Is this the first skirmish of the new political era? In a move designed to seize the media initiative Tory leader, David Cameron, has challenged the PM in waiting, Gordon Brown, to a series of TV debates to, as he puts it, “revive interest in politics”. Such debates played a key part in Cameron’s own election as leader in 2005 and if the left-wing challenger, John McDonnell, had found enough MPs to support his bid on Thursday then there would…
What’s behind these latest market moves? As the chart shows there’s been a big shift to Benn on the deputy leader market in the past few hours. Could it be that a new poll is about to come out that will reinforce Benn’s campaign? I don’t know but this just looks as though someone has some knowledge. Mike Smithson
Will Labour Lose Birmingham? Birmingham has long since ceased to be a bellwether city. Up until the 1980s, a majority of its MPs were usually returned for the winning party in a general election, and its council switched regularly between Labour and the Conservatives. Yet, from 1983 onwards, Labour consistently outperformed their national performance in the city, and controlled the council without a break from 1984 to 2004. In 1997, they won every seat in the city, apart from ultra-safe…
Is this down to punters anticipating a Brown bounce? The chart shows how punters are assessing the general election chances of the two main parties on the Betfair “overall majority” market. As can be seen there been a movement back to Labour and now the price of the party being returned with a fourth successive majority has tightened to 2.7/1. The hung parliament option remains the most popular with a current price of 1.44/1 and this is where my money…
Is the Education secretary worth his favourite status? After getting the most MP nominations for Labour deputy Alan Johnson has become the early favourite and although his price has eased a touch the best that can be had is 2.1/1. Yet the problem Johnson faces is that Labour MPs only represent a third of the electoral college that will decide the job – another third being the party membership at large and the final third being trade unionists who pay…
We’ve waited an awful long time but at last Betfair has opened a market on the deputy leadership. I’ve bet a bit already but I’m going to wait until we see the next YouGov poll of Labour and affiliated trade union members. Earlier surveys had Benn well ahead but Johnson has the most MP nominations. Harman has the implicit support of Brown while Blears is said to have come out best in the first hustings. Cruddas, meanwhile, has the backing…
Has Ming got the most job security? With last Thursday’s historic resignation by Tony Blair we reached the unprecedented situation where all three main parties have ousted leaders within the past four years. Labour and the Lib Dems have taken up what used to be the exclusive Tory habit of deposing leaders who are thought to be performing badly. This is new territory for UK politics and means, surely, that none of the three has real job security. Once you…
Is it worth betting on Brown taking over a lot earlier? The extraordinary situation that could see Gordon winning the Labour leadership by default this afternoon but having to wait until the end of June before taking over has already led to calls that the change-over should happen now. This is the front page editorial in the Independent this morning and the message could not be clearer. Brown is the winner – what’s the point of Blair struggling on for…