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Month: July 2010

Has the Tory 5th favourite done a Gerald Ratner?

Has the Tory 5th favourite done a Gerald Ratner?

What now for the man who walked across Afghanistan? One of the developing stories this afternoon is a grovelling apology to his constituents from the new MP who is fifth favourite to become next Tory leader. Ex-army officer, diplomat, old Etonian and alum of Balliol College Oxford, Rory Stewart has had one write-up after another since winning the Penrith and Borders seat at the election. Unfortunately in one of the latest, an interview with the Scottish Sun, he’s gone a…

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Would Yvette have been better than any of them?

Would Yvette have been better than any of them?

Is this the leader that Labour should have chosen? Earlier in the month on BBC1’s “This Week” Ed Balls revealed that if his wife, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, Yvette Cooper, had wanted to run for the Labour leadership then he would have stood aside for her. So I wonder how the couple will feel when, later today, UNITE the biggest union with nearly a million potential voters in this leadership race, announces formally that Ed Miliband is being…

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Will Rousseff or Serra follow Lula in Brazil?

Will Rousseff or Serra follow Lula in Brazil?

Wikimedia Commons Me from Brazil looks at this autumn’s presidential election It’s been over a year since Dan Hamilton wrote an amazing article about the presidential election in Brazil. It has been a boring campaign until about a month ago, but considering that the Constitution does not allow any kind of campaign at this point, it’s understandable that things are a bit slow. Lula and his candidate, Dilma Rousseff, are now firmly favourite. Her alliance is broader than José Serra’s,…

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Would a deal with Balls be a Faustian pact?

Would a deal with Balls be a Faustian pact?

Does DaveM want to tie his hands on his shadow cabinet? Following yesterday’s overwhelming decision by the UNITE union’s national policy committee to endorse Ed Miliband for the leadership the focus has turned to Ed Balls and his continuation in the contest. Without the backing of the biggest union and the one he’s been most associated with it’s hard to see how he can clinch the prize at the end of September. Would a better course now be to pull…

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Punters unmoved as EdM looks set to win the big three

Punters unmoved as EdM looks set to win the big three

It’s 24-4-4 from UNITE’s political committee The younger Miliband brother has moved a step nearer to securing a big vote in the trade union section of Labour’s leadership election following the decision of the political committee of UNITE to recommend that he be given the endorsement. The final decision will be taken on Monday. He’s already got the GMB and UNISON in the bag. What’s remarkable is not just today’s outcome but the scale of the vote. It’s understood the…

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Is there still a lone rider tendency?

Is there still a lone rider tendency?

Is the government still not thinking like a coalition? Last week, the Lib Dem Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, proposed a Graduate Tax as an alternative means of funding higher education to tuition fees. This week, unattributed Tories briefed against it with the result that the proposal is now unlikely to prosper. Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of the tax, the process tells us a lot about how the government is working (or in…

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Could the Coalition fight as “The Coalition”

Could the Coalition fight as “The Coalition”

This Week after 10 minutes What do we think of Portillo’s prediction? In a lively discussion on BBC2’s “This Week” Michael Portillio made two very interesting predictions – first that EdM would be the next leader of the Labour party and second, that the two coalition parties would go into the next election campaigning under the banner of “The Coalition”. Unless the whole arrangement falls flat, which is always a possibility, we are talking about what could happen in 2015…

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The markets edge back to DaveM

The markets edge back to DaveM

Candidate Best bookie price Betfair Back – Lay David Miliband 8/13  1.6 – 1.67 Ed Miliband 15/8  2.9 – 3.1 Ed Balls 18  32 – 40 Andy Burnham 33  55 – 65 Diane Abbott 50  95 – 110 Are we seeing the Andree Neil effect? After a week where Labour’s leadership betting has been driven by the number of union endorsements going to Ed Miliband and the Left Foot Forward projection the move to the younger M has stalled. At…

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