Has he really got what it takes to undermine Cameron? Now there’s a headline, I know, designed to provoke a largish slice of the PB audience but it could be correct. For every Labour person I’ve spoken to over the past forty-eight hours, and for various reasons that has been quite a few, has told how under Gordon they are heading for oblivion but that David Miliband is “the one” who can turn the party’s fortunes round. They believe passionately…
The conflict in Georgia dominates the front pages The Sunday Newspapers are focussing heavily on the conflict that has erupted between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. The US and UK are affirming Georgia’s territorial rights and calling for a cessation of hostilities. Around 1,000 Georgian troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, as Russia demands that Georgia withdraws to its undisputed territory. The region of Abkhazia has now joined the conflict, according to the Observer. In other news, the Sunday…
Revised But more ammunition for those who want Gord out The News of the World has a poll from YouGov, giving David Cameron’s Conservatives yet another healthy over Gordon Brown’s Labour government – 20 percentage points although it is down a couple of notches from the last survey from the firm nine days ago. Amongst the non-voting intention questions nearly half of those who took part said Brown should quit and and 49% say they would prefer Tony Blair as…
What are the significant implications for US and UK foreign policy? You could be forgiven for not being immediately familiar with the small mountain region of South Ossetia, and its capital Tskhinvali. Few people last week could have correctly identified it as (legally, at least) a province of Georgia, and fewer still would have known that its comparitively-peaceable sister region North Ossetia remained a part of the Russian Federation. The two provinces consider themselves to be a single ethnolinguistic entity,…
Which VP will keep Southern Baptists on-side? Mike has alerted me to a fascinating CBS News interview with Richard Land, who chairs the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the ‘public-policy wing’ of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the US, and they weild significant political influence over the Republican Party. “CBSNews.com: A number of evangelicals and leaders of what used to be called the religious right have said that what they’re really looking for–to…
What might this mean for Michigan and the Presidential campaigns? Thirty-four-years-and-a-day since Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, the most serious political scandal of 2008 is reaching its peak, and rather refreshingly it doesn’t directly involve either candidate in the White House race. Kwame Kilpatrick, the Mayor of Detroit, is tonight sat in jail, having breached his bail conditions by taking a trip to Canada. The 38-year-old Mayor, once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, is facing eight indictments,…
Give your favourite blogs the recognition they deserve The new Total Politics magazine is compiling an annual guide to political blogging in the UK, and are running a competition to find the UK’s top 100 political blogs. Full details can be found here, but the basics are as follows: 1) Choose your top 10 (must be 10) from the Total Politics blog directory 2) Number them in order, with #1 being your favourite and so forth 3) Send them, along…
Could viral videos like this start to have an impact? Over the past couple of weeks there’s been a bit of a move back to John McCain on the betting markets. Obama’s overseas trip, particularly the mass rally in Berlin, has not gone down well and the presumptive GOP nominee has been deploying what appears to be an effective attack strategy against his Democratic opponent. But still, I believe, McCain is weak on one of the things he can do…