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Category: By elections

Is the plan for Aaron to be Labour’s by-election candidate?

Is the plan for Aaron to be Labour’s by-election candidate?

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Is this what the NUS president was hinting at? There’s been a lot of speculation that the NUS might be planning to run a candidate in the Oldham East & Saddleworth by election following strong hints by the president, Aaron Porter, in an interview on The Politics Show yesterday afternoon But surely the idea of a separate NUS challenge is a nonsense because the last thing that Porter, an aspiring career Labour politician, would want is to take any action…

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Is Harriet the one in tune with Labour voters?

Is Harriet the one in tune with Labour voters?

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Oldham E & Saddleworth decision – right or wrong? (YouGov) All voters CON voters LAB voters LD voters Right 71 82 65 82 Wrong 7 4 12 `8 Don’t know 22 14 23 10 Should there be laws to stop candidates lying about their rivals? (YouGov) All voters CON voters LAB voters LD voters “It is right that there should be laws” 74 86 69 77 “Such laws are a restriction on free speech and risk preventing robust debate” 9…

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An Old and Sad by election? Punters make it 50:50

An Old and Sad by election? Punters make it 50:50

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PoliticalSmarkets Were the Woolas leaflets personal or political? The only betting market relating to today’s court announcement of the verdict in the Oldham East & Saddleworth case is the one above from Smarkets on where the next by election will be held? This is not very liquid although, as at 3am, there was £390 available to lay at 50% on the Phil Woolas seat NOT being the location of the first by election. The critical elements in the case are…

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Is Labour making the Mrs Thatcher “Oct 1990” mistake?

Is Labour making the Mrs Thatcher “Oct 1990” mistake?

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Remember when the “Dead Parrot” struck back Next month we’ll see the twentieth anniversary of what for me was the biggest earthquake in UK politics of my life-time – the ousting of the Conservative party’s three times election winner, Margaret Thatcher. A few weeks earlier, on Friday October 12th 1990, the leader had received her biggest applause from her party conference in Bournemouth in response to a joke based on the famous Monty Python sketch which she linked to the…

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Will the Woolas case change the way elections are fought?

Will the Woolas case change the way elections are fought?

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Whatever the outcome could the judgement set the standards? Exactly two weeks from today the judges in the Phill Woolas case will give their judgements on the way he and Labour carried out their campaign to hold onto Oldham East and Saddleworth. This is the first case of its kind over a Westminster seat in nearly a century and the judgement is likely to set the standards for future elections. For if the verdict goes against the ex-Labour minister who…

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Now you can bet on Hancock’s and Woolas’s future

Now you can bet on Hancock’s and Woolas’s future

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Where will the first by-election be held? The enterprising betting exchange, Political Smarkets, has just opened an ingenious market on which you can bet on both Phil Woolas and Mike Hancock. The betting proposition is simple – where will be next parliamentary by election be held? The options are Oldham East and Saddleworth, Portsmouth South, Fermanagh and South Tyrone and any other seat. Current prices make make “any other seat” the 55% favourite with Phil Woolas’s “Old & Sad” at…

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Is Labour’s plan to big-up the BNP?

Is Labour’s plan to big-up the BNP?

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Will this get the core vote out in the marginals? On the latest Radio 4’s Any Questions the schools secretary, Ed Balls, made a revealing comment on what I took to be part of Labour’s defence strategy in the marginals. When being pressed over UNITE’s financial support for Labour including his own seat on the outskirts of Leeds he replied: ” “Unite members make contributions from their pay packets to help the fight against the BNP…..”. That helped him handle…

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Will YouGov continue the gloom for Cameron?

Will YouGov continue the gloom for Cameron?

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Or will “BullyGate” boost the blues? In an hour or so we’ll get the YouGov daily poll for the Sun and the Tories must be hoping that it’ll show a reversal in the trend of recent weeks. The fieldwork started at 5pm last night and finished at 5pm this evening – so it’s pretty up to date – and is likely to have Labour benefiting much less from the after-glow of their Warwick gathering at the weekend. It will also…

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