The Poliblogs 3rd October 2007

Relax... Don't do it!

Despite the fact that there appears to be a bad dose of election fever running through the media, I'll stick my neck out and say I don't expect an election until next Spring at the earliest (that should be the cue for Gordon to arrive at Buck House sometime in the next 24 hours).Why would he want to do it? He has two and a half years left with a good majority and that is plenty of time to allow the Tories to keep tearing themselves to bits. Dave's veered to the left, lurched to the right and swerved towards the centre with all the subtlety of a one-legged slalom skier.

Bob Piper

The Bother with Boris

Poor Boris Johnson. He just can't seem to go a day without getting into trouble.

His speech on Sunday was well-received, yet on occasion he seemed unsure of his material - stumbling and mumbling when he referred to the possibility of an autumn election. One man not impressed was the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Listening in before addressing the conference via videolink, he was seen with a look of horror on his face, saying,"This guy is fumbling all over the place".

Boulton & Co.

Brown's old politics versus Cameron's next generation politics

Gordon Brown's old politics has been on show in the last 24 hours. He promised to tell Parliament about troop withdrawals but made his announcement in Iraq. He implied 1,000 more troops would be home by Christmas when only 250 extra troops would be returning from Iraq. He failed to take print journalists with him to his Basra photo opportunity - unwilling to expose himself to their scrutiny.

Conservative Home

Does this policy spell end of UKIP?

The Shadow Foreign Secretary has made what is possibly the most important ‘Europe’ announcement of any political party in the United Kingdom since accession to the EEC in 1973, and the ensuing referendum of 1975. William Hague said, quite clearly, and utterly unequivocally:

Cramner

How can the EU improve its image?

Iimage feel sorry for Margot Wallstrom, she has an impossible task - to make the EU popular with citizens in all its 27 member states. As the EU’s Communications Commissioner, she has just published an updated communications strategy to make the EU more appealing and easily understood. One of the proposals is to get both MEPs and member states to agree on communication priorities each year - until now Brussels’ approach to communication has been piecemeal and fragmented.

Ellee Seymour

I'm sure I'd be pissed off too if I were the Tories - Brown is taking the proverbial out of us all

I have some sympathy with the Conservatives today after Gordon Brown chose to announce troop withdrawals whilst in Iraq. This is, however you look at it, a clever political move by Gordon Brown. It is a policy that will appeal to almost everyone who isn't American, but also steals the news agenda away from the Conservatives right in the middle of their conference.

Norfolk Blogger

Support grows for fixed terms

I have already made clear my own view that it's high time we moved to a system of four-year fixed-term parliaments in this country, so I was interested to see that Mail political editor and top blogger Ben Brogan shares this view.

Paul Linford

Could Gord be making a terrible mistake?

All the thinking, apparently, has been based on opinion polls that have been taken in the most exceptional of circumstances. As many poll-watchers were saying in May and June it was not going to be possible to get a clear view of public opinion until after the inevitable new leader honeymoon and the party conference season had come to an end and several more weeks had elapsed. At the very least Gord needs to wait and to study in every detail all the post Blackpool surveys that, hopefully, should be coming out in the next few days.

Political Betting