Danny

Definitely, but Clinton doesn't look like she's going to be giving an economically populist message, and tbh, even if she did, it would be undermined by Republican attacks that she was elitist and too rich and aloof from those poor people to understand what they're going through anyway. Admittedly that would also be a problem for Elizabeth Warren too, I'm not sure her over-academic way of presenting things would go down too well in those types of places. John Edwards would've been what the Democrats needed had he not self-destructed.

Women ok, but I doubt she's going to get young people out in anywhere near the same numbers. For groups that don't care about politics, you simply need to have something strong and distinctive to say to even get them to bother going out to vote. I'm a bit confused by what you said about "who she'd add to the Obama coalition", because I genuinely can't see why anyone who didn't vote for Obama would vote for Hillary.

She just doesn't really stand for anything at all, and isn't likely to excite or inspire people to anywhere near the extent Obama did.

The "Obama coalition" relied on Obama -- Clinton isn't going to get anywhere near the turnout of black people that Obama got, for one. And even though another Democrat has potential to do better with the white working-class than Obama does, Clinton with her bland, pro-rich centrism is not really likely to do that.

Who do you think can beat her to the nomination? I hoped Elizabeth Warren would run, but apparently she's not going to. I agree that she's unlikely to win the election itself though.

Exactly. I love the irony of them screaming about benefit-claimants getting things supposedly without having "earned" it, yet are happy for rich people to get handed these things on a plate and be excused from actually having to work for a living.

What minds is it going to change? The Tories already have wholesale command over the whole of the wealthiest 20% or so, except for the diehard Guardianish lefties who don't mind paying higher taxes anyway.

She's hilarious. 0YxhIq6t6Fk

Tuesday's. (I hadn't realised there'd been another last night)

Still no swingback at all for Labour in Scotland -- SNP have 49% to Labour's 25% in new poll. Jim Murphy bombed in the Scottish debate, rating 3rd with 13% behind Sturgeon on 56% and the Tories' Ruth Davison on 14%.

One drawback though is, a Newsnight vox pop last night found only one person who knew what a "non-dom" was.

Labour have leads of 3%, 4% and 6% in today's polls.

Whiff of panic starting to come from the Tories with their desperate attack on Ed "stabbing his brother in the back". I don't really think these types of personal attacks work -- even though people themselves think/say all the things about Ed being disloyal and weird and out-of-his-depth, they (hypocritically) judge politicians when they stoop to their standards. All the "focus groups" after the Jeremy Paxman interviews showed people got annoyed when the questions got too personal.

Is there even a 0.05% chance of my "Labour winning North East Fife" bet coming good? *sob*

Just watched yesterday's Scottish debate: http://player.stv.tv/programmes/scotland-debates/ I knew Jim Murphy wasn't in Sturgeon's league, but he was outclassed even by the Scottish Tory leader. I still think Labour could pull back some ground against the SNP in this election as some people give into the scaremongering about how they risk letting the Tories back in, but God help them in next year's Scottish Parliament election.

Labour 2% ahead in two polls today. Within the margin of error, but any Labour leads at all should not be in the script this late in the game if the Tories were to get close to a majority...

Hilariously, the last time there was polling on it, Blair rated lower than both Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. Unfortunately Blair himself doesn't have the self-awareness to just shut up.

Stella Creasy really would be the death of the Labour party. She would alienate anyone who wasn't one of the more hardcore-Guardianish supporters. There's just no market for any party which makes feminism its main raison d'etre over economic issues.

What consequences? I really doubt most Labour people are going to be swayed by some rich businessmen feigning concern about the "national interest", when they really mean their own pockets. I think if this EU referendum happens turnout will be below 50% tbh. I'm just really not sure the public cares about it as much as politicians think they do.

Do most Labour people (not in the London chatterati set) even really give a shit whether we stay in the EU or not?

A lot of Labour people openly admitted it! I can't see why else they would've joined a campaign whose tactics and arguments were straight out of the classic right-wing playbook: "Big businesses and the markets don't want it, therefore because they're so powerful we must unquestioningly obey them", "there's just so many uncertainties, it's so much easier just to not rock the boat and stick with what we've got now".

Yup, Scotland was one of the main reasons for the supposed bias in the electoral system towards Labour: they always swept the board there on a pretty modest share of the vote (in 1997 it was actually one of their worst "regions" for vote share), because of the 4-way split. The irony is that if Scotland had gone independent, there'd be more chance of a Labour majority now. Which tbh is karma for so many Labour people allying themselves with a right-wing campaign for purely selfish interests.

Farage struggling a bit in his South Thanet seat: Conservatives 31% UKIP 30% Labour 29% (ComRes)

I didn't work out the exact number of gains I'd expect them to make from each one, but generally I think Labour will make very few gains from the Tories. Quite possibly the Tories might snatch one or two Labour seats themselves.

You've given up on Jim Murphy and his charisma, huh? :P ** Conservatives 312 Labour 262 SNP 26 Lib Dems 24 UKIP 4 Others 22 Tory minority which (hopefully) is literally unable to get any cuts through Parliament.