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Month: August 2010

How does Miliband handle the memoirists?

How does Miliband handle the memoirists?

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Amazon.co.uk Widgets How difficult will their revelations make it for him? History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as autobiography. Or something like that. It seems almost obligatory now for retired cabinet ministers to set down their version of the time in office, their influence on events and their view of – amongst other things – their colleagues. The number of these memoirs being written always starts to increase when any party’s been in power for a…

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What’ll Farage tell next week’s conference?

What’ll Farage tell next week’s conference?

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Is he’s going to run to get his old job back? So far there’s been very little activity on the next UKIP leader market and only Ladbrokes have deemed it important enough to quote prices and lay bets. At the moment everybody’s waiting to see if ex-leader, Nigel Farage, will enter the fray in the fight to head the party that came second in the 2009 Euro election. Farage, as will be recalled, stood down in order to devote himsellf…

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Will increasing media coverage help the outsiders?

Will increasing media coverage help the outsiders?

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How many will actually use 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices? In just 29 days time the results of Labour’s leadership contest will be announced after a prolonged battle that has only this week started to attract serious attention from the mainstream media. This lack of attention has probably helped David Miliband because what polling there has been is likely to have been affected by the name recognition factor – and the former foreign secretary is much more widely known than…

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WANTED: Someone to put the NO case

WANTED: Someone to put the NO case

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OpenDemocracy Could you write a PB guest slot? At the start of September I’m going to be out of the country for a few days and I’m setting up some guest slots in advance. Rod Crosby has been commissioned to write a “The case for voting YES” in the AV referendum and I’m looking for someone to present the NO argument. Dont’ write anything yet but if you’d like to have a bash email me first here. I’ll need it…

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What will the Milibands do about Gordon?

What will the Milibands do about Gordon?

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Should they back him for International Development Secretary? According to Guido Gordon Brown is taking soundings about making a return to the Labour front bench as Shadow International Development Secretary. When Labour is in opposition the members of the shadow cabinet are not decided by the leader but by the parliamentary which votes on the 19 places. The plan is for this to take place once the new leader is in place. If Gordon is serious about this, and we’ve…

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Is Labour getting it wrong on the Lib Dems?

Is Labour getting it wrong on the Lib Dems?

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Guardian Should the red team look at its own recent history? One of the most provocative political columns this morning is John Harris’s look at Labour’s view of the Lib Dems by in the Guardian. He concludes:”… Miserable poll ratings may serve to bind the Lib Dems in, for fear of another election and a real calamity. And one other thing: never forget their deep, burning and often understandable hatred of the Blair and Brown governments – which, given the…

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How will the coalition deal with Harriet’s landmine?

How will the coalition deal with Harriet’s landmine?

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Is her equalities measure going to make it harder to govern? If you’ve got five minutes then listen to Treasury minister Mark Hoban on the Today programme this morning as he was pressed on whether the Treasury had conducted a formal study assessing the impact of the cuts on ethnic minorities ahead of June’s budget. For one of the final bits of legislation enacted by the outgoing Labour government was a requirement in Harriet Harman’s Equalities Act to “to consider…

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