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A persuasive passage (complete with a spiky, ministerial quote – highlighted) from Rachel Sylvester’s column this morning: “There is growing concern among some Shadow Cabinet ministers and strategists about the increasingly aggressive tone Mr Cameron uses against Mr Brown. It is, they believe, no coincidence that the poll gap has narrowed as the Tory leader
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Yeah, I know: 4,500 words of Brown’s rhetoric is too much for most CoffeeHousers to bear. So I thought I’d read his “speech on crime and anti-social behaviour” on your behalf, and highlight three things which jumped out at me. Here goes: 1. Taking on the Tories over DNA retention. Paul Waugh has already blogged
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Forget the polls, the markets should be enough to give any of us a sharp dose of The Fear. Exhibit A: Sterling, which has slumped below $1.50 today, for the first time in nine months, and on the back of what analyists are calling “deficit worries”. And Exhibit B: the UK Gilt markets, where rising
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Lord Ashcroft has just released a statement admitting that he’s a non-dom, and suggesting that he’ll soon become a full UK taxpayer. Here’s the key passage: “My precise tax status therefore is that of a ‘non-dom’. Two of Labour’s biggest donors – Lord Paul (recently made a privy councillor by the Prime Minister) and Sir
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So, what did the newspapers make of Cameron’s Big Speech? A brisk stroll through this morning’s coverage, and you’ll come across the whole gamut of responses: from wholehearted enthusiasm in the Sun, to wholehearted scepticism in the Independent. But the general tone is somewhere in between: the mitigated praise of, say, the Times or the
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First the tragedy, then the farce: if there was something dark, perhaps shocking, about last weekend’s bullying allegations, then the latest Rawnsley revelations veer towards the hilarious. They’re centred around Brown’s efforts to oust Tony Blair, and the Guardian covers them here. I won’t pre-empt your enjoyment of them, except to highlight this passage from
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All of a sudden, the Big Banks are Big Politics again. And who’d have it any other way, on the day that the 84 percent taxpayer-owned RBS announced losses for 2009 of £3.6 billion? And that’s alongside a bonus pool for its staff of £1.3 billion. Yep – however hard they try, the exorcists of
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Two related points, worth repeating. The first from Ben Brogan: “Mr Brown is on surer ground on a narrow point, in that in all likelihood he did not explicitly order his Eighth Circle chums to unleash hell against Mr Darling. Then again, he didn’t need to. His reaction to the Chancellor’s Guardian interview will have
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Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1200: Alistair Darling is sat next to Brown. How cosy. 1201: And we’re off. Brown starts with condolences for fallens soldiers – sadly, seven names to read out. 1202: Labour MP Jamie Reed asks Brown for reassurances that the public will one day see the taxpayers’ cash that’s
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So what’s Alistair Darling up to? When I first heard his “forces of Hell” comment last night – his description of those briefing against him from inside No.10 – I half suspected it was all part of Downing Street’s grand plan. You know, trying to defuse the bullying story by being honest – up to
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Did I read it wrong, or did Brown really say this in his interview with the Economist? “[Our deficit-reduction plan] is probably the most ambitious of any of the G7 countries. It contains, obviously, public-spending economies, cuts in some departments, efficiency savings in others, but protection of the front-line services in health and education and
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Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, probably thought he was being helpful to Gordon Brown by describing Christine Pratt as: “this prat of a woman down in – where’s she from, Swindon?” But, erm, he wasn’t.
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You think you’ve seen everything, and then Dizzy goes and unearths this Taiwanese news report about Brown and the bullying allegations. The computer dramatisations, from the 35 second mark on, are simply jaw-dropping:
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Much confusion on the digital grapevine, last night, about YouGov’s latest daily tracker poll. Turns out, it doesn’t have the Tories leading by twelve – but, rather, the positions are unchanged from the poll in the Sunday Times. So that’s the Tories on 39 percent, Labour on 33, and the Lib Dems on 17. A
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Here I am, in a cavernous “space” in East London, for a conference on the Post-Bureaucratic Age – or “See-Through Government,” as Guido more evocatively put it. David Cameron has kicked things off with a speech on the issue, and there’ll be talks and panels throughout the day. It’s like Glastonbury for policy wonks. So
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The question tonight is: which piece of bad news will make the biggest impact? The bad news for the Tories, or the bad news for Labour? Let’s take the second one first. I’m referring, of course, to the first installment in Andrew Rawnsley’s revelations about Gordon Brown. ConHome have already published some snippets – click
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Move along, now – there’s nothing to see here. Or rather, reading Gordon Brown’s Big Speech, there’s nothing that you hadn’t already seen in the papers, or that you wouldn’t have expected to see anyway. The four election themes got a mention. Labour’s record in government was pushed and promoted to the point of absurdity.
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So now we know. Labour’s election slogan is A future fair for all. And – as various folk, including Alex, have pointed out – it’s kinda screwy. As in, “we’re all going to The Future Fair” kinda screwy. So don’t expect it to catch on. Unless, of course, there really are bright lights, big wheels
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Labour have certainly come out of the traps snarling and gnashing this morning. For one, they’re making the most of two letters in the FT, signed by 60 economists, which ostensibly support their position on the public finances. And then there’s Gordon Brown’s speech to European leaders, in which he implores them to tackle the
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Readers of the magazine will be familiar with Michael Heath’s series of ‘Flash Gordon’ cartoons, based on the life and sulks of our glorious Prime Minister. Well, now it’s got a successor – ‘Dave’ – which, naturally enough, focuses on the Tory leader and would-be PM, Mr Cameron. Here’s the first of them, from this
