Labour is 'prepared to look at the issue in terms of national economic interest', and the Tory Party is 'split asunder' by the issue. Especially when the other party refuses to discuss the issue in public, so we don't know if it is divided or not. It cannot make politics into a technocratic question of applying the right tests at the right time, and simultaneously appeal to people. It takes real, political choices to appeal to people - choices that must be fought out in open public debate. Perhaps somebody should tell Gordon Brown that democracy can be more than a series of sums.
New Labour seems to think so.
Cabinet ministers have 'expressed delight' at the 'huge surge in applications for postal votes in marginal Labour seats'. In Kettering, which Labour won by just 189 votes in 1997, the number of applications for postal votes rose from 800 in 1997 to 2000 today. Voting by post wasn't always popular. But thanks to the Representation of the People Act 2000, now anybody can vote by post - from the terminally ill to those who just can't be bothered to spend half an hour traipsing down to their local town hall. New Labour has pulled out all the stops to encourage people to vote by post.