How can the rebellion progress without a cabinet minister? It seems to have been going on much longer but it is less than a week since Siobhain McDonagh (above) decided to put her job on the line in order to make Brown’s leadership an issue in the countdown to the Labour conference in Manchester in a week’s time. Since then others have followed while Labour’s NEC and the cabinet have come together to defend the leader that 313 MPs felt…
After storming forward in the betting following his Palin V-P pick and the convention the move to the Republicans has faltered as the above chart of Betfair prices converted to an implied probability shows. Before the weekend it looked as though the 72 year old Senator would be favourite in all markets. Now only the Dublin-based Intrade has him tighter than evens. The latest Iowa Electronic Market fix was at about Obama 56% to McCain’s 44%. Certainly McCain is still…
This quote from John Harrington referred to by Mr Jabberwock on the morning thread is quite timely and made me chuckly. For most of the day I’m in London for meetings and a CNN interview so won’t be posting normally until I return home tonight. Mike Smithson UPDATE: Scotland Office Minister, David Cairns, has resigned according to the BBC. Morus
Will it enable Obama to refocus more strongly on the economy? The economic and financial impacts of the failure of Lehman Brothers have been rippling outwards today as stock markets around the world are sharply down (with the FTSE dropping almost 4% and the Dow currently down about 2.5%). But what will be the political consequences of the events on Wall Street? With the polls and the markets narrowing in the White House race, is this one “event” that actually…
Will tax and public spending cuts help stem the Tory surge? Today’s crisis at Lehman Brothers and all the attention that Labour’s leadership crisis is getting are somewhat over-shadowing the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth. The party which finds it difficult getting publicity at any time always looks for a boost from its conference and this is just more bad luck for Nick Clegg. For many in the party the key issue is how do they deal with the threat…
Wouldn’t this clear the air and he could possibly win? One thing’s for certain – the disquiet within the Labour party about the leadership that has suddenly gone public is going to continue even if Team Brown manage to see off the current threat. And all this does is make Brown look weaker and weaker resulting in it being even harder for him to govern properly adding further to Labour’s polling woes. But it does not need to be like…
Overnight buying points to a majority of more than 62 seats While Labour’s travails over the leadership continue there’s been a further sharp move on the commons seats spread betting markets where political gamblers “trade” the number of MPs the parties will get at the next general election as though they were stocks and shares. Serious money is being wagered with punters being ready to risk a lot of money. The numbers in the panel above are with SportingIndex and…
The leading political stories from today’s papers Once again, a dismal set of stories for Downing Street, as the fin de siecle feel continues for the government, rather like 1995-7. There’s another unhelpful intervention from Tony Blair, courtesy of the usual “well-placed sources”. Brown should consider standing down rather than face the humiliation of an election defeat, says the former PM, while the same article reports that Ruth Kelly is expected to quit in a Cabinet reshuffle expected this autumn….