On the one hand, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and most of the business community are broadly in favour of Britain's membership of the EU. On the other, a mostly eurosceptic Conservative Party is hostile.
On the other hand the template of Labour's policies for failing banks has been established, and Mr Johnson does enjoy a recession-friendly talent that Mr Brown lacks: the ability to soothe voters worrying, beneath the expenses furore, about their own homes and jobs.
So my bet is that the main outcome of the current kerfuffle will be to hand a stick to Labour (and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems) to beat the Conservatives with, and make it much harder for them to legislate in a way Labour doesn't like.
Mr Milburn said Labour wanted to hand over control and budgets to front-line staff.
In combination, these two trends raised inequality in developed countries and strengthened the hand of capital relative to labour.
ECONOMIST: Unbalanced skill levels could make the world more unequal
On the other hand, America's labour scarcity has not yet translated into wage pressure, at least in formal measures of compensation (but see article).
On the one hand, it could grease the labour market as Mr Tobin outlined, reducing unemployment.
But one of the readiest sources of skilled labour is closer to hand.
Total and Unocal, on the other hand, argue that no forced labour went into the construction of the pipeline itself, and that, in any case, they have no influence over Myanmar's army and cannot be held responsible for its conduct.
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Labour, on the other hand, is calling for tax increases on the wealthy and relatively minor tweaks to the social-security system.
But if Labour and the unions are working hand-in-glove, it is difficult to explain the timing of this latest round of walkouts.
The situation has been exacerbated by increasing rates of rural to urban migration which have, on the one hand, deprived the rural areas of agricultural labour and, on the other, increased the demand on the limited social services in urban areas.
If, on the other hand, voters dislike the lot of them, Labour may be in trouble.
He's extended the hand of co-operation to the two new Labour leaders, Alan Rhodes and Derbyshire's Anne Western.
The labour-market reforms, on the other hand, came out of the negotiations somewhat strengthened, although the government fought off opposition pressure to permit more exceptions to industry-wide wage agreements.
Labour and the Lib Dems, on the other hand, are very much in favour.
On the one hand, the strike, backed by business as well as labour, showed no sign of weakening.
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Labour said the UK government was "giving with one hand and taking with the other".
BBC: Chancellor George Osborne backs M4 motorway relief road
Mr Dawson, its choice for October 2000, catalogued a life of continuous manual labour, starting at the age of four as a farm hand.
Although he was one of New Labour's architects, as chancellor Mr Brown cultivated a reputation as less New and more straightforwardly Labour than Mr Blair, perhaps because this stance strengthened his hand in internal party politics.
With most of the work done by hand without any help from modern technology, its production is a lengthy and labour-intensive process.
Mr Salmond and Mr Trump's right-hand man, George Sorial, were called and subjected to some hostile questioning by Labour's Duncan MacNeil, the committee convener.
On the other hand, an experimental police project in Catford, south London, has shown that Labour's plans for curfews are unnecessary, since more carefully targeted restraints can already be imposed under existing laws.
Labour recently voted to scrap shadow cabinet elections, giving Mr Miliband a free hand over appointments.
Active labour-market policies are a way to minimise the moral hazard that goes hand-in-hand with comprehensive insurance.
But, now that the link with the free movement of labour has been broken, the dispute is much less likely to get out of hand.
Labour recently voted to scrap shadow cabinet elections, giving party leader Ed Miliband a free hand over who to appoint.
But without further changes to the labour laws, the bosses of these former state-owned leviathans are fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
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