Bestbetting And Ed Miliband continues to edge out The chart shows the movement on the Labour leadership market with Andy Burnham continuing to make progress at the expense of the two Eds – Balls and Miliband – who have seen their prices ease. A lot depends of course on all of them surmounting the next hurdle – getting the required number of 33 MP nominees. I’m on all the top four at prices between 7/1 and 22/1. Mike Smithson
Are Sir Humphrey & co once again running the country? One thing that struck me on reading through the coalition document published yesterday is just how well written it is. This is not something that has been produced by a committee and does not read like the usual product of a negotiation. Some well-thought out and serious drafting has taken place with a superb economy of words. You have to admire, for instance, the way that conflicting policies between the…
PB May 23 2007 Sometimes it’s quite fun to go back and look at an old PB thread to see what perceptions were then. Well the one above is well worth looking at coming as it did more than a month before Brown became PM. HenryG Manson reviewed the runners for the Labour leadership election AFTER Brown. William Hill had then just put up a market. Interestingly there’s no mention of Andy Burnham or Ed Miliband – though his brother…
Is it being premature to write her off? During the morning I’ve wagered about £80 at odds of about 50/1 against Diane Abbott winning the Labour leadership. Crazy? Maybe – but I’ve had political bets at that price coming good over the past two years* and the way Labour’s election system works makes Abbott just a possibility. Firstly she’ll probably get the 33 nominations – the first hurdle for each of the contenders which has to be done by next…
How long is the coalition going to last? Under the headline – “David Cameron takes on Tory back-bench ‘awkward squad” the second story on the Telegraph’s front page is about what is described as an audacious attempt by Cameron “to stamp his authority on Conservative MPs and smother back-bench dissent.” For while his partner in the coalition, Nick Clegg, has gone to great lengths to bring and keep the Lib Dems on board the Cameron style is much more ruthless…
Look at who did best in the three segments Given how much is going to be wagered on the Labour leadership in the next four months I thought it might be useful to examine in detail what happened the last time the party’s system was used – for the deputy job in June 2007. Labour uses the Alternative Vote system in an electoral college made up of a third to MPs and MEPs; a third to individual members, and a…
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BBC 2010 seat predictor How the blues beat the uniform swing In the high-octane political atmosphere following the May 6th election we never looked back to to check out what had been a contentious issue on PB for months beforehand – how the uniform national swing would operate. Above is what happens when you feed the GB votes shares on CON 36.9%: LAB 29.7%: LD 23.6% into the BBC’s swing calculator. Assuming the outstanding seat goes with last time then…