Share breaking news, leave links to interesting articles online and chat about the week’s political events in our open thread. We’ll post the best above the line 4.03pm GMT That’s it for today above the line. Thanks for all your comments - have a great weekend. 3.40pm GMT As it’s Friday afternoon, it must be time for AnatolyKasparov’s local council by-election round up.Two local council by-elections this week:Windsor and Maidenhead - Tory hold in an unusual Wednesday poll with just over two thirds of the vote, of a very safe ward in what looks like the last vacancy from the 2011 set of elections to be filled before this May. They got a modest swing from second placed Labour, who finished only just ahead of UKIP who got nearly 12% in their first outing here (though they may have hoped for more, and the runners up position) LibDems in last place as their vote fell further on last time when they were pushed into third (having been fairly competitive in 2003 and still narrowly second in 2007) which sums up their long term decline in this one time "flagship" council - the days when Theresa May genuinely feared for her seat seem very distant now. 2.10pm GMT An interesting take on Syriza’s election victory, from Ben Quinn and Aisha Gani: they explore the role of Greek’s UK-based academic community in the party’s rise to power.A lesser known story of Syriza’s rise, however, has been the role played by a sizeable number of Greek intellectuals based now or previously at British universities – some of whom have been catapulted from academia to senior positions of power in Greece’s new government.Most notable is Greece’s new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who obtained a mathematical economics degree and PhD at the University of Essex, later teaching at East Anglia, Cambridge and Glasgow. 12.10pm GMT Here’s today’s Populus poll, showing Labour with a one point lead.Latest Populus VI: Lab 35 (-), Con 34 (-), LD 10 (+1), UKIP 14 (+1), Others 7 (-2). Tables here: http://t.co/tmTDvNMYGH 11.43am GMT Commenter TheGreatBaldo has done a round up of coverage from - or about - the state of play in Scotland. Ed Miliband was in Glasgow earlier this week to give Jim Murphy his backing, as Libby Brooks reported.Greeting....some writings about politics north of the border..First up, The Economist take at Jim Murphy's chances....essentially they like and rate him but think he has no chance 11.15am GMT This week’s politics quiz is now ready for your attention. Do let us know how you get on. 10.06am GMT Ed Miliband has asked the press to remember their responsibilities and report the issues, reports Rowena Mason. He seems to desire less coverage of what Peter Hain described, rather winningly, as the “Westminster-bubble tittle-tattle that the media enjoy and the political class enjoy”The Labour leader was speaking at a Westminster dinner for political journalists, similar to the ones held by Barack Obama at the White House. As part of a humorous, self-deprecating speech, he struck a more serious note as he made a plea for reporters to concentrate on the issues.“You will shape this election too,” he said in a direct appeal to journalists. “And my only request is that you do your bit too to try and make this election about the issues, choices and beliefs that matter to the country as well. 9.07am GMT Today’s YouGov / Sun poll sees Labour and the Conversatives tied on 34%. This fits in with my colleague Alberto Nardelli’s analysis of the current crop of opinion polls, which - if they are correct - tend to point to neither party gaining enough seats to form an outright majority.Morning all. Tories & Labour tied on Yougov:Latest YouGov / The Sun results 29th January - 8.04am GMT Andrew is not writing his usual Politics Live blog today but, as an alternative, here’s Politics Live: readers’ edition. It’s intended to be a place where you can catch up with the latest news and find links to good politics blogs and articles on the web.Please feel free to use this as somewhere you can comment on any of the day’s political stories - just as you do during the daily blog. It would be particularly useful for readers to flag up new material in the comments - breaking news or blogposts or tweets that are worth passing on because someone is going to find them interesting. Continue reading...
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