Is nationalisation really going to have no electoral impact?

Even though some are calling it “Labour’s Black Wednesday” there has been very little movement in the general election most seats betting following yesterday’s announcement by Alistair Darling that Northern Rock. The chart showing betting prices as implied probabilities has hardly changed on the past week.

It’s the same with the spread betting markets where punters buy and sell the number of seats the parties will get at the election as though they were stocks and shares. There was a minuscule move to the Tories yesterday but that was prompted more by the latest YouGov poll showing Labour 9% behind rather than Northern Rock.

It might be that political punters are mostly focussed on the US at the moment where there has continued to be a lot of betting activity on the Democratic party nomination. The problem for Brown-Darling is that there could be lots more bad news ahead.

Under the stark heading – “Absolutely, incredibly, utterly wrong!” Anatole Kaletsky argues in the Times that the “Northern Rock fiasco has just started, with the Government now officially in charge.”

The Guardian highlights possible political problems with the £165,000 a month money that is being paid to the two people who will now be running the back.

If ministers want cheering up then they ought to read Steve Richards in the Indy who reckons that the Tories are now “terrified” and “isolated” over the Rock. Below is an extract reproduced from the paper’s home-page. I’m not convinced.

Mike Smithson