be followed by others raising questions over whether ministers are ever serious when they ask experts for advice. Adding to their problems is the home secretary’s appearance with Adam Boulton on SkyNews yesterday when he appeared to totally lose it under close…
Could this solve Cameron’s Lisbon ratification difficulties? Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome has an important post tonight setting out what he believes will be Cameron’s new approach to the EU issue following the likely ratification within the next few days of the Lisbon Treaty. In broad terms the plan is to substitute the holding of a referendum (which always looked difficult once ratification happened) with putting the fight for repatriation of key EU powers in the Tory general election manifesto –…
Atlantic City (Wikimedia Commons) Will Corzine scrape home in a tight race? Unlike Virginia which appears a done deal, the second of the gubernatorial elections on Tuesday, in the “Garden State” of New Jersey is a much tighter affair, with a key difference being the presence of an Independent candidate who has been polling in the teens. This race may yet see the re-election of the incumbent Governor despite his low approval ratings, and despite the lack of markets with…
Have Johnson and Miliband (D) become less likely? With Alan Johnson not having too good a time of it after his sacking Professor David Nutt and the increased speculation over David Miliband going for the EU job the two who have both been favourites at various times have moved out in the betting. Johnson has sounded truly awful over the Nutt issue – his interview on SkyNews this morning was hardly that of a man who you could see as…
ICM Nov 1-2 1996 How Gord would kill for 34% shares today! One of the challenges with trying to work out whether a Tory victory is a foregone conclusion is that the only modern parallel is Labour’s run up to the Tony Blair landslide in May 1997 – something that’s made much harder by big changes in polling practice and the fact that the only firm doing it now almost exactly as it was doing it then is ICM. Featured…