How best to avoid the traps and win the prizes? The US presidential election is one of the best in which serious money can be made because of the large number of candidates who might eventually triumph, because it’s not usually clear until relatively late in the day who the final two will be, because the fact that there are only two candidates late on mean bets can be easily laid off without needing exchanges (though Betfair does tend to…
Who might fill the gap if it wasn’t an organised departure? Peter Bone has twice asked in the last week if Nick Clegg would take over as prime minister in the event of David Cameron dying in office – or presumably stepping down with immediate effect in any other circumstance. Irrespective of what’s prompted him to pursue the question, it’s worth looking at. Although no prime minister has died in office for almost 150 years, there have been some close…
How likely is a change before the election? Thursday’s by-election win notwithstanding, the last month has not been a good one for Ed Miliband. Labour’s lead in the polls has evaporated and he’s been seen to under-perform both in response to the Autumn Statement and at PMQs, resulting in hostile off-the-record briefings from Shadow Cabinet members, never mind backbenchers or commentators. That’s inevitably led to speculation about his future as Labour leader, and as speculation is – in both senses…
Will the words translate into action? Margaret Thatcher famously once said that there is no way in which one can buck the markets, a fact of life that the Eurozone has finally woken up to and sought to address with a stringent set of rules for countries operating in the Eurozone, including constitutional commitments to keep structural deficits below 0.5% of GDP, submitting national budgets to Brussels for approval and sanctions for those who fail to meet their targets. This…
Would local pay deals produce more public/private equality? The two big domestic events of the last week were the public sector strikes and the Autumn Statement, both of which were about the government’s spending plans. It’s perhaps surprising then that one part of the Chancellor’s speech hasn’t received more attention. What he said was this: “I can also announce that we are asking the independent Pay Review Bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to…
Will the Autumn Statement feature another U-turn? One of the early announcements the government made after coming to office was that in future the state pension would rise in line with whichever was the highest of the inflation rate, the increase in earnings, or 2.5% – the so-called Triple Lock. At the moment, it’s the inflation measure that’s highest and even using CPI, rather than RPI, that still lands the government with a hefty 5.2% increase. It’s a lot of…
Is the government still failing to justify the need for austerity? November’s news has contained a steady stream of unions announcing that their members have backed strike action in protest against changes to their pension schemes. It has also contained a lot of economic news pointing to a marked slowdown in the economy at home and abroad. Expect these stories to run for months. The first flare-up will come on 30 November when the largest single day of action for…
And what impact would a second one have? It’s usually about this time that commentators begin to speculate about third candidates entering the US presidential race. Partly that’s because the line-up otherwise is known (it’s too late now to file for some leading primaries), and third candidates provides the uncertainty on which pundits thrive. There’s more than just talk to it this year given the organisation of the Tea Party and the scramble in some Republican quarters for a viable…