"Labour depends on the votes of Welfare Britain"

Daily Mail: "Labour has been accused of relying on the 'welfare vote' after the Conservatives published a provocative league table ranking Commons seats according to the number of benefit claimants.

A total of 189 constituencies in the first 200 are represented by Labour MPs, which the Tories claim explains why Ministers are failing to tackle the spiralling welfare bill.

Gordon Brown and 12 Cabinet colleagues represent seats in the top 200, while just four have a Tory MP. "

Obama must declare the War on Terror over

It's been a while. How you guys doing ?

John Steele in the Guardian:

"While his instincts are cautious and pragmaticc, he has not repudiated the war on terror. Rather, he insists that by focusing excessively on Iraq, the Bush administration "took its eye off the ball". The real target must be Afghanistan and if Osama bin Laden is spotted in Pakistan, bombing must be used there too.

This is a cul-de-sac. If the most important single thing that Obama should do quickly is to announce the immediate closure of Guantánamo Bay, the corollary has to be a declaration that the war on terror is over. Accept that terrorism is a technique. It is not an ideology. The west faces no global enemy, no worldwide Islamofascist conspiracy. Foreign crises should be treated on a case-by-case basis. Their roots lie in the complex interplay of local tensions, social grievances, economic inequalities, unemployment, food and water shortages and cultural prejudice that plagues so many countries."

And various actions and atrocities inflicted or supported by instigators and proponents of the 'War on Terror' -j.

Gordon Brown: 'election is off'

It's good news and it's bad news isn't it ? Bad because it deprives people of the opportunity to get rid of this government asap, good because it shows Brown is not confident.

"A "remarkably calm, but not sunny" Prime Minister [...] admitted he had considered calling a snap election, and denied recent poor polls were behind his decision to stall." (Telegraph)

That Gordon Brown has deep-sixed any November election, when he and advisers around him were clearly strongly toying with/preparing for/talking up amongst themselves and letting the public believe the idea can only suggest the truth:

That some of the recent polls for the Labour party were just simply not stable, and that some of those polls which appear to put Labour ahead were perhaps as much about laying the groundwork for a possible November election rather than an accurate representation of what's what. I was very suprised when I started seeing these polls appear as they didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Other polls of course, have not been so glowing in showing a clear victory for Labour, including the latest News of the World poll.

My big hope was, out of a combination of folly, misjudgement and hubris, as well various crackpot supporters egging him on, Brown would madly hold a November election and just loose or you would get a hung Parliament.

But Brown has clearly seen this coming, he tested the waters enthusiastically apparently in this party conference season with various announcements but has ultimately seen the writing on the wall. Of course all of this has made Brown look ridiculous:

"But the prime minister insists it was not the melting away of Labour's strong poll lead that led him to decide there would be no ballot. He told the BBC's Andrew Marr that he thought he would win an election but wanted to show how he would change the country, rather than being judged on how he had dealt with a series of events that have taken place since he moved into Number 10."(BBC)

Surely the BBC don't actually believe that ?

Don't forget various supporters urging Brown on in the past to call a snap election included people like Ken Livingstone.