Will Hooker looks ahead to next year’s Federal elections In the same way that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an Empire, the current grand coalition government of Germany is not grand, not a coalition, and barely a government. Although its feuding members somehow managed to agree a budget for 2009, the entire focus of the next 12 months will be on positioning the parties for a general election next autumn. The main theme of…
How many State Houses will change hands? In this, the centennial year of the non-partisan National Governors’ Association, the Democrats currently occupy 28 of the 50 State Houses in the US, and will be hoping to extend this tally in November. These races, which arguably have a greater impact on voters’ lives than Congressional contests, are frequently overshadowed by elections for the US Senate, so I wanted to give an overview of each of November’s Gubernatorial battles. I have excluded…
What’s happening across the Irish sea? After the passage of ’42 days’ through the Commons, and the deal-that-never-was between Brown and the DUP, it struck me that how rarely Northern Ireland makes the news nowadays. Most of us in the UK grew up with nightly stories of the IRA, Bloody Sunday inquiries, Gerry Adams being voiced by actors, UVF revenge attacks, the Peace Process, Good Friday Agreements, and eventually power-sharing at Stormont. It occurred to me that Northern Ireland was…
Two columnists in the Independent consider the long-running Brown saga, with John Rentoul declaring that Labour awaits “The Issue” to topple Gordon, while Alan Watkins in the above piece argues that “tomorrow never comes” for Labour MPs: “His colleagues, if they do it at all – if they get rid of the Prime Minister – will do it tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. A hurdle is erected for Mr Brown to jump, or, at least, to scramble over somehow. He…
Are Kaine (left) and Pawlenty (right) on-track for the Vice-Presidency? “If Henman ever wants to win Wimbledon, he’ll have to change his name. Henman was the first person named Tim to achieve anything at all… The (name’s) association is with ‘timid’ and ‘timorous’ from the Latin ‘timere’: to fear … The real puzzle is that the Tims do as well as they do.” – Martin Amis (as found on InsideTennis) Amis was wrong in at least one respect – the…
Will Glasgow East see the first sign of an exodus? There has been much written already about the potential fortunes of the Labour Party in Glasgow East, and as remarkable as it seems, the 13,507 majority currently enjoyed by David Marshall was not even enough to prevent the SNP from being ‘bookies’ favourites’ when the markets first opened. The punters on the site, far more knowledgeable on the specifics of this constituency than I, have made me wonder how we…
A guest article by David Herdson So, it’s over. After over 16 months of formal candidacy and eight years or so as the Democratic front-runner for this nomination, Hillary’s finally bowed out of the race. She put up a strong fight, winning many millions of votes in the primaries and raising vast amounts of money. Unfortunately for her, Obama raised even vaster amounts and concentrated his votes more effectively (especially in the caucuses). That provides the Democrats with a very…
Are Tory supporters getting nervous? Mike Smithson has asked me to highlight significant movement on the Sporting Index political spreadbetting markets. After victory in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election, the mid-point between the Buy and Sell price on Conservative seats at the next election had been around 350, implying that David Cameron would enjoy a majority of around 50. Today, that mid-point price dropped to 335, suggesting a majority of only 20. It seems inevitable that this is largely in…