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Category: General

Is Wyre Forest the way to screw Labour and the Tories?

Is Wyre Forest the way to screw Labour and the Tories?

How LD stand asides could help bring about a hung parliament At the 2001 general election the Lib Dems stood aside in the Wyre Forest seat to help an independent, Richard Taylor, in his single issue campaign of keeping Kidderminster Hospital open. Taylor over-turned a Labour majority of 7,000 and came in 18,000 ahead. There is little doubt that he was aided in this success by the Liberal Democrats’ decision. In 2005 Taylor held onto the seat with a much…

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Boost for Brown as the conference season begins

Boost for Brown as the conference season begins

Tory ICM lead down to just 4% With the annual party conference season getting under way this morning there’s a an ICM poll in the Sunday Mirror that should steady the nerves of Labour and probably help Gordon Brown in his bid to succeed Tony Blair. The shares are with changes on the last ICM poll three weeks ago CON 37 (-3): LAB 33 (+2): LD 21 (-1). From a Labour perspective a four point margin is manageable and does…

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Would a Johnson challenge cost the party a million?

Would a Johnson challenge cost the party a million?

Is Alan being put under pressure over the cost of an election? It is my understranding that a lot of pressure is being put on Alan Johnson and other potential Labour leadership challengers not to stand because of the cost to the cash-starved party of running a contested election. A figure of £1m to mount an election is being bandied about and given the job cut-backs that Labour is having to impose the pressure on potential challengers not to stand…

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Mori poll sensation – Labour 1% ahead!

Mori poll sensation – Labour 1% ahead!

But is the firm embarrassed by its own results? After being behind the Tories in 26 consecutive public polls there’s news this afternoon of a Mori poll taken at the start of the month which has Tony Blair’s party back into the lead. The top line figures with comparisons on the last Mori poll in July are: CON 35%(-1): LAB 36% (+4): LD 19% (-5). The fieldwork was carried out from August 31st to September 6th and so only those…

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Would Brown block leadership TV debates?

Would Brown block leadership TV debates?

Does he duck it or does he give a platform to his opponents? Assuming that there’s a serious contest for the Labour leadership, which looks increasingly likely, then a huge call that Gordon and his team will have to make is how to respond to the inevitable calls for the contenders to take part in a series of TV debates. The pattern was set by the Davis-Cameron confrontations last November and there were similar debates with the Lib Dem contenders…

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Is now the moment to bet on Brown?

Is now the moment to bet on Brown?

Does the latest price of 0.62/1 offer good value? The chart above shows the odds on Gordon Brown succeeding from just after the General Election until this afternoon. As can be seen in the immediate aftermath of May 5th 2005 there was a very high expectancy that the Chancellor would move into No 10 within a very short period and there was no real suggestion that anybody else could pose a challenge. At the time I argued that prices of…

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Is Labour ready for the flack over its election system?

Is Labour ready for the flack over its election system?

Are the party rules “fit for purpose? If I was an opposition “attack dog” I would be licking my lips in anticipation over Labour’s coming leadership election. For unlike what has become the norm in other parties the choice of Labour leader is not determined by a membership ballot in which all votes have equal value. For a process that might have looked democratic when last used 12 years ago when the party was not in power now has a…

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Why the Brown campaign will blow itself up?

Why the Brown campaign will blow itself up?

Is his inability to take criticism his fatal flaw? My biggest “person” bet of 2004 was a big lay when he was odds on that the former Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, would not take the Democratic nomination. I risked a thousand or so after being advised by an academic friend in the state that Dean had furious temper and that sooner or later he would blow himself up – which it did. My biggest person bet in 2005 was…

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