Should you take the 3/1 on Miliband for “High Representative”
Would this mean a by-election in South Shields?
There’s a story runnnig, which appears to be an exclusive, on the Politics.co.uk website suggesting that David Miliband has accepted” the top EU foreign affairs role that he was being tipped and, indeed, is current favourite in the betting.
Well done to Wibbler on the previous thread for the spot.
According to the site’s Emmeline Saunders the information has come from “a Labour source” and that this could all be announced in the next fortnight – presumably at the coming EU summit which has been called following the final ratification of the Lisbon treaty.
Make of this what you will and as of 3am and I was unable to find anything else on Google but the “news” does fit with the speculation that has driven the betting.
I’ve taken as much as I can at Ladbrokes where I got 5/2 and the 3/1 at
A key consideration for Labour would normally be the risk of a by-election defeat – but the party’s position in Miliband’s seat and the massive level of postal voting last time suggests that they should have no worries.
Then the result was CON: 5207 (17.2%): LAB 18269 (60.5%): LD 5957 (19.7%): OTH 773 (2.6%) and of these an extraordinary 14.194 (47%) were cast in this way putting the seat in third place out of 646 constituencies in the postal voting league table. The national average, by comparison, was just 14.6%.
Maybe Peter Mandelson could get the law change on life peers through and he could be the candidate – or am I running ahead of myself?