politicalbetting.com

How long until a BME PM? Trevor Phillips, former Chairman of the Comission for Racial Equality, now a Labour member of the GLA and head of the equality watchdog, claimed yesterday in a Radio 4 interview that “institutional racism” would prevent a black or Asian politician from reaching Number 10. He was particularly damning of the unions and the left-leaning think-tanks for supporting the notion of ethnic minority candidates, whilst (in his view) the systems and structures of political parties…

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CON 43(+1)LAB 30(nc)LD 18(-3) No solace for Brown in new poll A new ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph puts the Conservatives on 43%, Labour on 30%, and the Liberal Democrats on 18%. The changes from the last ICM poll (in the Guardian on October 19th) show that the Tories gained 1 point, Labour saw no change, and the Lib Dems fell by 3 points from their previous score of 21%. In spite of a good win in Glenrothes, increasing…

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Can Our Genial Host do it again? After the dramatic events of this week, and with some issues such as Nebraska’s college votes and the Minnesota senate race still unresolved, already the bookies are pricing up the markets for the 2012 race. Mike’s 50-1 Obama bet is rightly and firmly enshrined in PB legend, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to “benchmark” the odds for the next election just days after this year’s vote. Obama is already…

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What time should we be expecting it to be all over? We all know that tonight could be a long night – I’ve taken tomorrow off work, and am not expecting to sleep before breakfast. We are happily ensconsed at a trading floor in Islington, eating fine take-away, and drinking beer, whilst eagerly scrutinising the exit polls (with extreme skepticism) and leaks from the field. We have a giant map, drawn by yours truly on the white board, and PB.com’s…

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Is American polling about to experience the 1992 catastrophe? Let’s recap what we know. Every pollster in America has Barack Obama in the lead, and the vast majority of the state polls in key states imply that he should win the Electoral College quite handily. I want to begin with a premise that if John McCain wins, we won’t have seen a measurable 2-point a day shift in the polls – a Republican victory in the race for the White…

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Which way for the Republican party after November? Tuesday last, I was invited to speak in a debate at Portcullis House by Liberal International on why a McCain presidency might not be such a bad thing after all (for Liberals). I threw four or five arguments into the mix (some persuasive, others less so), but one thought in particular has festered ever since: that if John McCain loses, the impact on the direction of the Republican Party could be significant….

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