Would having the only male leader impact on UK domestic politics? An extraordinary series of developments, which few people seem seem to have picked up, is that in just over two years time the leaders of three of the four biggest economies in the West could be women. Germany got its first ever female Chancellor in the early summer when Angela Merkel just managed to secure the top job after an indecisive election result saw the end of the Schroeder…
How the Tory political funding plan screws Labour By an extraordinary coincidence I found myself sharing a bottle of wine on a train out of St. Pancras last night with the man who is playing a key role on the subject that I had decided to write about this morning – the Tory threat to Labour’s funding. This is Tony Dubbins, a leading Labour movement figure for several decades and now chair of the body that links the trade unions…
What will be the impact of the Scottish switch to PR? The next round of Scottish local elections will be held under the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation. First past the post has produced some very distorted results in the past, in Scottish local elections. For example, Labour won 87% of the seats in Glasgow, in 2003, on 48% of the vote, and most remarkably of all, a bare majority in Edinburgh with just 27% of the vote….
How can Labour get him to loosen up a bit? The scene should be a happy one for the man most likely to be the next Labour leader. He’s there amongst enthusiastic supporters who are pleased to see him yet he stiffens up and appears aloof apparently unwilling or unable to engage with those around him. If he is like this amongst committed Labour supporters how is he going to be with the less committed – the groups Labour needs…
Surely Gordon should be attacking Cameron on the Tory tax plan? In times of old today’s publication of the findings of David Cameron’s policy commission on tax would provide Labour with all it needed. At last some meat for party policy wonks to get their teeth into and the furious attacks could begin on the threats to public services. Detailed data would be out within hours on what this would mean in every constituency in the land and the questions…
Is he just providing PMQ material for David Cameron? With a second top civil servant disputing accounts of what went on in Whitehall in David Blunkett’s controversial memoirs Labour appears to have started a damage limitation exercise to dissociate the party from the former Home Secretary. The close Gordon Brown aide and former Agriculture Secretary, Nick Brown, is quoted this morning saying “Politics is a team game. Politicians on the same side have to stick together. I cannot understand what…
Will the unfunded pledge charges stick on Cameron? After seeing his ratings steadily deteriorate against the Tory leader Gordon Brown has now found a new line of attack in the hope of bringing about a change. His Treasury team are claiming that David Cameron has made 40 unfunded spending commitments since becoming leader which would require billions of pounds of extra taxes to fund. In what sounds like the way that Prime Minister Brown would seek to deal with the…
How will Labour deal with the abolition of the Normanton seat? The news before the weekend that Labour’s effort to save the Normantion seat has been turned down by the high court was over-shadowed by the Head of the Army’s comments about Iraq. Although not on the same scale the court’s backing for the Boundary Committee’s ruling sets Labour an enormous problem. An indication of the importance of this is that the local Labour council risked being attacked for agreeing…