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Month: May 2006

Can Labour break through the 32% ceiling?

Can Labour break through the 32% ceiling?

Will new polls confirm whether the turmoil is still causing damage? When the May Populus survey showing a Labour deficit of 8% came out last week I urged caution because the survey had been taken against a backcloth of heated speculation and talk of a Labour civil war. Often surveys that take place in such a charged atmosphere, I noted, produce extraordinary results. We should get a better measure of the current state of public opinion over the next eight…

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Why Gordon will never be leader

Why Gordon will never be leader

Has the Chancellor blown it through his natural prudence? In years to come will Gordon Brown look back on the second Wednesday of May 2006 as the time when he blew his best ever chance to become Labour leader and Prime Minister? Will he recall May 10th – just a week ago today when all the eyes were on him – as the moment he should have moved and sought to oust Blair? Will he remember the stony silence of…

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How many more of these has Tony got in his back pocket?

How many more of these has Tony got in his back pocket?

Why I’m betting again that Blair will survive Yet another week goes by and Tony Blair is still there doing what he’s always been brilliant at when things get rough – changing the media agenda. After the carefully concerted Gordon Brown barrage in the immediate aftermath of the local election results, a brace of poor opinion polls and probably the toughest PMQs of his nine year tenure Lucky Tony is just ploughing on finding other things to dominate the headlines….

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Why does Cameron gets a boost with Populus?

Why does Cameron gets a boost with Populus?

Is it all down to how the question is asked? With a Labour leadership contesting looking more imminent there’s a lot more attention being put on polls showing how people would vote if the leading contender, Gordon Brown, was up against David Cameron. Surpisingly there’s a big difference between the main pollsters. Taking all the surveys when this was asked since the new Tory leader took office these are the average changes in the CON-LAB margin comparing Cameron-Brown against the…

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ICM: 52% say “it’s wrong” that a Scot should be PM

ICM: 52% say “it’s wrong” that a Scot should be PM

New poll finds anti-Scottish bias south of the border With two of the possible contenders or the coming Labour leadership battle being Scottish – Gordon Brown and John Reid – there are some worrying findings for the party in an an ICM poll carried out for today’s “Politics Show” on BBC1. When asked if they thought it “wrong” that in the era of the Scottish parliament a Scot should become Prime Minister of the whole of the UK 52% said…

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Is this man the key to profitable leadership betting?

Is this man the key to profitable leadership betting?

Back Balls for Chancellor to cover yourself on Brown getting it The call here on Wednesday to back Alan Johnson at the then 18/1 as Tony Blair’s successor gets good coverage by Vicki Woods in the Telegraph this morning. This is what she writes:- “My favourite website is the curiously influential politicalbetting.com (influential because I’m quite convinced it played a part in Cameron’s capture of the Tory leadership). Anyway, it chirpily suggested only days ago that anyone who fancies an…

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Sean Fear’s local elections competition

Sean Fear’s local elections competition

“…and the winner is….” As one reader of this site picked up a few days ago, the winner was Lewis Baston, who correctly predicted the outcome of 26 out of the 32 contests in London. If he’d like to e-mail me on sean@grahamfear.co.uk then I’ll arrange for Amazon to e-mail him his prize. Overall, no one performed badly, (the lowest score was 18), and almost all of the entries scored in the range 21-24 (I scored 23). John O’Sullivan deserves…

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Punters still uneasy about Gordon

Punters still uneasy about Gordon

Isn’t there a little matter of the election rules to think about? Today’s chart shows the implied probability of Gordon Brown being elected next Labour leader based on the best betting odds over time. In the immediate aftermath of the 2005 General Election the certainty of Brown getting the job was rated at 82%. It then declined a little only to soar again to 80% at the time of the party conference last September. Doubts started to emerge following David…

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