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February 18th, 2012

A Moody outlook for the UK economy, Salmond calls Cameron’s bluff, and tensions in the Falklands: political blog round up for 11-17 February

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Blog Admin

February 18th, 2012

A Moody outlook for the UK economy, Salmond calls Cameron’s bluff, and tensions in the Falklands: political blog round up for 11-17 February

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Cheryl Brumley, Danielle Moran and Joel Suss round up the week in political blogging

The economy and economic policy

Moody’s warns of a downgrade for the UK’s credit rating and the Tory Diary believes this provides a reality check for Osborne, but Faisal Islam argues that the chancellor must feel vindicated. Left Foot Forward illustrates how two economists are beating credit ratings agencies at their own game.

ToUChstone looks at the UK government’s figures for record unemployment and Politicalbetting.com wonders who will get the blame for this dismal development.

The Coffee House toys with the idea of setting a minimum price for alcohol and also looks at the controversy this would inevitably cause. The Staggers, meanwhile, suggests the idea may work but the evidence is ambiguous.

Left Foot Forward charts the media outrage as the Government’s flagship workfare plans come under fresh scrutiny.

The Eurozone

Faisal Islam can see that goodwill between Greece and Europe is beginning to run dry and the Eurozone and democracy are becoming uncomfortable bedfellows, writes Jon snow.

Scotland

The Tory Diary calls for Cameron to play ‘bad cop’ with Scotland as the Staggers writes that his appeal for unionism left the Scottish cold. The Coffee House thinks that Salmond has succeeded in calling the Prime Minister’s bluff but that further devolution for Scotland could result in the creation of an English Parliament.

Health reform

The Green Benches predicts that 19 MPs will be out of office next election if Lansley’s NHS Bill becomes law, and Political Scrapbook reports that an e-petition in favour of dropping the health care bill has garnered 12,000 signatures in one day. The FT’s Westminster Blog looks at the ‘endless ping pong’ between the Lords and Commons over the bill.

The Parties

Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home lists ten things you really need to know about the group who run the Coalition, while The Staggers are convinced that the Tory-LibDem battle over universities is not over yet.

The Tories are now neck and neck with Labour in the polls, with the Liberal Democrats trailing far behind, according to UK Polling Report. Labour must develop a new class politics, writes Owen Jones at Labour List.

And finally…

Left Foot Forward thinks the defence of the Falklands is not exclusively a right-wing stance.

Liberal Democrat Voice muses over a clever attempt in Bristol to improve the local economy by launching its own currency.

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