Telegraph Will it be PMMP after the election? Several papers, the Telegraph amongst them, carry reports of Mandy’s magazine interview in which he hints of his desire to return to the Commons as an MP. PaddyPower and Ladbrokes both make him fifth favourite to succeed Brown at 9/1 and 8/1 respectively. Yet for that to happen he needs to ditch his life peerage and that requires a current law change move to get through parliament quickly enough so he can…
Following a crash of our database server last night, I have migrated the database to Amazon’s new Relational Database Service. Hopefully, this will lead to better scalability and reliability. Some people (Seth O Logue and Old Nat…) lost comments in the migration, and I’m sorry about that. It is possible we will see some performance issues over the next couple of days as I tweak the configuration, but hopefully these will be short-lived. Right: off to bed now. Robert
Is the 14/1 that it’ll be June a value bet? So far most people seem to have dismissed the prospect of Brown hanging on until a June election (the last possible date) – mainly on the grounds that he would not want the big one to take place after Labour’s expected pasting in the May 6th locals. But how valid a reason is this? And doesn’t everything we know about him suggest that he’s going to find this such an…
A re-run of Andy Cooke’s December 2007 guest slot (This analysis first appeared on PB in December 2007 and has been much quoted both here and in the mainstream media since. It’s even more timely today and I thought it was worth re-running – MS) One of the most widely held items of received wisdom is “The opinion polls always swing back towards the Government as the Election approaches”. That mid-term blues will always overemphasise an Opposition’s performance in the…
guardian.co.uk Could Labour’s paymasters wield the knife? This is the conclusion of Polly Toynbee’s first Guardian column of 2010. “…Until now the unions have been Brown’s praetorians, whipped in by Charlie Whelan. But it’s time union leaders asked themselves if it’s in their members’ interests to see Labour crash out under Brown. The cabinet is frozen by individual self-interest – shame on all of them. They want Brown gone, but none dares wield the knife without the others. Future contenders…
The PB Competition Results Revealed It’s that time of year again – to look ahead and make resolutions, but perhaps even more importantly, to see how you fared in the PB 2009 Prediction Competition. The clear winner, including a magisterial performance in the local elections section, is Ladbrokes’ finest in the shape of Shadsy – the long hours spent looking after the Magic Sign’s politics desk have clearly paid off – congratulations Shadsy and many thanks for all your betting…
CON 40% (40) LAB 30% (28) LD 17% (18) OTHERS 13% (14) And the Lib Dems slip a point The final poll of 2009, the December YouGov survey for the Telegraph, is in the paper the morning and shows margin of error changes for Labour and the Lib Dems. The Tories stay doggedly on 40%. Labour will be pleased though to have closed the gap a bit. It’s the LAB-LD interaction that seems to be key with the firm. When…
Andy Welsh Flickr How will the decade just beginning end? The turning of the decades is an opportune time to lift our gaze from the transient ephemera of polls, speeches and even by-elections to the deeper questions of where politics is headed over the next ten years and what are the drivers of that change. However, before looking forward, a brief glance back. The first decade of the 21st century has not been a good one for politics or politicians….