In discussing the football at the tail end of the Politics Show today, LibDem Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael pointed out that pundits said that Ross County couldn't win yesterday so we shouldn't dismiss the Liberal Democrats. The irony, it seems, was lost on him. I wonder if it was lost on their candidate in Aberdeen South: Neither the Tories or the Nationalis...

It is going to take awhile for people to understand what this means, and by that I am talking about the broad ramifications. Moving away from the Two War Strategy changes everything when taking a strategic view... EVERYTHING. Most importantly for the Navy, what it does it gives a real opportunity for strategic planners to shape decisions around economy, and I am not talking about budget. It is no ...

Here's a few stats which show what a difference good local campaigns make, as well as the task facing Ken in defeating Boris in the London Mayoral elections in 2012. I've looked at five London constituencies which Ken lost in 2008, and which were close fights in the General Election in 2010 Labour and the Tories.

Some interesting changes on Labour's website www.labour.org.uk. The Party has re-thought the way it campaigns online to take account of the latest and most imaginative methods. Instead of a top down approach Labour is opening the site up to user generated content and making it a resource to build campaigns on rather than a top down one way flow of information. I'm impressed.

After the London conference, it is clear that “talking to the Taliban” will become part of the strategy in Afghanistan. But the conference left a number of important questions about what this means in practice unanswered. Talking to the Taliban is not a new idea. Even though he expelled a British and Irish diplomat for holding secret talks with Taliban in December 2007, President Karza...

Westminster Conservatives are spending a staggering £186,000 a year on a 6-person 'Campaigns Team', while at the same time they say that they do not have enough money to afford £4,100 a year to give 50 partially sighted people free access to the RNIB Talking Book. The 50 partially sighted residents had their free access to the RNIB Talking Book axed as part of the Council&rsq...

Introduction For many young people work provides as many challenges as it does benefits. Low pay, dangerous jobs, harassment, and bullying can make working a nightmare. As such UNISON campaigns to: - Organise to win improved working conditions and pay, - Campaigns for better rights, and -...

A new pamphlet was released this week about why Labour lost the support of people in Southern England, and what it needs to do to win them back. The 2010 remix has pages and pages about how immigration and welfare reform lost Labour support, the inevitable opinion polls designed to prove that the public agree with the authors, and concludes with eight "key messages".

In a recent post Glyn Davies has outlined his political strategy for tackling the celeb hunter extraordinaire Lembit Opik. I think the strategy Glyn highlights is defiantly his best option. People are tired of seeing Lembit on the cover of OK Magazine and not on the cover of their local paper talking about the issues that affect them. Clearly being the star of being the star of QT is less importan...

For a variety of reasons, not least the one focused on here by Christopher Hitchens [HT DSTFW], I would prefer Obama to win the US election. However, is his campaign in trouble? The Sunday Telegraph had some comments from a senior Democratic strategist who has been involved in previous campaigns. First, there’s his failure to listen to