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A 200/1 Tip for Next Prime Minister

A 200/1 Tip for Next Prime Minister

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The man who took over Hague’s Richmond (Yorks) seat at GE2015 One ever present Political Betting market is that of who will be the next Prime Minister. This will be greatly influenced by the outcome of the General Election, but probably not settled by this election. This is a market that could take many years before it is settled, which provides opportunities for trading bets. The polls currently indicate a healthy Conservative Majority. If that occurs you can rule out…

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Reporting from the front Lyme

Reporting from the front Lyme

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From the PBer who could be an MP in 17 days time As regular readers will know, I am the Conservative candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme, a seat that has been Labour for a century and has not elected a Conservative since 1880. However I am now facing a majority of just 30, in a seat that voted around 63% to Leave. That’s the official Borough figure – Professor Chris Hanretty has the constituency a touch lower at 61.6% but observers who…

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Election Battlegrounds: Guzzledown

Election Battlegrounds: Guzzledown

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Political Betting doesn’t often discuss exhibitions of 18th century art, but I can highly recommend the Hogarth exhibition currently showing at the commendably eccentric Soane Museum in London. It is a very rare opportunity to see in one place all of Hogarth’s masterly sequences of ‘Modern Moral Subjects’, including A Rake’s Progress, A Harlot’s Progress, and Marriage A-La-Mode. Most topical, though, is The Humours of an Election (1754-1755), depicting a (literally) hard-fought election in the two-member constituency of Guzzledown, Oxfordshire….

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Local By-Election Review : The 2017 – 2019 Parliament

Local By-Election Review : The 2017 – 2019 Parliament

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When I started this, I, like most people, believed I would be tallying the local by-elections for October 2019. Now, I find myself publishing the data for every by-election in the 2017 – 2019 Parliament! And, aside from everything happening inside Westminster, what an eventful few years it has been in local by-elections. We’ve had Labour gaining seats from the United Kingdom Independence Party, Local Independents gaining seats from Labour and Conservatives, Greens gaining seats from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrat…

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An interim government would need more than just a PM

An interim government would need more than just a PM

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There has been much speculation in recent weeks about the possibility of the opposition parties and ex-Tory refuseniks coming together to oust this government and install an interim government, tasked with a very limited role of negotiating an Article 50 extension, promptly followed by a GE. (A variant of this proposal would have the interim government stay in office long enough to call a second EU referendum, but that seems vanishingly unlikely). Like many suggestions for resolving the impasse, this…

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How strong is Trump’s Senate firewall?

How strong is Trump’s Senate firewall?

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A guest slot from Fishing Almost three years ago, a few days after Trump was elected, I wrote a thread on this site saying that the Democrats would be able to find an excuse to impeach Trump if they gained control of the House in 2018 for that reason, 2019 would be the peak year of danger for Trump in this respect but I expected that the Senate would acquit, because of its likely Republican majority following the Midterms. Given…

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September 2019 Local By-Election Review

September 2019 Local By-Election Review

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Votes Cast, Share, Change (in votes and seats) Conservatives 9,961 votes (34% unchanged on last time) winning 9 seats (unchanged on last time) Liberal Democrats 8,000 votes (27% +12% on last time) winning 4 seats (+2 seats on last time) Labour 7,914 votes (27% -7% on last time) winning 6 seats (+1 seat on last time) Scottish National Party 1,202 votes (4% unchanged on last time) winning 0 seats (unchanged on last time) Green Party 1,170 votes (4% -1% on…

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Local By-Election Summary : August 2019

Local By-Election Summary : August 2019

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Votes Cast, % Share, Change in votes and Seats : August 2019 Liberal Democrats 6,218 votes (33.94% +5.23% on last time) winning 5 seats (+1 seat on last time) Conservatives 5,362 votes (29.27% -2.66% on last time) winning 2 seats (-1 on last time) Labour 2,951 votes (16.11% -10.04% on last time) winning 0 seats (-1 on last time) Scottish National Party 1,582 votes (8.63% +2.88% on last time) winning 1 seat (unchanged on last time) Local Independents 824 votes…

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