What if Brown appoints Balls as Chancellor? What a night and so much more to come in the next few days. Apart from the local election results which are coming in overnight the big political story during the day will be the cabinet re-shuffle. Who is going to replace Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and now James Purnell? But most interesting move of them all is whether Ed Balls gets the job he has set his heart on – Chancellor of…
James Purnell has this evening resigned From the BBC: James Purnell has stepped down from the cabinet and told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to “stand aside” In a letter to the Sun and the Times, the work and pensions secretary said he was not seeking the leadership but wanted to trigger a debate. Mr Purnell is the third cabinet member to announce they are standing down in the past few days. Mr Brown is set to reshuffle his cabinet as…
Could the outcomes not quite reach expectations? With the polls due to close at 10pm all the focus has been on Labour with talk at one stage of a high-profile name making a big announcement at 10pm. Who knows? But what about the Tories? Could they find both the locals and the Euros something of a disappointment. The problems here, of course, are that the minor parties who hardly ever get a look in are seeing a big increase in…
Can he beat the Tory’s two years and 55 days? With all the talk of the pressure on Gordon Brown just how long can he carry on? Is for instance his tenure as leader of the Labour party going to be shorter than Iain Duncan Smith – the Tory leader from 2001 to 2003. Unlike Brown IDS had to fight an election to get the party’s top job yet within a short time it was clear that the party had…
Is turnout going to be on the low side? It’s always quite difficult trying to make a guess at turnout at this stage on polling days. The big rush is generally between 5pm and 7.30pm. Even so the message that’s coming through is that the levels of voter participation are not going to be anywhere near the proportions that some were suggesting over the weekend. Above is the scene outside my own polling station – the refreshment hut at Bedford…
Will today’s likely drubbing be blamed on the plotters? Later on this evening I’m due to be taking part in BBC Radio 5 live’s election programme when the story is surely going to be Labour’s performance – first in the local results that will come out overnight and then throughout Friday – all this to be followed on Sunday evening, of course, when we get the Euro election figures. This is one of those occasions when, unless the polls have…
YouGov EURO ELECTION: CON 26 LAB 16 LD 15 UKIP 18 GRN 10 BNP 5 But could the Lib Dems push them into fourth place? The final YouGov poll for tomorrow’s election to the European parliament is out and has Labour at the lowest level it has recorded during the campaign – a bare 16%. These are figures based on those “certain to vote”. If you include the “non-100% certains” a very different picture emerges. According to the Telegraph ”…
Meanwhile the re-shuffle is “under-way” Within the past ten minutes the news organisation began reporting that Brown’s reshuffle is under-way. Maybe we will start to get news this evening. It looks as though David Cameron’s predecessor as MP for Witney is heading for Jacqui Smith’s old job at the Home Office. In recent months the former “That’s Life” researcher and colleague of Esther Rantzen has become very close to the PM. A job in one of the main offices of…