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Month: February 2009

Can Civil Liberties have an impact?

Can Civil Liberties have an impact?

Today, I will be joining around 1,000 participants nationwide at the Convention on Modern Liberty – a conference of speakers and activists from across the political spectrum who share a concern about the direction with respect to our basic rights and liberties. Although not an automatic adherent, I acknowledge that we now live in a society that is becoming ever more scary from this particular perspective, and am interested to see what some of the great thinkers of the age…

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Who’ll win the Brown-Goodwin pension stand-off?

Who’ll win the Brown-Goodwin pension stand-off?

Take the 6/1 that Fred’s pension will be cut I’ve just put £100 on at 6/1 with William Hill that the former RBS boss, Sir Fred Goodwin will accept a cut in his much publicised pension entitlement. The bet is that he will either do so voluntarily or be forced to do so by the end of the year. There’s so much political pressure on Brown that the chances of Goodwin being unable to brazen it out must be better…

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Is this Nick Clegg’s dilemma?

Is this Nick Clegg’s dilemma?

YouGov Is anything other than equidistance wrong for the LDs? If other polls follow YouGov and we get near to hung parliament territory again there will be more focus on what other parties, notably the SNP and the Lib Dems, would do. Here the views of party supporters might be important. The best regular guide of how Lib Dem voters view things comes in the monthly Telegraph poll with the detailed splits on their forced choice “Brown or Cameron” question….

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Does Fred’s pension put stopping the Tories beyond reach?

Does Fred’s pension put stopping the Tories beyond reach?

How can minsters claim competence after agreeing to this? The numbers involved are on such a scale that it’s hard for the ordinary voter to comprehend the crisis that the financial system has been going through in the past five months. The challenge for ministers has been to appear confident and competent without being complacent. And for the most part since then the government has given off an aura of knowing what it’s doing which has been picked up in…

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The Tories down 3 points with YouGov

The Tories down 3 points with YouGov

Updated CON 41(-3) LAB 31(-1) LD 15(+1) But there’s still a double digit lead? The Daily Telegraph’s YouGov survey for February is just out and as predicted on the previous thread is showing a 10 point Tory lead. The changes are all within the margin of error though they do offer a spot of comfort to Labour. Interestingly the best poll findings for Brown’s party are coming from the on-line pollster at the moment and the margin is the smallest…

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How damaging is Fred’s RBS pension to Labour?

How damaging is Fred’s RBS pension to Labour?

What can Darling do about the £650k pa outrage? The big talking point on many of the radio phone-ins today has been the mammoth pension of £650,000 a year that the ex-RBS boss is due to get for the rest of his life. Listen in – there’s a lot of anger and fury out there and who can blame people. This comes on the day that the Royal Bank of Scotland posted a £24bn loss – the biggest in British…

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Could the politics now become less personal?

Could the politics now become less personal?

Will we see a new relationship between Dave and Gord? If it had not been postponed because of yesterday’s tragic death David Cameron and Gordon Brown would have been meeting later today at Number 10 for the formal unveiling of a portrait of the last Tory PM but one. The organisation of this event had been marked by extraordinary bickering and an apparent effort by Brown first not to have Cameron there at all and then, once that became impossible,…

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