So Jon Huntsman is dropping out of the US Presidential race today. Apparently a battle with Rick Perry for fifth in South Carolina didn’t appeal. Even though he looked like the best bet to beat Obama, Huntsman was never likely to win the Republican nomination. When many Republicans were desperately searching for a more conservative
Ed Miliband’s poll ratings are going from bad to disastrous at the moment. Last week his YouGov approval rating dropped to its worst ever, with just 20 per cent of respondents saying he’s doing a good job, and 66 per cent saying he’s doing a bad one. And today they slip even further. Again 20
Even as Ed Balls embraces the need for austerity today, he takes a very different position to the coalition on why it’s necessary. The government has always blamed the need for cuts on the ‘awful economic inheritance’ bequeathed it by Labour. Balls, on the other hand, puts the blame squarely at George Osborne’s door. In
‘I must be responsible and credible in what I say.’ No, it’s not Bart Simpson writing on the blackboard at the start of The Simpsons, although it may have been said with just as little enthusiasm. It’s Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning, explaining his decision to endorse George Osborne’s public sector pay
With Scottish independence very much the issue of the week, we thought you might enjoy this Spectator leader from 1979, arguing for a ‘No’ vote in that year’s referendum on Scottish devolution: To preserve the Union, 24 February 1979 ‘So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?’ ‘Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement
France is set to lose its AAA-rating with Standard & Poor’s later tonight, according to Reuters. We’ll have more on this soon.
Michael Gove’s giving a robust defence of his plans to make it quicker and easier for schools to sack bad teachers. ‘You wouldn’t tolerate an underperforming surgeon in an operating theatre, or an underperforming midwife at your child’s birth,’ he says in the Mail. ‘Why is it that we tolerate underperforming teachers in the classroom?’
This morning, the Education Secretary went on the Today programme to explain his plans to make it easier to sack teachers. Here’s the full transcript: James Naughtie: From the start of the next school year in England, head teachers will find it easier to remove teachers that are considered to be under-performers. The Education Secretary,
It gets worse for Ed Miliband in the polls today. After revealing last week that just 20 per cent of the public think he’s doing well as Labour leader, YouGov now find that only 17 per cent think he’d make the best Prime Minister. That’s his lowest score yet, and it compares to 41 per
Of course, Mitt Romney hasn’t secured the Republican nomination yet. But now that the bookies have him odds on at 1/9, it’s definitely worth thinking about how he’d shape up against Barack Obama. Does he have much of a chance? Well, yes, actually. The head-to-head polls so far point to a close fight between Obama and
Last night Mitt Romney became the first Republican, excluding sitting Presidents, to win both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary. And unlike in Iowa last week, his supporters didn’t have to wait until the next day to start celebrating. The exit polls were enough for Romney to be declared the winner within an
What would an independent Scotland’s public finances look like? ‘Good, actually,’ says the SNP as they present their ongoing case for independence. They like to claim that, discounting the rest of the UK, Scotland was in surplus for ‘four out of the last five years’ — it’s Westminster, not Holyrood, that can’t manage the public’s
Tonight’s New Hampshire primary is very unlikely to provide the sort of razor-thin margin we saw in Iowa last week. Mitt Romney looks assured of a comfortable win – Nate Silver’s poll-based model (above) gives him a 98 per cent chance of victory. If one of the others did somehow beat him, it’d be the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_evS-T-c35M I noted on Saturday that one of the main attacks the Democrats are employing against Mitt Romney revolves around his 14 years as head of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm which he co-founded. The argument is that Romney made a fortune as head of a company that was responsible for the closure
As James said yesterday, Mitt Romney is well on the way to becoming the Republican nominee. He is virtually certain to win New Hampshire on Tuesday – Nate Silver’s projections give him a 99 per cent chance of victory – and he’s odds on in South Carolina and Florida too, which would give him a
After being mostly absent in an embarrassing week, which culminates in today’s Sun headline of ‘Block Ed’ referring to the Labour leader’s Twitter gaffe yesterday, Ed Miliband has emerged with a self-assured interview in the Guardian. In parts, he is even boastful. Miliband declares himself ‘someone of real steel and grit’ and brags ‘I am
Looking at today’s report by the Commission on Assisted Dying, the first thing that jumps out is just how comprehensive it is. They reach the conclusion that assisted suicide should be legalised — and they’ve done so after hundreds of hours of consultation with various groups and experts, as well as sifting through the evidence
That Diane Abbott tweet that Pete mentioned earlier (‘White people love playing divide and rule’) has made her the centre of attention this morning. She may have deleted it, and claimed that it has been ‘taken out of context’, but still the Labour Party has deemed it necessary to give her a public telling off
Back in September, Rick Perry was the betting favourite to win both the Iowa caucus and the Republican nomination. Instead, he scored just 10 per cent of the vote last night, leaving him down in fifth place. This disappointing result may well be the final nail in the coffin of Perry’s campaign, and last night
Tonight, caucus-goers in Iowa will deliver their verdict on this year’s Republican candidates for President. Above are Nate Silver’s latest poll-based projections of the result, showing three candidates with a decent chance of victory: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Santorum, who has surged in Iowa over the past week following endorsements from influential
