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…
What are the “other” contenders going to do to the Davis percentage? It’s only six days to go before Haltemprice and Howden – the by election where the former shadow home secretary, David Davis, is defending his seat made vacant by his resignation over the 42 day detention decision. With both Labour and the Lib Dems standing aside there’s an odd assortment of 25 others who will be on the ballot. It’s hard to see anything other than a big…
Have we been mesmerised by Boris, Crewe and Henley? During this crazy political period of spring and early summer the sure-fire way of winning political bets has been always to go against Labour. We had Boris’s triumph in London, the Tory gain in Crewe and Nantwich, followed by the Labour lost deposit in Henley. Bet against Labour – pick up your winnings. Now we’ve got the Glasgow East by election later in the month and judging by comments on the…
Could the Thatcher stunt come to haunt Labour? An alert PB reader has reminded me that last September after Gordon Brown had his historic tea with Baroness Thatcher at Number 10 the SNP said they would use the pictures on their general election leaflets. Well now in the countdown to Glasgow East is Alex Salmond’s party going to bring this plan forward and are we we going to see pictures like the one above being revived. For even the Baroness’s…
How much goodwill is squandered when you over-egg the pudding? A week before the Henley by election I reproduced the above mass email sent to Lub Dem activists because I believed it was behind sharp moves in the betting prices and that all that text highlighted in red suggested that the party had some game-changing information that was about to be revealed. Well what came out the following day did not match the billing and I think that this raises…
Will Walter Sweeney attack from the right on 42 days? Amongst the massive list of contenders for the Haltemprice and Howden by election is a Dublin-born former Tory MP who looks set to attack Davis from the right on 42 day detention period issue. He is Walter Sweeney who held Vale of Glamorgan for the Tories by 19 votes in 1992 and who had plenty of run-ins with David Davis during the Maastricht votes in the final years of the…
Will this have an impact on Brown’s survival? As predicted and recommended here over the past week the most certain bet on the Henley by-election was that Labour would lose its deposit which they did dropping from 6,862 votes at the general election to 1,066 and end up in fifth place behind both the Green party and the BNP. With the Lib Dems fighting hard it was always going to be that the Labour vote would get squeezed and in…
Reports coming onto the last thread from on the ground in Henley suggest that the BNP have done quite well – there’s even talk of them getting into third place. Such a result would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons. We’ll know the result in a few hours. There’s be no indication from the betting markets that this is going to be anything other than a Conservative victory. The big questions are how close the Lib Dems will have…