Chester City are no more: the first club I can recall to be actually liquidated, rather than being fashionably put into receivership. They did, however, seem to have fallen into dubious company: In November 2007, the fans were asked to...

With the question of how well Lord Ashcroft’s marginal seats campaign for the Conservatives really is doing back in the news, now seems a good time to remind people of this which I wrote in 2007: How good is Ashcroft? Well, here’s his own account of his record supporting target seats at the 2005 general election: The national

In a striking move, John Major will tonight accuse Gordon Brown of “using the Armed Forces as a Party Political prop.” This isn’t the first time that Major has been critical of Brown. He was one of the people who, rightly, criticised Brown’s trip to Iraq during the Tory conference in 2007 and just last month he wrote an article in the Mail on Sunday that accused Labour of m...

There was only one council by-election last night: Chatteris, The Mills Ward, Fenland DC. Con hold. Con 301 (45.9%, -11.2), LD 264 (40.2%, -2.7), UKIP 58 (8.8%, +8.8), Lab 33 (5%, +5). Swing of 4.3% from Con to LD since 2007.

WHEN the SNP acquired the reins of power in 2007, it had one key central purpose. By providing people with three years of effective, popular government, it would succeed in co

When you watch David Cameron speak without notes you wonder why they ever let him speak with a text. You can tell when Cameron is on form as he stops and sets himself before he delivers the bit that he hopes will be clipped for the news and he was back to doing that today. To be sure, the speech was not as good as the 2007 conference one. But it did the job which was to frame the election as a cho...

George Osborne saved the 2007 Tory conference with a tax cut. He’s recalling that mood today, elaborating on the plans to cut corporation tax which – as James detailed a while ago – will be the backbone of his first budget. Now, you may think: we know all this. Osborne has said he’d cut corporation tax from 28p to 25p and cutting the small companies rate to 20p. He had prom...

Tory spring forum gives David Cameron a chance to regain the momentum. The media will be there in numbers and I suspect that the rumours of an early election mean that it will get more attention than it otherwise would have done. Cameron’s speech is a real chance to show what the Tories are going to fight the election on. The speech isn’t as important as the one he gave at the 2007 con...

Last night's results - net gain of 2 seats for Labour overall with contrasting results in neighbouring bits of Nottinghamshire: Owlsmoor Ward, Bracknell Forest DC. Con hold. Con 508 (54.2%, -1.8), LD 238 (25.4%, +25.4), Lab 126 (13.4%, +13.4), Green 66 (7%, +7). Swing of 13.6% from Con to LD since 2007. Eastwood South Ward, Broxtowe BC. LD gain from Lab. LD 985 (53.1%, +34) Lab 484 (26.1%, -12) Co...

ON COMING to power in 2007, the first SNP government had a clear central purpose. On St Andrew's Day, 2010, it would crown its time in office by giving the Scottish publi