Have a browse of the interactive BBC News link below.
It lists the marginal seats which could decide the next UK General Election in May 2015.
« government majorities are made or broken in the relatively small number of marginal seats with small majorities that change hands at elections ».
Entering the debate on Scottish independence, former Prime Minister Gordan Brown in the article linked to below, proposes laws to enshrine Britain’s pooling and sharing of wealth while maximising devolution to Scotland:
« I am of the view that the party that first created a powerful Scottish parliament is best placed to strengthen devolution and to create a stronger Scottish parliament in a stronger UK ».
What should be the position of the Conservative party in appealing more to the hearts than the minds of the Scottish people in preserving the Union?
Adam Boulton writing in The Sunday Times senses that for Prime Minister Cameron, Chancellor Osborne and Foreign Secretary Hague, staying in Europe has become a major priority.
George Osborne speaking at a recent ?Pan-European? conference hosted by the Open Europe think tank and the Fresh Start group of Tory MPs, apparently gave the clearest indication yet of what the Prime Minister might be aiming to renegotiate before his 2017 referendum on continuing EU membership i.e.
1. The Euro: To seek guarantees that EU member countries not in the common currency area can remain so, without strictures on them being imposed by the Eurozone members.
2. Welfare: With the support of Germany in particular and other richer EU members, to introduce curbs on migration within the framework of ?freedom of movement? for more control at national level of the associated spending on welfare.
3. Single market: Accepting that the EU needs to become more competitive globally, to accelerate completion of the single market e.g. for services, by allowing Britain and other large EU states to integrate more quickly while smaller states can still protect their home markets.
It will be interesting to see whether such an approach will allow PM Cameron to out-manoeuvre the estimated one third of total Conservative MPs who are exploiting the rise of UKIP to promote their euroscepicism. At constituency level Tory activists are also said to be generally more Eurosceptic but actual Tory voters seem more in tune with the general public in that the EU does not appear in the top 10 of their major concerns!
Reference: N° 11 signals a way to halt the Eurosceptic express, Adam Boulton, The Sunday Times 19.01.14.