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Month: September 2008

Could it be an all female assassination squad?

Could it be an all female assassination squad?

What is it about Labour’s women and Gordon? A striking feature of the mini-rebellion that started only a week ago last Friday was the preponderance of woman who came out in support of the move by Siobhain McDonagh – the government whip whose resignation got the ball rolling. That’s been continued with the replies today of a survey in the Independent’s of all members of the Cabinet. Apart from John Hutton, a long-standing Brown-doubter, Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith and Ruth…

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Were you a Brown buyer or seller a year ago today?

Were you a Brown buyer or seller a year ago today?

What can we learn from the betting and polls of September 2007 Exactly a year ago – on September 22nd 2007 – Labour, like today was in conference in Manchester and all the talk was about the “coming election”. There were even suggestions that Brown might announce something in his speech – like this year taking place on the Tuesday. There was lots of excitement on the betting markets and I clipped the above from the Spreadfair spread betting exchange…

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Will Yuriko Koike make it as Japan’s first woman PM?

Will Yuriko Koike make it as Japan’s first woman PM?

Wikimedia Commons But Taro Aso is the strong favourite to be the LDP’s fourth leader this term Following Tzipi Livni’s 431-vote victory in the Kadima leadership this week, five contenders are lined up to take over the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) in Japan tomorrow. Unlike Livni, who has her work cut out trying to put a coalition together (maybe a 50% chance at best) before she can become Israel’s PM, whoever follows Yasuo Fukuda at the LDP helm will certainly…

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Four more resignations after the conference?

Four more resignations after the conference?

News of the World reports more bad news to come for Brown As the Labour Conference gets underway and the party tries to present a united front, there is more bad news for the PM today, with the News of the World reporting that four more members of the government are preparing to resign. The paper says that two of the four are mid-ranking ministers and two are ministerial assistants, although their identities have not been hinted at – they…

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Labour level-pegging in Glenrothes: ICM

Labour level-pegging in Glenrothes: ICM

But will the polls be as wrong as they were in Glasgow East? A night of four polls all doing very different things has been finalised with an ICM survey in Glenrothes, scene of the upcoming by-election, which suggests that Labour is in for a hard fight. In the seat that adjoins Brown’s and where the party had a 10,600 majority at the general election ICM found that both Labour and the SNP were on 43% each. That’s fine except…

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“Tory majority of 146” according to 34,000 sample poll

“Tory majority of 146” according to 34,000 sample poll

A new poll just out by PoliticsHome with the fieldwork carried out by YouGov seeks to make a more accurate prediction of the next election by interviewing more than 34,000 people in more than 200 marginal constituencies. These have been broken down in 17 separate categories of seat and the poll has sought to discover different trends. From the data a projected majority of 146 is forecast. The project has been masterminded by Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report which…

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What ever happened to redrawing the electoral map?

What ever happened to redrawing the electoral map?

Is 2008 going to prove to be just a twist on 2000/2004? Using the highly-addictive site 270-to-win, I’ve recreated the political map that confronted us after Al Gore’s popular vote margin failed to give him the White House in 2000. The result in the Electoral College that year was Bush 271 v 266 Gore, one of the tightest results ever. Re-apportionment of Congressional Districts as a result of the decennial census has changed the number of Electoral College votes each…

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