More Insightful Analysis ...

... from the good folks at the Toronto Star.

Here's a story where just about everyone manages to look worse off. First, we start with the subject of the article's headline, Jack Layton:

1. See Jack get mad: The federal NDP warns it could help defeat the minority Liberals unless it sees progress in talks on medicare by tomorrow.

2. See Jack get madder: "If we don't see significant, serious action by (Thursday) that would mean this Parliament will not produce positive results for Canadians," the NDP leader said.

3. See Jack backtrack: When pressed by reporters, Layton said he won't set a deadline for bringing down the Liberal government.

A spine of steel, I tell you.

Not to be outdone, and in the interests of fairness, Stephen Harper gets the prize for most subtle analysis with this quote:

"We have pretty strong suspicions that the public doesn't want an election during the Christmas period...."

You think?

And finally, from Ujjal Dosanjh, who you may recall was a long-time NDP minister in British Columbia, as well as BC-NDP premier for a while before getting his current gig:

Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh met with the NDP health critic Jean Crowder on Monday to discuss health-care issues, including so-called ``double-dipping" by doctors and the role of private health clinics. Dosanjh said the meeting was productive, but prefaced that by saying he didn't like being threatened by the New Democrats (emphasis added)

... to which I say (a) "since when?", if last spring was anything to go by, and (b) as a big wheel in the "lost decade" of the BC NDP government and in particular, as the one who finally pushed Glen Clark out the door of the premier's office by announcing the criminal investigation against Clark back in '99, he should be used to it by now.

Anyway, (laboured) analogies aside, it will be interesting to see if Jack's latest contribution results in either another supposedly sweetheart deal (for which the Libs will get all available credit, and the NDP none, as usual), or an election anytime soon.

More later.