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Month: October 2007

Is anyone in with a chance besides Clegg & Huhne?

Is anyone in with a chance besides Clegg & Huhne?

Hughes rules himself out of the race Now that Campbell has joined IDS in the select band of party leaders never to fight an election, the race for his successor has well and truly begun. Voting will close on 15th December with the new leader being unveiled two days later, and Simon Hughes has been the first big name to announce that he won’t be standing. The Betfair market is now open (although bizarrely the opening show featured Danny Alexander…

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It’s all over for Ming

It’s all over for Ming

“Did you wield the dagger?” journalists ask Cable & Hughes Campbell resigns as leader with immediate effect “in the interests of the party” Cable to be acting leader Timetable for leadership election to be announced tomorrow No public statement from Ming tonight Privately he admits that he couldn’t turn around the poll ratings Paul Maggs “Double Carpet” Guest Editor Mike Smithson returns full time on 18th October Paul Maggs runs The Election Game – click on the logo to email…

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Is Ming about to go?

Is Ming about to go?

Will Campbell be an early casualty of the 2007 non-election? Lib Dem Deputy Leader Vincent Cable has told the BBC that Ming’s leadership is “under discussion” but not under threat – so how long has Ming got left now? If he is on the way out, who will succeed him? Clegg and Huhne are seen as the frontrunners, but a Salmond-style Kennedy comeback is receiving some mentions – or might the party go for a woman leader? What difference would…

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Was last week the start of Brown’s long goodbye?

Was last week the start of Brown’s long goodbye?

Or are Labour still on course for a fourth term? The last couple of weeks have been among the most eventful in recent British politics, with the election that never was, the “magpie” pre-budget report, Brown’s mauling at PMQs and the polls changing rapidly from an 11-point Labour lead to a 7-point Conservative one. The key question is whether we have reached a tipping point and it’s all downhill for Labour from now on, with Brown following Callaghan and Douglas-Home…

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Was Gord misled by people who do not vote?

Was Gord misled by people who do not vote?

Do his polling advisers need to delve deeper? In trying to explain how Gordon Brown and Labour have got into their current mess there appears to have been one driving force – the massive Labour poll leads that at one stage touched 14%. The party believed that everything was going its way and, inevitably, there was pressure to convert the apparent surge in support into a fourth successive Labour victory. Yet were the poll leads ever as big as they…

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Seven Daves from ICM

Seven Daves from ICM

Best Conservative score since 1992 with ICM An ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph has the Conservatives on 43, Labour on 36, and the Lib Dems on 14. Changes on the previous ICM poll are +5, -2, -2, representing a swing of 3.5% to the Tories. However, Brown still leads Cameron 52-32 on the strongest leader question, while Labour leads by 47-36 on the economy. Other findings are that 66 per cent of those surveyed want a referendum on the…

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Healthcare – A View from the Grassroots

Healthcare – A View from the Grassroots

A guest article from Innocent Abroad Recently I’ve been involved in a local campaign to save a well-loved doctors’ surgery (its previous partners have included AJ Cronin, the author of “Dr Finlay’s Casebook”). The problem arose because the partners needed to sell their premises, as one of them was retiring. The Primary Care Trust decided that it wouldn’t treat this as an accommodation issue, but insisted that the doctors gave notice and then bid in open competition for their own…

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So is Al going to run?

So is Al going to run?

Is it too late to enter the race for the Democratic nomination? Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize has naturally led to speculation that he might seek to have one last roll of the dice and enter the 2008 Presidential race. The current odds for the Democratic nomination on Betfair have him available at 7.6 (13/2 in traditional odds), with Hillary a short-priced 1.46 and Obama at 8.8. It says something for Gore that his odds are shorter than…

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