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October 15th, 2011

Fox trots off, Ed gets the upper hand on the economy and Cameron faces a nightmare over the NHS: round up of political blogs for 8 – 14 October

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Blog Admin

October 15th, 2011

Fox trots off, Ed gets the upper hand on the economy and Cameron faces a nightmare over the NHS: round up of political blogs for 8 – 14 October

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Avery Hancock, Danielle Moran and Chris Gilson take a look at the week in political blogging.

Liam Fox

On Monday, politicalbetting.com wonders whether Liam Fox will be the first Cabinet Minister David Cameron loses as The Staggers notes that he still has more questions to answer over his relationship with Adam Werritty. Shamik Das at Left Foot Forward charts the potential for other Cabinet Ministers to get dragged into the scandal as well. Paul Goodman at thetorydiary looks at why Cameron wants to save Fox, but Daniel Elton at Left Foot Forward thinks that the PM may be ‘too weak’ to get rid of his defence secretary in any case.

By Friday, Fox had in fact resigned from office, and the FT’s Westminster Blog wonders if the conclusions of the investigation into his behaviour have already been drawnGuido lists possible contenders for a newly opened vacancy at the Ministry of Defence (earlier in the week Mark Thompson had nominated Paddy Ashdown over at Iain Dale’s blog) and UK Polling Report shows that 54 per cent of those polled believed that Fox was right to go.

The NHS

Following the passage of the NHS bill through the House of Lords, The Staggers warns that health service reform could become Cameron’s never-ending nightmareThe Coffee House tries to make sense of this unsightly debacle, as Andrew Lansley is savaged on Question Time by GP Phil Hammond.

The economy and the eurozone crisis

As unemployment is shown to have risen to a 17 year high, the TUC’s Touchstone Blog shows that the lowest paid workers are disproportionately represented in the numbers of those out of work. Richard Exell at Left Foot Forward argues that this is solely the government’s fault, while the Guardian’s Economics Blog provides a full round up of reaction to the news. Faisal Islam outlines just why this is one of the most challenging times to be a young worker in the UK and the JRF blog discusses the IFS’s latest poverty study.

Politicalbetting.com notices that Cameron is beginning to appear unsure of his economic plan, and the FT’s Westminster Blog notes that Ed Miliband’s performance at PMQs suggests that he may be getting the upper hand on the economy. Thetorydiary writes that time is running out for the Chancellor to pull some magic out of his sleeve as Stephanie Flanders documents the growing consensus that the government needs to be doing more to help.

Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK outlines why corporate abuse of tax havens matters.

The parties

Liberal Conspiracy notes that this government isn’t very good at the ‘nitty-gritty’ of governing, while Chris Bowers at Dale & Co looks at what the real role of the Liberal Democrats in government is – and wonders if they might be missing the point of their time in the coalition. Next Left argues that Labour should reach out to disaffected Lib Dems and form a coalition of the centre left.

For those who missed conference season Andrew Rawnsley provides a grim summary of the inept politicians on display. Labour Uncut believes Ed Miliband has outperformed  Cameron in picking the right cabinet team.

And finally…

The Migrants’ Rights Network Blog suggests reasons to be fearful following Cameron’s speech on immigration on Monday, while Laura Woodhouse at the F-word Blog urges readers not to shop an illegal immigrant.

The False Economy Blog says that the planned cuts to Legal Aid will cost more than they are supposed to save.

With the Leveson inquiry opening this week, Angry Mob reminds us why ethics and honesty in journalism matters.

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This work by British Politics and Policy at LSE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.