Will the election for Speaker prevent a Leadership contest? Michael Martin. Remember him? He used to be Speaker of the House of Commons until he resigned last week. Except of course he didn’t: he’s still there, forgotten but not gone. All he announced was that he would be resigning on June 21. There are some perfectly good reasons for having a delay of four weeks. For one thing, it allows members the opportunity to discuss potential candidates and to give…
Has Ben Tallis made a huge mistake? The above video I found courtesy of a friend who directed me to http://www.stopnickgriffin.org – it’s message is clear: Vote Green as the best chance to stop Nick Griffin from being elected. Clearly, this was a compelling argument for at least one person, as Ben Tallis (top of the list for Libertas in the North West) has announced that he is endorsing the Green Party in his region. I think this argument is…
Will ExpensesGate harden growing Euroscepticism? With the exception of the Guardian’s new ICM poll yesterday, the general trend of the last three weeks has been a fall in major party support, with UKIP being the principle (measurable) beneficiaries. Before the Telegraph began its campaign, I was of the (mainstream) opinion that UKIP would struggle to match their 2004 result, and that the behaviour of some of their members with regards to the ‘EU Gravy Train’ they purported to dispise would…
CON 30 (+4) LAB 24(+1) LD 18 (+3) UKIP 10(-6) GRN 9(3) SNP/PC 4(+2) BNP 1(-4) OTH 3(-3) Could turnout distort the pollsters’ projections? There’s a new Guardian ICM poll on the June 4th Euro elections out this afternoon which suggests that in spite of everything the main parities are all set for an increase of ten points between them compared with what happened in the last elections five years ago. This goes very much against other EU election polling…
IpsoMORI July 2008 The data, surely, shows that the PM is a liability Earlier in the month the Labour blogger, Hopi Sen, was making the argument that the polls were showing Gordon Brown was more popular than his party and, therefore, any change of leader would have a negative rather than positive impact on Labour’s chances. Hopi based his case on the MORI monthly question when respondents rated their satisfaction with the government and their satisfaction with Brown. He argued…
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c Scamalot thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor Will Bercow and Beith be damaged by today’s revelations? With the MPs expense scandal now being featured on the US satire programme, the Daily Show, the Daily Telegraph’s investigation into MPs expenses starts its third week this morning with reports about the current favourite and second favourite in the next Speaker betting. The man who all the money…
POLITICALBETTING EXCLUSIVE: CON 39 (nc) LAB 27(+1) LD 17 (-5) More than half those polled want an immediate general election I’ve been given to understand that a new poll by Populus for ITV news tonight with Westminster voting intentions will show the Tories remaining on 39% with Labour up one to 27% but with the Lib Dems taking the biggest hit – down five points to 17%. The comparisons are with the last survey from the firm ten days ago….
What do we think of Brogan’s scenario? After the the first ousting of a speaker in more than three hundred years then anything is possible I suppose. So what do we think of Ben Brogan’s piece in the Telegraph this morning when he suggests the following? “..Around the Cabinet table, his (Brown) crude politicking provokes despair. There is also frustration at his inability to say whether he plans to punish those who have behaved wrongly. He judged Hazel Blears’s failure…