The latest prices suggest an overall Tory majority of just 26 seats After a morning of considerable activity on the commons seats spread betting markets there’s been a sharp move against the Tories and towards Labour as punters reappraise the new situation following the bank bail-out and how it is being viewed both in the UK and overseas. Only two of the three main markets – Sporting Index and Spreadfair – have been open this morning. IG – which used…
Should you be taking the 100/30 against Labour at Glenrothes? By any normal standards Labour should be on target to hold on to the safe seat of Glenrothes in the by election on November 6th. This is the constituency that adjoins Gordon’s in Fife, the candidate is the head of Brown’s old school, and we have seen a big resurgence for the party in the national opinion polls. In the 2005 general election Labour romped home with 51.9% of the…
Should we believe a word the instant pundits say on the night? The general view of the pundits after the first presidential debate last month was that McCain had probably won. He’d made his arguments better and many of the “experts” were ready to pronounce him the instant winner. That’s not how it played out in the polls and since that first encounter the movement has all been one way – to the young black Senator from Illinois. Almost the…
Now the battle moves on to who will get the blame? On what the BBC business editor, Robert Peston, is calling “Momentous Monday” the FTSE 100 has moved up more than 100 points as the City digests the news that RBS is now 60% owned by the government with a 40% share being held in the newly merging Lloyds and HBOS. As part of the deal the chief executives and chairmen of both RBS and HBOS are resigning and Peston…
Welcome to the brave new world of nationalised banking After the most dreadful few days on the markets last week it will be back to business this morning though with a huge difference – large sections of the UK banking industry will now find that the government is the biggest shareholder and that they’ve got much more capital to play with. The details, as I write, are sketchy and a formal announcement is expected this morning – but the papers…
Would his failing eyesight be the reason? In the early of this morning the poster Diogenes linked to the above story and asked the questions “Is this significant? Is it a potential route to a graceful early retirement?” I’ve been thinking about it hard for the past few hours and believe that he might be onto something. Certainly it would be a valid reason for him to go and certainly it would explain the very clear change in his whole…
Should he avoid appearing as though he is enjoying the crisis? After all he has gone through in the past twelve months you can perhaps forgive Brown for feeling a sense of relief that he has now an issue to deal with that apparently plays to his strengths. But is he looking too pleased with himself? He appears to be enjoying the crisis just a little bit too much. Isn’t there a danger that his demeanour might be seen as…
Could the move to Gord be in the heartlands – not in the marginals? Firstly the caveats: As I’ve been saying for weeks polling during the conference season is almost always very odd and we need to wait until the end October surveys at the earliest before we can start drawing conclusions. Secondly looking at sub-samples in polling data can often deceive. But on Saturday the Guardian’s polling writer whose judgement I respect, Julian Glover, produced an analysis on the…