Doesn't alter the fact that 15 years with no second term is anything but accountable.

In other news we have just been given official word that the reorganisation of CLPs due to boundarY changes, due in January, has been cancelled, as has reselection of candidates in affected constituencies. No word from the Tories or Lib Dems. Shiny Dave is talking of toughing it out and putting the changes before parliament anyway.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

Just spotted this bit in the Telegraph



So the PM is happy that his Chancellor is doing a good job and there is no need for a plan B but parliament might now spend a few weeks debating what to do with the economy!

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

The word now is that Cameron is going to try to push the boundary changes through the commons anyway :



. Can't see what he hopes to gain by doing that.

Although there are voices in Progress saying that Labour should proactively initiate its own boundary review aimed at rationalising constituency size without reducing the number of constituencies, that is surely a luxury we cannot afford.

I'd expect Labour to vote against any bill looking to push through the currently proposed boundary changes - not least because as Malcolm says, it means we can stop all the upheaval that local parties have been undergoing in order to prepare for the new boundaries, but also because it's plain that we want every advantage we can obtain to win in 2015 and start putting right the damage the coalition has wrought from day one.

Overall, the political situation as far as 2015 goes now seems to be shaping up as the scenario a colleague opined just after the election in 2010, that that general election was perhaps "a good one to lose".

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Buggering about with the boundaries is a waste of time anyway and does nothing about the problem of wasted votes in safe seats. All these Tory complaints of bias are just hot air. If they genuinely wanted fair votes, they'd support a proportional system - and since they fought tooth and nail to keep FPTP last year, it's hard to have any sympathy for them now. Suck it up, fuckers.

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Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

If I was Ed I think it would be good to re-look at the boundaries if elected in 2015, of course if elected they wouldn't be as skewered for example as the ones down here in Swansea are.

I presume it would just take three elections to get up to the full quota of elected Lords, with the appointees/hereditaries being phased out at the same rate. I'm all for a reformed Lords being elected differently to the Commons, but 15 year terms do seem an odd choice, and not really sure why the Lib Dems went for it in the first place.

Re the Commons, boundaries are reviewed from time to time anyway, so I assume Labour will have to look at this at some point, but they can probably safely kick it into the long grass until after the next election. They can safely oppose the review for now by saying that when they look at it, they will take account of geography as well as population (I hope so anyway).

YouGov:

Labour 44%
Tories. 34%
Lib Dems 8%
UKIP 8%
Green 2%
BNP 1%

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/hdcxtzwghq/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-results-210812.pdf

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

The Olympic feelgood factor didn't last then.

Reassuring to see the Lib Dems back in single figures. Hope they stay there forever.

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Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

I think we are seeing the Lib Dems' return to irrelevancy, which is, IMO, greatly overdue. Starting from about now, people will almost universally look back on the "Cleggmania" period of the 2010 General Election campaign and view it as a period of collective madness akin to the Princess Diana Grief Spasm of 1997. Clegg himself deserves an extremely slow death.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

the thing is though, it all felt well placed. He was meant to be this breath of fresh air, the new, good, honest party...



I hope the Greens grab all the lib dem seats going. If they take the position of the credible alternative party, then that's just brilliant.

I'd rather see them all turn red, if it's all the same to you.

The record of the Greens in Brighton and Hove is hardly stellar, and I can't see them offering much in the inevitable coalition.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

For what it's worth, Cleggmania never seemed well-placed to me.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

I think we need to move away from a two-party system. If there's nobody else around, then we will bounce from Labour to Conservatives forever. Where does the left wing protest vote go now if Ed Milliband becomes another Tony Blair?

I may not be very aware of the Greens' efforts locally, but Caroline Lucas has always seemed to be reasonable when speaking in parliament.

Why? You seem to be suggesting giving any bunch of nutters a go just for the sake of it.
Haven't the Lib Dems proved to you that, whatever their shortcomings, you are better off with a Labour government?

If the left don't like Ed Miliband then they get off their arses (unlike when Blair was elected leader) and work within the party to shape it in the way they want.

Trouble was, when they did that the voters didn't like it and we got Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.