Should MPs have been told about the spending review first?

Should MPs have been told about the spending review first?

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Is Speaker Bercow going to follow through on his warning? Last Wednesday in his statement after PMQs Speaker Bercow made it clear that the first place ministers should make announcements was to the house of commons. Well what’s he going to do about Peter Mandelson’s radio comments this morning that the spending review will be postponed until after the election? Surely this big news on the government’s management of the economy should have come first in a statement to MPs?…

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Could PM Johnson deny Cameron his majority?

Could PM Johnson deny Cameron his majority?

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Would a change give Labour more hope? There’s a sentence in John Rentoul’s weekend piece that is worth examining. For in assessing prospect for the election Rentoul notes “I assume that the Labour Party will recover from its current trough of unpopularity, by which I mean that it replaces Brown with Alan Johnson..” Rentoul, of course, is a Blair biographer and is no fan of Brown Central. He’s also been tipping an Alan Johnson switch-over ahead of the election for…

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What do we make of the Cameron/Osborne joint office reports?

What do we make of the Cameron/Osborne joint office reports?

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Could my 33/1 Hammond for Chancellor bet be a winner? Back in April I suggested backing Philip Hammond for next chancellor at the then attractive odds of 33/1. My reasoning then, which is even more so now, has been the very high profile that Hammond seems to get when it comes to arguing the Tory case on the economy/tax/public spending etc. For generally when a party spokesman is put up it is Hammond who gets the call and not the…

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New YouGov poll has Dave slightly further ahead

New YouGov poll has Dave slightly further ahead

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CON 40 (+2) LAB 24 (-1) LD 17 (-1) But the changes are all within the margin of error There was a new poll out overnight after all and we are just picking up the details. It was in the People which carried a similar YouGov poll only a few weeks ago. No fieldwork dates are mentioned but I assume that this took place after the Telegraph’s YouGov survey which we featured here on Thursday evening. Let’s hope that the…

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Does Brown have too many deputies?

Does Brown have too many deputies?

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Can he cope with Harriet, Mandy and Ed at the same time? Just as every Prime Minister needs a Willie, as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, so the present incumbent believes he needs Balls. She was right; he may not be. While Balls isn’t Brown’s deputy, he is almost certainly his closest political confidante within the cabinet, his position unassailable and his views taken very seriously by Brown. Alongside him, Peter Mandelson having returned to government and risen to the lofty…

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Why do part-time MPs get full-time pay?

Why do part-time MPs get full-time pay?

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John Redwood’s blog Why do they have seventeen weeks annual holiday? Somewhat to my surprise I find myself in total agreement with today’s blog entry by former Tory minister, John Redwood. In it he sets out just how little time MPs actually have to spend at Westminster because of the elongated holidays and the truncated working week. He writes: “My main job is to hold the government to account. It is to cross examine them over their policies, to request…

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Has Cameron found the election dividing line – honesty?

Has Cameron found the election dividing line – honesty?

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Indy online Is this going to be the core Tory theme? Usually one of the most consistent Saturday morning political “reads” is Andrew Grice’s column in the Independent and today he speculates on what he think what the Tories are planning to make the election all about. He suggests that Tory riposte to Brown’s “investment versus cuts” will be “to invite voters to choose between “Honest Dave and Dodgy Gordon”. Grice goes on: “When Andrew Lansley, the shadow Health Secretary,…

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Does this blow apart Gord’s “10% cuts” rhetoric?

Does this blow apart Gord’s “10% cuts” rhetoric?

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YouGov What does he do now in the face of these numbers? Thanks to Andrew Sparrow in the Guardian for spotting the above numbers in the latest YouGov poll for they seem to blow a big hole in Brown’s core general election strategy – to reduce the argument down to a choice between “Labour investment” and “Tory cuts”. The key premise of the Brown approach is that voters will believe that by curtailing budgets to key services then inevitably those…

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