The Compass-released poll showing that former Labour supporters want the party to lose and basically they hate Blair is interesting. Is this some sort of Scottish Kamikaze political strategy? The plan appears to be to scare Labour MPs into thinking they will lose their seats with Blair causing them to move to oust him. The only problem with this it seems to Guido is that Blair says he won’t fight the General Election as Labour’s leader. So why worry?
How the hell are the Brownites going to drag Blair out of Downing Street? They need to build up a lot more pressure before September and party conference.
Paxman went from sneer to snivel last night when conservative über-bitch Ann Coulter got the better of him. He started off with his usual aggressive attack question and she took it without flicking an eyelash. After a couple of minutes of left-field questions which bordered on a tirade, Paxman shot himself spectacularly in the foot.
She was promoting her latest book Godless: The Church of Liberalism which follows on from How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must). She may be loathed by the left but Guido thinks you will agree she looks a lot better on a book cover than our own Melanie Phillips, who is the nearest British equivalent to this ranting wing-nut of a woman. Ann is loved by the American conservative movement, our Mel is considered to be as mad as a hatter even by her allies. Her latest gently considered book Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within is not decorated with a picture of her in low cut tight leathers.
Guido thinks Mel may be missing a trick here and this is why her book is not top of the charts – can’t be any other reason can it? Mel, think about it...
Hat-Tip : Hugo Rifkind’s People Weblog
Borrowing figures out today show Gordon has overshot spending by £2 billion so far this year, the figures for last year have also been revised up and were another £2 billion worse at £39.2 billion for the whole of 2005-06, compared with Gordon’s Budget estimate of £37.1 billion. The City is very unimpressed.
Last week Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, warned that inflation was seeping back. The unemployment rate is now 5.3%, up over 1/2% on the year. The number of unemployed has increased by 199,000 this year, to reach 1.61 million, vacancies are down and redundancies are up. This all despite paying teenagers to go to school and bloating the public sector by half-a-million employees or so since 1997. Even the cheating revised Golden Rule looks in danger.
With Labour now at polling levels not seen since Michael Foot and him having to pretend to support England in the World Cup, the future looks increasingly bleak for Brown.
Caligula of course made his horse a senator, whereas Blair made Des Browne his Secretary of State for Defence.
*You may get a “Conspiracy Member” T-shirt.
