Three Weeks to Save the Labour Party
It was an honour to write the Spectator politics column this week. You can find my thoughts on the collaspe of Labour morale here.
Liberal democrats
Friday
Tuesday
A Lib Dem future? Not so fast my friends!
Tom Harris doesn't much care for the Liberal Democrats: Having seen the damage done to the Labour Party through its association with the Liberals in the Scottish Parliament in previous years, there is, if anything, more hostility among MPs to the idea of power sharing than ever. On the other hand, if the Liberal Party want to sign up to the implementation of Labour’s manifesto in the aftermath of the election, fine. So long as they don’t expect either Labour or Tory MPs to agree to a change in the electoral system so that every possible outcome in future would result in the Liberals being in government.
Sunday
Here’s the Latest From Your Neo-Con Socialist
I was always shocked by the level of vitriol among New Statesman and Guardian readers when a writer stepped away from the comfort zone of received wisdom and cuddly "I'm a nice person too" leftie-ness. Suggest that perhaps Hamas is anything other than a resistance movement or that people who vote Conservative might be people too and the sky falls in. Where the stock term of self-righteous abuse used to be "fascist" - remember Rick from the Young Ones? - it is now "neo-con", which consigns the target to the same ideological hell as George W. Bush. Since I've started this new blog I have not been called a neo-con. Instead, the insult of choice is "socialist".
Friday
The Irresistible Rise of the Liberal Democrats
If there is one message Labour and Conservative politicians should take into the next election it is never to underestimate the Liberal Democrats. They always do better than you expect them to, especially in an electoral system where there is no rational reason to vote for them. There have now been two opinion polls this month putting them at 22 per cent, the level they reached at the last general election and a high-water mark in recent times. Could it be that the Liberal Democrats under Clegg and Cable can make a pitch to overtake Labour and become the real opposition to the resurgent Tories? Martin Kettle certainly thinks so in today's Guardian. He makes an interesting case.
Monday
Never Underestimate the Lib Dems
I know we are not supposed to take ComRes polls too seriously but there's one aspect of the Independent on Sunday poll at the weekend that I really rings true. It may not quite be the case that Lib Dem support is up by seven percentage points and Labour down by seven. But I am convinced that the Lib Dems are not being squeezed in quite the way we are led to believe. The perspective of the Westminster bubble is particularly cruel on Nick Clegg's merry band. Anyone who has seen the orangey-yellow machine in full flight in local or national elections will know it is a force to be reckoned with. Clegg himself may be unfortunate to have the most popular politician in Britain as his deputy.