Feltham & Heston by-election

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The battle will be for second place and the Libs will fall to atleast 4th.

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The battle will be for second place and the Libs will fall to atleast 4th.

Reckon you've swallowed too much UKIP hype if you think the Tories' 2nd place is in question.

Didn't say that, I just said that it'll be more in question than Labour coming first.

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Semi-related to the Ashcroft poll, but why is Ed Balls so toxic? I just don't get that whole narrative that's built up around him...

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The poll also says that 10% of Feltham-Heston Tories think Ed would make the best PM, so i'd take it with a grit bin full of salt.

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How far should we expect the EU flounce bounce to carry into Feltham-Heston?

A poor swing to Labour and Ed M'll be made up that his honourable friends'll be going home on Friday.

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Semi-related, but it seems many on the Labour side left PMQs today and went for a bitch to their friends at the papers and the leadership chatter has started again after a quiet few months on that front. MiliD's back "on manoeuvres" apparently, obviously Yvette's name's in there (canvassing? not canvassing? we obviously don't know), and er, Caroline Flint's name's being thrown around as a stalking horse candidate.

I'm unhappy with Ed as much as the next frustrated leftie, but I don't see him going...

(And Caroline Flint knifing Ed and winning in 2015 was a poor timeline idea I had a few months back, just sayin'.)

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I can't imagine anything less appealing than the prospect of a David Miliband-led Labour for frustrated lefties.

"Frustrated Labourites" then.

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9.33% swing from LD to LAB.
8.56% swing from Con to LAB.

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And we have a late entrant for the 'most deluded spinning of a poor election result' award for 2011:

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A traditional Labour seat that the Tories carried in 1992, oh. Funnily enough, that was the last time they won an overall majority. They gonna give up in all their 1992 seats?

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Just a quick one on the leadership issue, just been googling some stuff and Cooper'd need 52 signitures and a 2/3 majority of conference delegates to vote in favour of having an election for her to even get a whiff of power. So, Ed only goes if he jumps.

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Pretty funny to see Mary Macleod inadvertently call the coalition a "Conservative government".

"Inadvertently"? It's called the truth.

It's not.

It is.

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It's not a "Conservative goverment", it's a Coalition government....made up of two parties that have very similar policies.

Yeah, it's a "conservative government" not a "Conservative government".

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The thing that should worry the LibDems is Labour actually making itself a big tent centre-to-centre-left party which people actually want to vote for. Let's be honest, there's no appetite for Ed for PM at the moment.

Such a situation would also mean that the remnants of New Labour could be left out in the cold as the not-New-or-Old-Labour types realise they don't really need to win centrist-to-centre-right voters to win. Then again, an SNP surge or Scotland actually seceeding would torpedo this.

I would be shocked if there wasn't atleast one major attempt to get rid of Ed in 2012 (by who, I don't know, probably by Yvette), but then again, i'd actually be more shocked if he actually went. The rules to trigger a leadership ballot make it near impossible, unless he jumps himself.

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The thing that should worry the LibDems is Labour actually making itself a big tent centre-to-centre-left party which people actually want to vote for. Let's be honest, there's no appetite for Ed for PM at the moment.

Such a situation would also mean that the remnants of New Labour could be left out in the cold as the not-New-or-Old-Labour types realise they don't really need to win centrist-to-centre-right voters to win. Then again, an SNP surge or Scotland actually seceeding would torpedo this.

I would be shocked if there wasn't atleast one major attempt to get rid of Ed in 2012 (by who, I don't know, probably by Yvette), but then again, i'd actually be more shocked if he actually went. The rules to trigger a leadership ballot make it near impossible, unless he jumps himself.

I can't really see that a civil war over the leadership is going to do Labour any good.

My feeling is that Ed M's personal political positions are relatively attractive to left-leaning ex-LD voters, compared with those of most of the alternatives.  (Certainly they are to me.)  I'm not saying he's a perfect leader for Labour, because he obviously isn't, but it's not at all clear to me that a perfect leader for Labour actually exists.

Someone like Ed Miliband can't win in this age of "I Agree With Nick"-style image politics, that's obvious.

I read something the other day of one Labour MP telling a meeting of supporters that there's a difference between picking someone who makes you feel good about yourself (Ed's whole "New Labour is awful" rhetoric) and someone who can actually appeal to the wider public and win a general election.

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Someone like Ed Miliband can't win in this age of "I Agree With Nick"-style image politics, that's obvious.

I read something the other day of one Labour MP telling a meeting of supporters that there's a difference between picking someone who makes you feel good about yourself (Ed's whole "New Labour is awful" rhetoric) and someone who can actually appeal to the wider public and win a general election.

Again...

I can't really see that a civil war over the leadership is going to do Labour any good.

I think Labour need to try and work out how to win with Ed M, not undermine him and try to replace him with someone who might well not be any better.  I don't think he's actually that hopeless a case if the Government remains fairly unpopular, and realistically you're stuck with him anyway unless he falls on his sword.

(From the perspective of a potential -- but far from certain -- Labour voter.)

I think Ed can win if at the next election, all three leaders are loathed. One thing he has against him past Labour leaders have never had is that Liberal voters will never approve of him...