If there’s a hung parliament after Thursday’s election, whatever the position in terms of votes cast and seats won, Gordon Brown constitutionally remains prime minister until and unless someone else can demonstrate beyond doubt...
Two items of required reading before Thursday’s election: In the London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 8 · 22 April 2010, Jonathan Raban analyses David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ philosophy which apparently steers many...
The LibDems are noisily declaring that if Labour wins fewer votes nationally than the Tories (and perhaps also than the LibDems) but emerges as the biggest single party in the House of Commons, Labour...
Three days ago I spelled out in detail the implications as I see them of the constitution and the new rules promulgated by the Cabinet Secretary for the rights and duties of an incumbent...
The novelist, poet, playwright and Nottinghamian Alan Sillitoe died, age 82, in the early hours of yesterday morning. I am a second cousin of his wife, now widow, the poet Ruth Fainlight, and my...
Much of the current speculation about what the LibDems will do if the election on 6 May returns a hung parliament is based on a misunderstanding of how the system now works. There’s particular...
The inimitable Guido Fawkes, in a post-Clegg blog post today, describes an election result scenario in which Labour, despite having won a smaller percentage of the national vote than either the Tories or the...
According to a report in the Guardian of 16 April, ‘Gordon Brown apologised for any disruption caused by the eruption [of the Icelandic volcano] but said, “safety is the first and predominant consideration.”‘ A...
Instant reaction department: This was a debate between three rival party leaders, not a triathlon. The media insistence that there has to be a “winner” is fundamentally fatuous. It’s not the Grand National...
This will be an old-fashioned, Old Labour tribal attack on the Conservative Party. (Hell, it’s election time.) If you can’t bear political tribalism, you don’t need to read any further. You may feel happier...