Tom Harris was (AFAIK) the only minister who took the time and trouble to engage with us here. I didn't agree with much he said, and was particularly worried about the revolving door at the department. Now the 3 top ministers at DfT have all gone (!!) but I think we should thank him for engaging with us - and hopefully he'll be able to say more now. 

The BBC is reporting that Ruth Kelly has told the prime minister that she plans to step down from government at the next re-shuffle, which is expected in the next couple of weeks.

A ComRes poll in the Independent gives 39:27:21. We shouldn't read too much into a single poll (the Weighted Moving Average is 44:25:18) but it does suggest that opinion is more volatile than people think, and that the dreadful headlines might not have done as much harm with the electorate as we'd have thought.

Whatever our personal wishes, if we look objectively at the US Presidential Election we can see 3 possible outcomes:

1. Big win for Obama
2. Big win for McCain/Palin
3. A close-run thing.

M/P is now 3 points ahead of O in the polls (according to Zogby) and it's really unlikely that Palin will blow up (anything bad about her is already known in Alaska where she as 80%+ approval ratings) so it's between 2 and 3. For Obama to win he has to take Ohio (or all of New Mexico, Idaho and Colorado).

Now in Ohio McCain was already about 4 points up pre-Palin (according to Rasmussen). Whether you dislike/like Palin correlates strongly with whether you are Liberal/Conservative, Big City/Small Town, and University Graduate/High School.

Guess what: In Ohio  (20 EC votes) there are no cities over 1M, and only 6 over 100k, which between them account for just 19% of the inhabitants, and only 21% of the population over 25 are university graduates. And in Iowa (7 EC) it's the same portion of graduates but only 11% live in cities > 100k.

“If we don’t do something,” warns one senior Cabinet minister, “it could go Canadian.” He is referring to the Progressive Conservatives, the role model the world’s ruling parties are desperate to avoid. After a near-total defeat in 1993, they lost all but two of their seats in parliament, and were effectively dissolved in 2003.

What do people think (and who was the "senior Cabinet minister?") 

The excellent ukpollingreport.co.uk carries an item on a Harris poll for the FT that looks at attitudes to the US and to the Labour Party.  This suggests that 13% of the electorate have always voted Labour, and of these 21% won't vote Labour at the next election.

What do people make of this?

(the Poll asks essentially the same question as Harris does)

Some people on this site (eg Tom, Snowflake) are valliantly making the case for Labour. But will the electorate listen whilst Gordon is in charge? The Guardian quotes a former minister thus: "the electorate now thinks of Brown in the same way as a householder who sees an unwelcome visitor through the spyhole in the front door when the bell rings. At first, the householder just refuses to answer the door. But if the same visitor simply goes on ringing the same bell, the householder will go to any lengths to get rid of him."

This may (or may not) be unfair - but is it realistic?

At some point (weeks, months, years) Gordon will cease to be Labour Leader. What do people think his next job should be?  Is it likely, as some have suggested, that he will go into a Heath-like sulk?

Can anyone explain why Gordon has gone to Iraq and Israel?

There has been some discussion in the press and the blogosphere about Harriet Harman running for PM. What do people think?

It seems from PMQ that Gordon (or his team) reads conservativehome