Category: General election 2015
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General election 2015: an electoral shock?
So that’s it. The election is over. The votes have been cast. The final results are in. And who would have thought it? Commentators – me included – widely expected that today we would be telling a different story. We thought that the debate would quickly move on from one about which party had won,…
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General election 2015: who and how many will vote?
After what seems like an eternity, the end of the election campaign is finally in sight. The last of the leaders’ debates – a special Question Time in which David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg sought to defend their records and sell their programmes – has taken place. The jostling for post-election ministerial positions,…
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General election 2015: Britain and the European Union – are there alternatives?
A couple of weeks ago, I bemoaned the lack of discussion about foreign policy in the general election campaign. On that occasion I wrote that none of the main parties had ‘dared to mention foreign policy at all’ and that the campaign lacked any sort of ‘discussion about Britain’s role in the world, the degree…
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General election 2015: manifestos – good politics or whistling in the wind?
Elections are strange affairs. For all the uncertainty inherent in a campaign the party machine is a highly structured operation. Coverage in the media, the political message adopted, the line of attack on the opposition, the visits undertaken by key party figures – all of these aspects are agonised over and planned meticulously well ahead…