Tony Blair – – June 8 2001 – – happier times One of the great dangers for General Election punters is to look at the forthcoming contest through the eyes of the last one. The big division that we see on this site is between those who think that Labour will continue to enjoy the massive advantage of getting many more seats in relation to votes casts compared with the other parties and those who don’t. But the election of…
Watch America’s “Political Futures” exchange With the big poll swings back to the challenger, John Kerry, all eyes are on the President to see if he can hold on. Will he win a second term when America votes in 22 days time or will he follow in the footsteps of his father and fail to get re-elected. A week and a half ago it looked pretty good for the President and you could have got 11/4 on Kerry with William…
WHITE HOUSE LATEST:….POLLS….PRICES….ELECTORAL VOTES With the ending of the party conference season in the UK and the US election barely three weeks away there’s lots of meat for political gamblers in the papers this morning. The Sunday Times’s Andrew Sullivan, in our view the best commentator on the US scene, has a good description of how the White House race is going and the impact of the TV debates. His piece starts- Presidential campaigns have issues, candidates and polls. They…
WHITE HOUSE LATEST:….POLLS….PRICES….ELECTORAL VOTES UPDATED 4.45 pm A poll, by Gallup, on last night’s second TV debate has those surveyed rating John Kerry as a narrow winner by 47% to 45%. When asked if they felt more favourable about the candidates after the debate, 38% were more favourable to Kerry and 20% were less favourable. The Bush figures were 31% and 20%. An ABC poll had Kerry the winner by 44-41%. The verdict of gamblers to the second of the…
Latest electoral vote estimate – Kerry 280 – Bush 239 The Democratic challenger, John Kerry, has moved into the lead on the electoral college calculator based on the latest state polls. This is the first time since the conventions that Kerry has been in this position and the news comes as he prepares for the second of the set-piece TV debates with President Bush. It was Kerry’s performance in the first debate eight days ago that turned the tide for…
Can he repeat the 1979 magic? The Conservative Conference this week has been the first public “outing” for the new re-branded party that’s been created by the new Co-Chairman, Maurice Saatchi – one of the legendry advertising guru brothers behind the 1979 election campaign that led the Tories to victory and heralded the start of the Thatcher era. The Saatchi skill is in finding the phrase and the image that encapsulates the public mood. The new “low key” non-controversial look…
Back Bush to lose and Blair to go How are the political fortunes of George Bush and Tony Blair going to be affected by the findings of the Iraq Survey Group about the lack of WMDs, especially as this come on top of the acceptance by Donald Rumsfield that Saddam was not responsible for 11 September? Even before the WMD report the the White House race was moving back to John Kerry after his success in the TV debate last…
Cashing in on changes in market sentiment With UKIP losing its major donor and a reasonably favourable reaction to Michael Howard’s conference speech could this be the time to back the Conservatives on the spread markets? One of the great features of betting exchanges and spread markets is that you can make money by betting short-term on your assessment of market sentiment – not on the ultimate outcome. And we believe that sentiment is going to move one or two…