Ed Miliband leads his brother in a poll of LGBT members of the Labour Party for the Pink News website; of the 680 sample, Ed polls 42 per cent, David 31 per cent, Diane Abbott 16 per cent, Andy Burnham 7 per cent and Ed Balls 4 per cent.
The deputy leader of the Conservative group on Sandwell council has defected to Labour in protest at Michael Gove’s slashing of the Building Schools for the Future programme in her borough.
UKIP’s autumn conference kicked off today in Torquay. High on the agenda is the choice of a new leader, following Lord Pearson’s candid announcement two weeks ago that he was “not much good” for the job.
There are innumerable claims from the Coalition government and its supporters that the source of the public sector deficit is Labour’s over-spending. But one graph, on the Treasury’s own website, demonstrates that assertion is untrue.
Carbon emissions in the United Kingdom have increased since 1980, if “embedded” emissions are taken into account. Professor Robert Watson, the Government’s chief environmental scientist has called for more openness in the publishing of statistics, which can be misleading.
Once again NICE, the NHS rationing ‘quango’, has been in the news with its decision not to recommend the Roche manufactured drug Avastin for metastatic bowel cancer. The roots of the decision and the history between Roche and NICE go back a bit further though.
The online magazine Don’t Panic has just launched a short documentary on the EDL. Contrary to previous evidence, they reveal that the EDL are not a racist organisation. Chants like ‘Allah! Allah! Who the f**k is Allah?’ belie the fact their actual cause is sartorial freedom, specifically the right to wear Evisu jeans without being judged.
Every leadership election since voting was extended beyond MPs has turned into something of a procession. With the the excpetion of 2007 when Gordon Brown who took an uncontested coronation. Labour has never had such closely contested leadership election.
The main economic debate in the UK still centres on whether the economy is strong enough to stand the strain that will be placed on it by George Osborne’s fiscal consolidation plans.
Andy Coulson’s dark past has once again returned to haunt him. Following allegations earlier this year that Coulson encouraged phone-hacking during his time at the News of the World, David Cameron announced his belief that everyone should have a second chance.
