Tag Archives: stephan shakespeare

Stephan Shakespeare: “It is becoming harder for any party to win an outright majority”

There’s a terrific post in today’s Times by YouGov chief executive Stephan Shakespeare assessing 10 things you need to know about the electoral scene. What makes it fascinating is his summary of quite why 2015 is, in so many ways, hard to read.

For instance, Labour has a small lead in the polls for an opposition party 18 months out from the election – but a small lead may be enough given the current boundaries.

But, set against that, is the fact that voters don’t regard Ed Miliband as prime ministerial and think a Labour victory would make for a …

Posted in News | Also tagged | 41 Comments

Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads

It’s Saturday evening, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from all those I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

What will make banks care about their customers? – Diana Coyle says don’t increase banking regulation, instead open up the oligopolistic banking industry to true competition: ‘more competitive banking systems are more stable – the banks tend to be smaller so the “too big to fail” problem is less acute, and smaller banks …

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment

Two more Lib Dems quit PoliticsHome panel

I blogged at the weekend about the resignations of three Lib Dem MPs – Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Lynne Featherstone – from the PoliticsHome ‘insiders’ panel’, the PH100, in protest at the acquisition by Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft of a majority stake in the site.

Today I’ve hear from an impecable source that another Lib Dem MP – not previously publicly listed as a member of the PH100 – has also quit: Chris Huhne. The only other Lib Dem MP publicly listed as a PH100 member is David Laws, and I’ve not yet heard if he’s resigned.

The second Lib Dem to resign from the panel is, erm, me.

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , and | 4 Comments

Clegg and Cable resign from PoliticsHome panel in protest at Ashcroft takeover

A minor media spat broke out this week, following the announcement that Lord (Michael) Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman who bankrolls the party’s target seats while refusing to say if he pays tax in this country, has bought a majority stake in the political news and commentary aggregator site, PoliticsHome.

This triggered the resignation of the site’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, who issued a public statement arguing that:

It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
Advert



Recent Comments

  • Tristan Ward
    @John Grout What is "QT" please?...
  • Geoffrey Payne
    It does seem like we rely a lot on our relationship with China, and that may well increase when Trump gets stuck in with his trade wars that he is promising. B...
  • Geoffrey Payne
    I do not want to comment on the general point of the article, but I do want to comment on the concern that there is a low turnout for the internal elections. P...
  • Mary Fulton
    A similar discussion is happening in Scotland about having a stand alone offence rather than using the current ‘assault’ charge. Current Scottish law allows...
  • David Allen
    I'm always impressed by how many people "know" different truths about complex conflict situations like Syria. For example, that HTS are backed by the West, or,...