Blue-chip panels and the summer doldrums

The EI working group prepares to meet (I was told on Friday that it’s already met. At any rate, it’s sort of floating around, never far.) Conservatives refuse to comment and yet somehow produce "subterranean Tory rumblings" that the Liberals are ruining everything. Enthusiasm for the whole project seems to have collapsed. "No one wants to be talking about this right now," "another Liberal" confides. Here we get an insight into Conservative and Liberal styles. When a Conservative spins off the record, it’s to denigrate what the Liberals are doing. When a Liberal spins off the record, it’s to denigrate what the Liberals are doing.

The phrasing of that last off-the-record quote rang a bell. No one wants to be talking about this right now? When did they want to talk about it right now? Researchers suggest that date may have been May 23, when Michael Ignatieff’s "Make EI Work" op-ed used the phrase "right now" three times.