Could a resolution make it to the conference floor? In all the discussion about Labour’s rule-book and how a challenge to Mr. Brown could come about the most clear explanation came in Alan Watkins’s column in this weekend’s Indy on Sunday. For there has been a lot of confusion over the role of Labour MPs who retain the power to nominate. The critical element, however, is how a contest when the leader wants to stay is initiated and it is…
Is now the time to be betting against Barack? Several people on the site have been making the point in the past couple of days that Betfair and other UK betting firms are trailing behind the US-focussed markets on the McCain-Obama battle. Quite simply, given recent polling, this is much tighter than the betting prices here might suggest. Thus the automated telephone pollster, Rasmussen, is reporting today that its tracking poll now has McCain ahead by one point and across…
The detailed data from ICM’s weekend poll is now out and the most interesting findings are on who voters would like to see as next Labour leader in place of Gordon Brown. Respondents were first asked who they would recognise if they saw them walking down the street. Not surprisingly the justice secretary, Jack Straw, who has been in high profile role for longer than any of them came out top with a 79% recognition factor. Second was Harriet Harman…
How does Labour attack a party that is no longer hated? Reading Carole Cadwalladr’s enjoyable feature in the Observer Review yesterday “So we are all Tories now? the thought struck me that something very profound has happened to British politics – the Tories are no longer hated. And this simple fact could have a dramatic effect on the next general election because it takes away the core proposition that Labour have deployed so successfully for a decade and a half…
Could Tzipi Livni become Israel’s first woman PM since Golda Meir? Ehud Olmert, mired in corruption allegations, announced earlier this week that he would not contest September’s Kadima leadership primary. With a weak mandate to start with (just 29 seats and 22% of the vote in 2006), the Lebanon war, unpopularity to rival Gordon Brown’s, and the recent investigations, he will leave office as one of the shortest-serving PMs since the creation of Israel in 1948, although should his efforts…
The main polling news on the big drop in Lib Dem support in the latest ICM survey is covered in the previous post. The Mail on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, and Observer all strongly feature the leaked memo containing Blair’s thoughts on Brown. Fullest coverage is in the Mail, which received the leaked memo, written in the aftermath of the Labour conference last autumn. ‘There has been a lamentable confusion of tactics and strategy. Tactically, it was thought clever to define…
The firm’s 16% is the lowest since Clegg became leader The most significant news in a new ICM poll in the Sunday Express is that the Lib Dems have slumped to their lowest ratings from the firm since well before Nick Clegg became leader last December. The shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster nearly a fortnight ago are: CON 45% (+2): LAB 29% (+1): LD 16% (-3) This is a particular blow for the party because…
What role does John Hutton have yet to play? It was Michael Heseltine who famously remarked on his own failed bid to become Prime Minister that “He who wields the knife will never wear the crown”. This oft-repeated dictum has since played its part in preventing leadership coups, by tempering the ambition of those who would otherwise seek to overthrown their leader. This week saw fevered speculation, first Jack Straw posing for photos in the Sunday Papers, then Harriet Harman…