Jonathan Jones

A YouGov poll for this morning's Sunday Times provides proof of mounting disgruntlement with the Labour leader. And not just among the public as a whole, but also among Labour supporters. Asked whether Ed Miliband is doing well or badly as leader, just 30 per cent say "well" (including a tiny 3 per cent who say "very well"), while 53 per cent say "badly" (including 21 percent "very badly"). The bad news for Ed is that the "well" figure has barely moved since just after he was elected, when almost half said they didn't know how well he was doing. Now an extra 31 per cent have formed an opinion of him, but without any net increase in the number thinking he's doing any good.

The Telegraph's publication of all those documents today has got everyone talking about that feud again. Here is what The Spectator's former editor Matthew d'Ancona had to say about the Blair-Brown wars when things were hotting up in the autumn of 2006: The great New Labour civil war, Matthew d'Ancona, 6 September 2006 Two days before David Cameron was elected Conservative leader, I asked one of his closest allies what the founding principle of Cameronism would be. He pondered the question. Would it, I wondered, be something to do with quality of life, the public services, the environment, social justice, nationhood? ‘Our starting point,’ he finally replied, ‘is that the Tory party can never beat Tony Blair.

Remember Herman Cain? The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza who scored a surprise win at the first Republican presidential primary debate earlier this month? Well, the latest Gallup poll is out today, and shows him on 8 per cent amongst potential primary voters: essentially tied for third behind Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. This is the first poll conducted since Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels all declared that they would not seek the nomination, and is also the first of Gallup's to include Cain's name. 8 per cent may not sound all that impressive, but it is when you consider that just 33 per cent of respondents know who he is. In other words, 24 per cent of those who've heard of Cain have him as their number one choice to be the nominee.

This evening, an event will occur that will make all the controversies and scandals of the last week seem somewhat irrelevant — at least according to American evangelical Harold Camping. He says that 6pm today is the time of the Rapture, as foretold in Thessalonians 4:17: all those "true believers" who accept Jesus Christ as their one true saviour will be taken up to heaven. For those of us left, we might wonder who will lead us through the "chaos and awful suffering" following both the loss of 40 per cent of the UK population and the earthquakes that will accompany it. Our Prime Minister — with his "sort of fairly classic Church of England faith" — would be gone.

As the country tightens its belts, some councils are taking the courageous decision to increase spending on certain essentials. The Labour councillors who run the London borough of Southwark have identified a deprived group in need of urgent help: themselves. The council is amending its constitution (Page 48) to create 8 new executive posts to be filled by its own councillors, each of whom will receive an additional £2,800 a year. This comes while they take the axe to lollipop ladies, street cleaning services and libraries. Incidentally, for the extra they're spending on these unprecedented "deputy cabinet members", they could save 6 of the 12 crossing patrols they're cutting.

While the Lib Dems lost control of Nick Clegg's city of Sheffield to Labour, losing 9 councillors, they won every seat up for election Chris Huhne's constituency of Eastleigh. They even took Labour's only council seat in the borough. It is worth remembering that the Lib Dems are waging very different types of battle in these two areas: against Labour in Sheffield and mainly the Tories in Eastleigh. Of all the Cabinet members, Huhne ran probably the most anti-Tory campaign in 2010, and many predicted a strong backlash against the Lib Dems in Eastleigh for going into coalition with them, perhaps with Labour supporters refusing to back them tactically over the Tories. On today's evidence, at least, this does not seem to be the case.

In light of ICM's latest poll, Lib Dems might be relieved to hear that tomorrow isn't all about the AV referendum. But it's a meagre sort of relief: they're facing a drubbing in the local elections too. We've put together a quick guide to those elections, as well as those in Scotland and Wales, so that CoffeeHousers know what to look out for, and Lib Dems know what to fear. Here it is: England The main question hovering over England's local elections is: how big will Labour's gains be? There are around 9,400 seats up for contention, of which the Conservatives currently hold about 5,000; Labour, 1,600; and the Lib Dems, 1,900.

The votes have been counted, and the results of the Canadian federal election are in. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives Stephen Harper's Conservatives performed much more strongly than many expected, securing their first majority since 1993 by 13 seats. The New Democratic Party's vote did indeed hold up: they took 31 per cent of the vote (almost exactly as the latest polls predicted), and won 102 seats, beating the Liberals by a wide margin to become the official opposition. The Liberals had their worst election result in their 144-year history, returning fewer than half the MPs they had going into the election. The Bloc Québécois had a disastrous night too, also suffering their worst-ever election.

Today Canadians go to the polls for their fourth general election in seven years, after Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government fell to an unprecedented motion citing it for contempt of Parliament. The story of the campaign has undoubtedly been the meteoric rise of Jack Layton's New Democratic Party. Until now, the centre-left NDP had been the third party nationally — and, in fact, fourth in number of seats, due to the regional strength of the Bloc Québécois. However, they have enjoyed a steady surge over the past three weeks, with the election-eve polls putting them on about 31 per cent — more than 10 points ahead of the previously second-placed Liberal Party, as the graph below shows.