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Month: September 2006

Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Has Election Night Special Had its Day? One of my pet hates is the BBC’s Election Night Special. It’s not too bad for General Elections, but their coverage of local elections is woeful. One spends hours watching talking heads, trying to spin the results on behalf of their respective political parties, and all piously agreeing with each other about how dreadful the British National Party is. Amid all this verbiage, one then gets about ten minutes of Professor Anthony King,…

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YouGov: Labour now level-pegging with the Tories

YouGov: Labour now level-pegging with the Tories

Lib Dems suffer most from Blair farewell conference boost On Tuesday in the aftermath of Tony Blair’s extraordinary farewell speech I predicted here that this would “give the party a small but significant boost in the polls and … might even see Labour back into the lead..” And so it has happened. A Yougov survey for the Telegraph that was mostly carried out in the immediate aftermath of the Blair speech has these shares this morning with comparisons on their…

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Labour leaders get BrandIndex boost

Labour leaders get BrandIndex boost

Blair and Reid the big movers For all the reported infighting at Labour’s Manchester conference the latest BrandIndex figures from YouGov show a boost for all the main party leaders during the week. These are based on five-day rolling averages of more than 600 online interviews a day until yesterday – so the full impact will not be seen until after the weekend. John Reid, who spoke yesterday, got a huge boost and if that continues over the next few…

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Gordon Brown’s Manchester conference

Gordon Brown’s Manchester conference

Day by day – how punters views changed I’ve been working with the Guardian this afternoon on help with a graphic on how gamblers have changed their views on Gordon Brown’s leadership chances as the week has progressed. The only problem I’ve had is that they’ve wanted the prices in old fashioned fractional odds – not the decimal-type that we tend to use here. So if it is used tomorrow it will be a bit different from my chart above…

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Guest slot: Peter Smith on managing your betting

Guest slot: Peter Smith on managing your betting

Creating and Managing A Betting Bank You like a punt and think you have spotted an opportunity – but how much do you stake? Of course, it’s entirely up to you but I reckon a systematic staking plan will help to improve your betting. Begin by creating a Betting Bank. I mean by this a separate sum of money, ring-fenced from your daily budget and preferably kept in a separate account. Its size will depend not just on your means…

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Is John Reid now carrying the flag for Team Blair?

Is John Reid now carrying the flag for Team Blair?

But could his “Back Story” blow his chances? Judging by the way Tony Blair enthusiastically greeted John Reid’s conference speech are the “anyone but Brown” factions now pinning their hopes on the Home Secretary? Certainly it appeared that way and punters have eased off Brown and have now backed Reid into the second favourite slot again. There can be little doubt that Reid’s powerful speech was in all but name a declaration that he will be standing. The big question…

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ICM data shows Brown retaining just 60% of Labour ’05 voters

ICM data shows Brown retaining just 60% of Labour ’05 voters

New polling innovation shows problem for Ming as well In a major new way of presenting and collating polling information the detailed data from Friday’s ICM September poll in the Guardian, just out, gives a breakdown of what people will do based on how they voted in the 2005 General Election. The news is not good for the Fife neighbours, Gordon Brown and Ming Campbell. For only three out of five people who voted Labour in 2005 told ICM they…

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Markets move to June 2007 departure

Markets move to June 2007 departure

Will Gordon have to wait longer before he can go at Cameron? Comments in a Radio 4 interview by the Education Secretary and possible leadership challenger, Alan Johnson, that Tony Blair would stay longer than most people were expecting has led to active trading on the departure date and the “length of third term” spread betting markets. Johnson’s comments indicated a late summer departure which could deprive the new leader of taking over while the Commons is still sitting. It’s…

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