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Month: December 2009

Should you be putting more money on Farage?

Should you be putting more money on Farage?

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Evening Standard How’ll this go down with Buckingham Tories? Thanks to Ben Brogan in his Telegraph blog for spotting the remarkable interview that the wife of the speaker, Sally Bercow, has given to the Evening Standard. As regulars will know I’ve come in for a bit of stick over my betting on ex-UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who is standing against Sally’s husband, John. My reasoning has been that Bercow was elected to this ultra-safe Tory seat as a Tory and…

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Are punters waiting for an ICM poll?

Are punters waiting for an ICM poll?

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Why has there been so little movement on the spreads? It’s been an extraordinary couple of weeks with two polls suggesting that we are in hung parliament territory and, perhaps, a change in the media narrative. What seemed a certain Tory majority in mid-November is looking just a touch different. Above is the PB Index which is calculated by taking the average of mid-points on the main seats markets and then extrapolating that into a General Election outcome. The extraordinary…

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And now the Choccy Horror Show!

And now the Choccy Horror Show!

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Could the Mirror’s splash damage the Tories? Thanks to one or two contributors on the overnight thread for picking up this – the main story in the Mirror . For after a day which saw Gordon Brown at his most confident for months the paper’s exclusive, presumably from publicly available material, is that amongst the receipts in Cameron’s claims were those for four or five chocolate bars. These were under Cameron’s claims for his administrative and office allowance As the…

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Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?

Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?

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By-elections.co.uk CON 20,539 votes (14,162) LAB 12,679 votes (21,240) LD 6,040 votes (8,083) The contest, held on 22 May 2008, was the first seat gained by the Tories in a by election since June 1982. The turnout was just 1.8% down on what it had been at the general election. Mike Smithson

Will attacking Etonians win or lose votes?

Will attacking Etonians win or lose votes?

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Could Brown’s toff-bashing quip turn-off middle England? John Rentoul makes a good point about one aspect of Brown’s PMQ’s performance on his Independent blog:- “…..there was one line that was too good to use. Brown invoked the name of Zac Goldsmith, the dormantly non-dom Conservative candidate, and said that David Cameron’s inheritance tax cut seemed like something “dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton”. .Having a go at Cameron’s school, chosen for him by his parents: Not Going to…

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Welcome to the new confident Gordon

Welcome to the new confident Gordon

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But is there a danger when’s he’s over-confident? Anybody watching PMQs today would have seen an emboldened and confident Gordon Brown dealing with a slightly down-beat David Cameron. Probably Brown was the winner though his continued evasiveness and what turned out to be a wrong assertion on Spain’s G20 membership might just take the gloss off it. He of all people should have known that simple fact and it came over as though he was over-egging the truth to deal…

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Could a climate change split undermine Dave’s chances?

Could a climate change split undermine Dave’s chances?

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How dangerous is the issue for the Tories? Only days before the Copenhagen climate summit Andrew Grice in the Independent is reporting what’s said to be growing split between many parts of the Tory party and its leadership on the issue. It will be recalled that just four years ago one of Cameron’s first acts as leader was to take a lead on climate change as part of his effort to try to modernise his party and there was that…

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Is this the man to take over from Gord?

Is this the man to take over from Gord?

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Could he become Labour’s William Hague? One of the problems of Mr. Brown’s style of government is that he makes most of the big announcements and his top team get very little public exposure. So if there’s something big to say about health then it’s not the Secretary of State responsible who gets the lime-light. Not only does this mean that outside three or four figures there’s relatively little public awareness of the second string of party figures – but…

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