How long will the teasing go on?

Brown’s long-awaited first speech as leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister is well under way and, no doubt, every word and phrase will be scrutinised to see if he is providing hints about the election date.

Could Gordon the cautious be prepared to gamble everything on the polls and risk seeing his premiership ending in just 120 days?

We shall see. Meanwhile the spread markets on general election commons seats now have Labour winning a majority. IG has a Labour buy level of 328 seats – enough to provide a majority of six.

Mike Smithson