PB’s nightly open thread with the excellent illustration by Marf as its symbol is now into its second week and seems to be going well.

There are now prints available of Marf’s spoof of the Edward Hopper classic Nighthawks Café. This is a limited edition, signed by Marf in full colour for £60. If you are interested contact her here.

Things are just starting to hot up as the new political year beckons.

@MikeSmithsonPB

Is this going to make Miliband’s task much harder?

According to Atul Hatwal of Labour Uncut there are about to be some explosive revelations in Alastair Darling’s upcoming memoir:-

He writes: “.Darling details the total breakdown in trust between the prime minister and chancellor. He singles out Ed Balls and Shriti Vadhera as key Brown lieutenants running what amounted to a shadow treasury operation within government.

Brown’s demeanour was increasingly “brutal and volcanic”, mistrusting Darling to the extent that he repeatedly tried to place his own aides in the treasury ministerial team to report back on what the chancellor was doing.

Darling point-blank refused to have the newly-enobled Shriti Vadhera in his team, describing her as “only happy if there was blood on the floor – preferably that of her colleagues”….

,,for the first time, Darling confirms his widely rumoured confrontation with the prime minister in 2009 when Brown tried to sack him as chancellor and offer him another role in cabinet.

Darling refused, making clear he would rather walk out of government than do any other job.

Gordon Brown’s capitulation in the face of this ultimatum was vindication for Darling, who had calculated that the prime minister was too weak to lose his chancellor…“

All this is not going to help EdM’s effort to rebuild Labour economic credibility.

@MikeSmithsonPB

The latest YouGov daily poll for News International overnight had the Labour lead over the Tories at just 1% – the closest it’s been since January. This means that the gap between the main two parties at least brings it a bit closer to the latest from country’s most accurate pollster when tested against real elections, ICM.

Last week, for the second month running, ICM had the Tories on 37% one point ahead of Labour on 36% – a poll outcome that contrasted sharply with a YouGov survey taken at the same time which had Labour on 44% – nine points ahead of the Tories.

YouGov has only reported a Labour share below 40% once since December 2010. ICM has not had the party out of the 30s since the general election.

By the weekend in the YouGov Sunday Times poll the Labour share was down to 41% with the Tories on 38% – so it could be that we are seeing a trend.

The online pollster understated the NO lead in May’s referendum by 15.8%. ICM had the outcome accurate to within 0.2%.

There’ll be a new daily poll out tonight.

@MikeSmithsonPB

Marf tells me that prints of her spoof of the Edward Hopper classic Nighthawks Café are now available. This is a limited edition, signed by Marf in full colour for £60. The actual size is A4. If you are interested contact her here.

Have a good night.

@MikeSmithsonPB