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And so the election goes down to the wire. A shaky start for Labour; then two very good weeks; and now a late push by the Tories takes us to the photo finish. The Tories look better for winning the most seats; but Labour seems to have a better shot at forming a government. It… Continue reading Five dangers for Labour as the finish line approaches

So last night, what looked like being a footnote to the Lutfur Rahman story – a rally in defence of the troubled ex-mayor who now faces paying up to £1m in costs – took place in the long-suffering borough of Tower Hamlets. But it seems to have been something more than a footnote. Amazingly, it seems like defending the… Continue reading “Unite is proud to associate itself with Lutfur Rahman”

It is surely hard for any Labour member – okay, Ken Livingstone excepted – to shed a tear for former Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman. The man who was yesterday unceremoniously turfed out of office, after anunequivocal judgement against him in an electoral court, has become the subject of arguably the worst scandal in local… Continue reading Lutfur Rahman: now let’s see Labour’s ways of working change

Happily, Labour has had a very good fortnight. Since my last election piece two weeks ago, Miliband’s personal ratings have jumped up and the Tory campaign has blundered from unforced error to unforced error. Bookies and polls now put him as neck and neck with Cameron as next PM, not lagging way behind as before.… Continue reading Reaching out to centrist voters now is good tactics. Strategy it ain’t

For regular readers, you will probably understand why the guilty finding today of an election court on the Mayor of Tower Hamlets is such good news (his office did, after all, report me to the police, one presumes in the hope of having me charged and arrested – I can now leave readers to draw… Continue reading Lutfur Rahman. Yessss.

As I wrote my last piece a week ago, things were looking pretty rocky for Labour. But, as if to give me a bit of come-uppance, we immediately proceeded to have a very good week. First there was a poll which, in the wake of the TV debates, saw Miliband’s personal polling jump from -49%… Continue reading Tory fumbles put Labour back in the race

Carter USM’s 1992 album – at least one good thing that happened that year. The short campaign has finally kicked off. Not that that usually makes much difference, and particularly not when we have all known the date of the election for the last four years. Perhaps fittingly, no party’s campaign has so far exactly… Continue reading Labour: on the verge of a historic victory, or partying like it’s 1992?

Union money: “the cleanest in politics”, as some Labourites are fond of describing it, a little misty-eyed. To be fair, sometimes it is. There are decent unions who donate money because they actually want a Labour government. On the other hand, the cliché is that business donations always come with strings attached. Let’s decide which… Continue reading Horse-trading in Halifax

Last weekend, an interesting news item came up in the Sunday Times (£): the comeback as parliamentary candidate of one Karie Murphy, office manager for Tom Watson MP (and “friend”, or possibly former friend) to Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, Britain’s largest union (see Centre Lefts passim). You may remember that Murphy was suspended from… Continue reading Falkirk, the sequel: Halifax

There is a rule in electoral pact-making, and pretty much any card game, which is fairly universal: don’t show your hand to the other players. That is, don’t rule anything in and don’t rule it out. You have nothing to gain (you can fritter away your negotiation leverage when agreeing the pact) and everything to… Continue reading Six reasons why Labour should rule out an SNP deal