Why the heck was Woolas made a shadow minister? So now we have it. The case has gone against Woolas and we look forward to the by election. But why oh why in the period between the hearing and today’s judgement did Ed Miliband appoint Woolas as a shadow home office minister? Surely he must have been advised that this could go against Labour? As I wrote at the time the Labour leader’s decision simply didn’t make sense – for…
PoliticalSmarkets Were the Woolas leaflets personal or political? The only betting market relating to today’s court announcement of the verdict in the Oldham East & Saddleworth case is the one above from Smarkets on where the next by election will be held? This is not very liquid although, as at 3am, there was £390 available to lay at 50% on the Phil Woolas seat NOT being the location of the first by election. The critical elements in the case are…
Could “Old & Sad” be the parliament’s first by-election? Tomorrow, unless there’s some last minute change, the judges in the Oldham East & Saddleworth case will give their verdict on Labour’s campaign and whether what was alleged to have been done is sufficient for Labour MP and shadow home office minister, Phil Woolas, to lose his job. This follows a week long hearing in September when the Lib Dem candidate who lost in the general election by 103 votes, Elwyn…
Are any of these bets tempting? William Hills have revived a market that proved popular, and for me profitable, in the run-up to the general election – which leader will be the first to leave his job. The pricing is Cameron 9/4, Miliband 7/4, and Clegg 5/4. Interestingly Clegg was the 5/4 favourite in December 2007 when Hills last put this market up – Brown was at 9/4. Clearly with the polls as they are Clegg is the favourite though…
YouGov’s newspaper weightings Unweighted number Weighted number “Value†of each reader in the poll Express/Mail 417 301 0.72 Sun/Star 206 429 2.08 Mirror/Record 114 309 2.71 Guardian/Indy 173 62 0.36 FT/Times/Telegraph 224 170 0.76 Other paper 217 232 1.07 No paper 655 505 0.77 Could newspaper weightings be causing distortions? The big polling news overnight was that the YouGov dailly poll reported a share of just 9% for the Lib Dems alongside 40% for the Tories and Labour. In doing…
Was it always likely that the pledge would have to be broken? So we are here – Lib Dem betrayal time and an embarrassment for the coalition. But why on earth did Clegg’s party agree to it in the first place because there was always a pretty good chance that it was a promise that couldn’t be kept? Consider two facts. The inquiry into university funding by ex-BP boss John Browne was set up by the last Labour government with…
Do both men need to spruce up their acts? I was listening on the radio and maybe it seemed different on TV but neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband seemed to do particularly well. Cameron was snappy and is not as good as he perhaps should be at soaking up criticism. It was obvious that EdM was likely to raise the photographer appointment to the government payroll and the PM’s response didn’t really convince. Clearly at a time of massive…
Nate Silver at the New York Times I like the way Nate Silver is representing this election as all eyes focus on the west coast states of California and Washington which look set to determine the outcome in the Senate. The GOP has made big gains in the House of Representative winning most of the key races. I was struck by this point from Kieran on the previous thread:- “This configuration (Dem Pres, Dem Senate (if it holds), GOP House)…