… and some people think American politics is complicated…

… and some people think American politics is complicated…

Wikimedia Creative Commons License Three rounds of voting down, two to go in India America may claim to be the world’s greatest democracy, but India is unchallenged as the world’s biggest – and countries that at first seem politically complex, such as Israel, Italy, or Switzerland, pale into elegant simplicity when compared to the behemoth that is Indian politics (the US by contrast seems almost laughably straightforward). The sheer numbers involved in the Indian election are simply mind-boggling. Just two…

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Is it stupid to say “it’s the economy stupid”?

Is it stupid to say “it’s the economy stupid”?

Is John Curtice right about what moves the polls The phrase “It’s the economy stupid” has been quoted time and time again since being first used by the Bill Clinton campaign in 1992 that it’s almost accepted as gospel by many who observe and comment on the political process. Indeed the great hope that Gordon Brown and Labour are clinging onto is that by the time that the general election finally happens then the economy will have got past the…

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Whatever happened to Labour’s Class of the Nineties?

Whatever happened to Labour’s Class of the Nineties?

Five deputy contenders 2007 How is it that so few have really made it? About half of the parliamentary Labour party won election to the House of Commons in the 1990s. A few of those who gained their seat at the 1992 or 1997 elections, or one of the several by-election wins during those parliaments, have since left for one reason or another but many are still there. After ten to twenty years in the House, they ought to be…

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The overnight thread….

The overnight thread….

So far no news of polls With only five weeks to the Euro/Local elections I was expecting news of at least one poll – but that does not seem to have happened. I do know that members of the YouGov polling panel have been surveyed but I’ve no idea whether that’s going to be published or not. Clearly the big thing we have to look forward to is the Sunday paper reaction to what’s been an exceptional week. Keeping posting…

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A Tale of Two Pollys: 2006 and 2009

A Tale of Two Pollys: 2006 and 2009

Guardian Online March 26 2006 Guardian Online May 2 2009 What a difference three years makes? There’s already been a fair bit of discussion on Polly Toynbee’s Saturday column and thanks to Mirthios on the previous thread for digging out the 2006 rendering. What a contrast? Both are worth reading in some detail. Perhaps the most powerful article this weekend is from Nick Cohen in the latest Standpoint under the heading “‘Fear and Filth at Brown’s Number 10”. This left…

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The Cabinet Minister’s Wife

The Cabinet Minister’s Wife

In honour of our new Poet Laureate For those of you not familiar with Morus’ Saturday Slant, this is the time of the week where Mike allows me to weave an ill-formed political idea into a completely tangental form of prose with varying degrees of success. Previous victims have included such literary luminaries as Harold Pinter and Sir John Mortimer, so I thought it only fair to pen an homage to Carol Ann Duffy who was yesterday unveiled as our…

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How are the Lib Dem “anti-Tories” going to view this?

How are the Lib Dem “anti-Tories” going to view this?

PoliticsHome 76% of Lib Dem voters want more collaboration with Tories The panel above summarises findings from the latest PoliticsHome poll on attitudes by supporters of the main parties to the collaboration that we saw on Wednesday between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives over the Ghurka issue. The precise question that was “Yesterday the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives voted together to defeat the government in a House of Commons vote on whether Gurkhas should be allowed to settle…

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Why did 313 Labour MPs ignore this polling?

Why did 313 Labour MPs ignore this polling?

UKPollingReport They can’t claim that it wasn’t all predicted It’s suddenly become fashionable in the Labour party to be a Brown-sceptic. Hardly a day goes by before some new faction within the movement starts raising questions about his style of leadership and electability. Yet they were all warned two years ago.. For in the year before Brown’s coronation a vast body of polling evidence built up that Labour would do much worse with him as a leader than the standard…

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