Could 1 in 25 Labour supporters switch if there is no Blair? With Tony Blair reported this morning to be ready to announce the date when he will stand down it is worth asking whether this will be all good for the party in the polls. For a close look at detailed findings from this week’s YouGov poll suggests that the Prime Minister has a small but significant personal vote which will not be there when he is gone. These…
Test your skill in Double Carpet’s By-Election Competition With this Thursday’s by-elections in outer London and South Wales presenting the parties with their first major tests at the ballot box since May’s local elections, you are invited to make your predictions for Blaenau Gwent and Bromley & Chislehurst, and put your punditry skills to the test against the rest of the politicalbetting.com readers. To make for smooth running of the competition, please enter your predictions in the order set out…
Is now the time to put more on? The chart, based on best betting prices, shows how punters are rating in terms of implied probability the Labour leadership chances of the the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson. After tipping him when his leadership price was 18/1 I’ve now gone into the market again. Johnson’s chances of winning are much better than 15/2 and as we see today with the Charles Clarke story, the pressure on Blair to go early is gathering…
And it’s 44-38 on a straight Cameron-Brown choice A new YouGov poll in today’s Daily Telegraph has the following with changes on four weeks ago: CON 39 (+1): LAB 32 (nc): LD 17 (+1). When asked which they would prefer a Cameron-led Tory party or a Brown-led Labour the Tories win 44-38. This compares with a 45-36 lead when asked to choose between a Cameron-led Tory party and a Blair-led Labour. Although these were not voting intention questions but a…
How boundary changes hurt Brown and make “PM Dave” one step closer The Tory price on the General Election seat markets is likely to tighten following a big story in the Times this morning on new research on the impact of the boundary changes. Currently the Betfair price has Labour at 1.04/1 to get most seats slightly behind the Tories at 0.98/1. But the report, by Lewis Baston and Simon Henig for the House Magazine, also underlines the challenge facing…
Is raising nuclear deterrent issue the sure way to Number 10? Lots of analysis in the Sunday papers this morning on the reasons behind Gordon Brown’s decision to raise the British nuclear deterrent issue in his Mansion House speech. Given that opposition to an independent deterrent was only dropped from Labour’s policy portfolio after a bitter and long battle that ended 1989 the general view is that Gordon wants to provoke a left-wing challenge in the coming leadership contest which…
How will he get on against the former steel-works shop steward? Amongst the giants in Labour’s history few can compare with Nye Bevan whose most lasting political achievement, surely, was the creation, against huge opposition, of the National Health Service in the cash-starved Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War. He was born in Tredegar and in 1929 was elected as Labour MP for the Ebbw Vale constituency which are now part of Blaenau Gwent. This will be…
Where Do the Liberal Democrats go from here? Since 1997, the Liberal Democrats have regularly polled a national equivalent vote share of 25-30% in local elections, a very good performance historically. What must be frustrating for them is that this has led to no real increase in the proportion of council seats which they hold (around 20% of the overall total). This is because the Conservatives have recovered strongly in local elections over the same period. Throughout the 1980s and…