Will Obama be a One-Term Wonder?

Will Obama be a One-Term Wonder?

Comments 0 Comment

Could healthcare be his ‘No We Can’t’ moment? It’s coming up to a year since the last US presidential election and the shine has come off Obama’s presidency quite rapidly. His approval ratings with Rasmussen went negative during July having started off at around +30%. That’s a measure of those with a strong opinion rather than the balance of all expressing a positive or negative view (which is just about equal), but in a country where the turnout is comparatively…

Read More Read More

So was it a good Lib Dem Conference?

So was it a good Lib Dem Conference?

Comments 0 Comment

CON 39% (-2) LAB 26% (-1) LD 20%(+3) Good news for Clegg’s party from YouGov A YouGov poll for tomorrow’s Telegraph will bring some welcome relief for the Lib Dems with a three point boost in their rating.  Both the Conservatives and Labour are down, with the Conservatives dropping back below 40%.  The changes are against the Sunday Times poll, conducted by YouGov and published on 11th September.  All the changes are within the margin of error but only just in the…

Read More Read More

A special Sean Fear Friday Slot

A special Sean Fear Friday Slot

Comments 0 Comment

Sean looks ahead to London’s locals next May The next London Borough Elections are due in May 2010, probably on the same day as the General Election. In 2006, the Conservatives led strongly, winning fifteen boroughs outright, compared to eight for Labour, and four for the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives’ lead, in terms of vote share, was less impressive, winning 35%, compared to 28% for Labour, and 21% for the Liberal Democrats. If, as seems likely, the Conservatives win a…

Read More Read More

Is this where Gord is being interviewed for his next job?

Is this where Gord is being interviewed for his next job?

Comments 0 Comment

Has Baroness Vadera paved the way for a G20 role? Last March, ahead of the G20 meeting in London, there was speculation that Gordon could come out of global financial crisis with some new world role which would mean that he’d have a dignified exit route from Number 10. Well those thoughts are coming to the fore again with the juxtaposition of today’s G20 meeting in Pittsburgh and yesterday’s announcement of Baroness Vadera’s resignation as a minister and news of…

Read More Read More

Should you take the 40/1 on Bell’s man in Bedford

Should you take the 40/1 on Bell’s man in Bedford

Comments 0 Comment

How’ll the “Man in the White Suit” affect the race? As predicted here a month ago the “Man in the White Suit”, ex BBC-reporter and victor as an independent at Tatton in 1997, Martin Bell has got involved with the next big political betting event in the UK – the mayoral by-election in Bedford on October 15 with an electorate of 100,000. We’ve reported already on the visit of David Cameron and the Tory open primary to select their candidate…

Read More Read More

Was this the story the twittering was all about?

Was this the story the twittering was all about?

Comments 0 Comment

Telegraph Have the Telegraph editors lost their sense of proportion? If you had been following the PB thread last night and had monitored other political blogs then you’d have thought that the political world as we know it was about to come to an end. I was being texted and called with the news that something “very big was going to break”. The story came out at 10pm and looking at how the paper has treated it you would have…

Read More Read More

Continuation Thread

Continuation Thread

Comments 0 Comment

The Times is running a story on Tory PPCs who are apparently involved in lobbying efforts ahead of the next election. The Telegraph is reporting that Speaker Jon Bercow has made comments about the accountability of Lord Mandelson to MPs Max Clifford is now representing Baroness Scotland’s former housekeeper, causing that story to run on another couple of days at least. Oh, and on the last thread David Roe brings us this exclusive from his new home at the Scottish…

Read More Read More

Are the Lib Dems throwing away their USP?

Are the Lib Dems throwing away their USP?

Comments 0 Comment

Should Clegg’s troops should have more distinctiveness? The old Liberal Party nearly went out of existence in the 1950s but in the years that followed staged a recovery based round a distinctive localism, a sense of being outside the establishment and the caricature of a politician and of them being the ‘nice’ party. If you have no chance of power nationally, you have to offer the electorate something else. A ‘more pleasant and more local’ way of doing politics was…

Read More Read More