Category: Politics
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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: 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…
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General election 2015: where is the foreign policy?
UKIP defections, Labour surge, leaked memos, non-doms, nuclear bombs, paid volunteering, police numbers, fiscal autonomy, fruit pickers and Joey Essex (again) – this week the election campaign has had it all. But perhaps the most significant intervention this week came on Tuesday when Tony Blair, the three-time election winning Labour leader still very much reviled…
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General election 2015: a case of déjà vu?
Politics is a fickle business. Labour started the week under fire for selling a mug that declared its support for controlling immigration, only for Ed Miliband to see his personal poll numbers improve for the first time in months. The Conservatives, for their part, seemed at the beginning of the week to be on the back foot, with commentators’ pronouncements…
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General election 2015: the most unpredictable in history?
On Thursday, 7 May the people of Britain go to the polls in what promises to be one of the most exhilarating and tense elections in recent memory. With 41 days to go, over the next few weeks we will chart the highs and lows, the pitfalls, the gaffes and goings-on during the campaign. From…