Welcome to the Sunday outing for our Daily View. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a moving, talking, full colour Hugo Chavez.

2 Big Stories

Gordon Brown – too popular for Labour’s own good
Yes, you read that right. In amongst all the speculation and rumour, the one substantive piece of news is the YouGov poll for Channel 4 of Labour Party members. Although the reporting has hyped up how unpopular Gordon Brown is with party members, the real problem for Labour is actually how much popularity he still retains:

Gordon Brown should step down immediately 21%
Gordon Brown should stay for the time being but step down before the general election 26%
Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next general election 46%

So 46% want him to stay and fight the next general election, and 47% want him to go before the next general election. It’d have been better for Labour if Brown was less popular with members, as that might have given the dithering rebels the prod to dither less and rebel more. But with that split, it’s just a recipe for more dithering.

D-Day anniversay
The other big story in the news is the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings. It’s already been covered extensively elsewhere, so here instead is Vera Lynn singing at the 50th anniversary:

The Royal British Legion continues to do a fantastic job helping veterans. You can donate to their D-Day appeal here.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

Himmelgarten Cafe on the local election results

Three measures have been used by the pundits to judge the parties: seats gained or lost, estimated national percentage of the vote and total seats won. What, if anything, do they really tell us?

Find out here.

Peter Black on Peter Hain
So much for a game-changing reshuffle that would put the MPs and money problems behind him. Gordon Brown instead brought back Peter Hain, he of the deputy leadership campaign that failed to declare £100,000 in donations. Not so much a break with the past as more of the same. LibDem Welsh Assembly Member Peter Black ain’t too impressed either.

Sunday Bonus

While you’re waiting for the European election counts to kick in, here’s some of Hugo Chavez’s political rhetoric to enjoy. Sadly, YouTube doesn’t allow 8 hour uploads, so rather than getting that titan of a speech, you’ll have to settle for these few minutes on another occassion on the subject of George W Bush: