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The chancellor beats Cameron in the latest Newsnight focus group Following his “focus group” that was screened on Newsnight at the start of the 2005 Tory party conference the features by the US Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, have become significant political events. That one, arugably, played a key part in Cameron’s eventual victory in the party leadership contest. The last session, during the Labour conference in September, had Luntz asking those taking part to compare Brown with other potential candidates…

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The Strange Death of Labour England I, and others, have commented on Labour’s ongoing decline in local government representation. What is striking, however, is just how much of England the Labour Party has now disappeared from. There are now 69 English local authorities without any Labour representation whatsoever, compared to 37 without any Liberal Democrat councillors, and 19 without any Conservatives. Councils without any Labour representation are mostly district councils, some of which are very rural. There are however, 6…

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But will the main parties come to a deal? Sir Hayden Phillips’ report on party funding is at last out and leaves a lot of questions to be resolved. The big issue is whether the parties themselves can agree to spending limits on specifix campaigns and caps on individual donations. The challenge is that each of the parites comes at this from a different stand-point. The Tories have now wiped off their debts and by all reports are fundraising very…

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Can he be blamed for something his great grand-father did? After the big coverage of the Quentin Letts call for Jack Straw to enter the Labour leadership race the First Post’s “The Mole” – described as a “Downing Street insider – is out rubbishing the suggestion this afternoon. Under the heading “Six reasons why it won’t be Straw” our so-called “insider” tells us at number five about the alleged misdeeds of the former Foreign Secretary’s great-grandfather. So what? You get…

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Can you be green without pain? On the eve of the budget the Government has sought to regain the initiative on green issues with the publication today of their proposed climate change bill. The plan is to create a framework that will bind future governments to work towards a targeted 50% cut by 2050. But what happens if future governments don’t obey? Is the bill simply a way of postponing the pain? For the hard fact is that if emissions…

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