Making comments during times of peak demand

Making comments during times of peak demand

As regulars will know we’ve made some significant changes to our discussion forums during the past couple of days. The “look” of the comments has been adapted, the contributor’s name is put at the top rather than the bottom, and we’ve introduced pagination to limit the numbers of comments being shown on a single page in very long threads that are down-loaded time and time again as people follow discussions. Our standard maximum level of comments “per page” has been…

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Is Brown now having to play catch-up?

Is Brown now having to play catch-up?

Has Number 10 been wrong-footed again? Judging by the tone of much of the coverage this morning the Cameron moves yesterday have been fairly well received and there’s little doubt that Brown’s comments last night that all MPs’ receipts over four years must be scrutinised by an independent group was his way of countering it. He denied it, of course, but he needed to do something ahead of today’s PMQs which kick off in the house at noon. He’s helped…

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Could this be tomorrow’s PMQ weapon for Gord?

Could this be tomorrow’s PMQ weapon for Gord?

How close is the ex-party chair coming to being expelled? No doubt every word from Lord Tebbitt’s comments today will have been noted at Number 10 and Gord will throw them at Dave tomorrow if he gets half a chance. Cameron made a not very veiled expulsion threat at his press conference this afternoon. Could a Norman Tebbit outside the party be an ongoing embarrassment to the leadership? Mike Smithson

Do Brown and Clegg need to respond to this?

Do Brown and Clegg need to respond to this?

Has Dave done enough to gain the initiative? Within the past half hour David Cameron has been holding a press conference announcing his party’s reaction to the revelations of questionable expenses claim by some of his party’s MPs, including members of the shadow cabinet. He listed and almost named and shamed ministerial colleagues who will pay some money back and he’s also announced the creation of a party scrutiny committee. This, of course, is pure politics. Cameron wants to be…

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Could the 4/6 favourite for Speaker have blown his chances?

Could the 4/6 favourite for Speaker have blown his chances?

Who’ll get the job if/when Martin goes? With Adam Boulton on Sky News this afternoon reporting that there are suggestions that Michael Martin will hold on as Speaker until the general election and then stand down I thought a quick look at the betting might be a good idea. As far as I can see the only bookie with a market is William Hill which currently has Sir Alan Haselhurst (one of those named in the Daily Telegraph today) as…

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Is HenryG right – this is the big news of the day?

Is HenryG right – this is the big news of the day?

Guardian online Will the Labour movement rise up against their leader? HenryG, a long-standing PB regular and contributor of guest slots about Labour’s internal workings, wrote on the previous thread that “…the big news today is the Polly Toynbee article on why Brown should go. Pretty devastating and gives clear instructions to the PLP.” The continuing expenses story, now with the focus on the Tories, has somewhat distracted from Polly’s totally damning column about Gordon and her call for a…

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Are the Tories coming out worst from the expenses row?

Are the Tories coming out worst from the expenses row?

What can Cameron say to regain the initiative? It feels like day 27 (it’s actually day five) of the Telegraph MP expenses expose but there’s another batch in the paper this morning and this will dominate the political news agenda again. The paper’s introduction sums up the flavour of today’s focus and it is going to be tricky for the leadership to deal with – for it touches in some cases on a world that is totally different from that…

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New comments arrangements

New comments arrangements

In order to cope with massive threads we’ve introduced paged browsing so that you only see up a maximum of 50 100 comments at any one stage. The whole idea is to reduce some of the pressure on the server and deal with very long threads like the last one. We’ve also put the name of the poster at the top of each comment in response to lots of requests. To check out earlier comments just click on the tab….

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