Does DaveM want to tie his hands on his shadow cabinet? Following yesterday’s overwhelming decision by the UNITE union’s national policy committee to endorse Ed Miliband for the leadership the focus has turned to Ed Balls and his continuation in the contest. Without the backing of the biggest union and the one he’s been most associated with it’s hard to see how he can clinch the prize at the end of September. Would a better course now be to pull…
It’s 24-4-4 from UNITE’s political committee The younger Miliband brother has moved a step nearer to securing a big vote in the trade union section of Labour’s leadership election following the decision of the political committee of UNITE to recommend that he be given the endorsement. The final decision will be taken on Monday. He’s already got the GMB and UNISON in the bag. What’s remarkable is not just today’s outcome but the scale of the vote. It’s understood the…
Candidate Best bookie price Betfair Back – Lay David Miliband 8/13 1.6 – 1.67 Ed Miliband 15/8 2.9 – 3.1 Ed Balls 18 32 – 40 Andy Burnham 33 55 – 65 Diane Abbott 50 95 – 110 Are we seeing the Andree Neil effect? After a week where Labour’s leadership betting has been driven by the number of union endorsements going to Ed Miliband and the Left Foot Forward projection the move to the younger M has stalled. At…
The numbers attached to each of the contenders are from the main Labour party site which is producing regular updates. I think that they are a little bit behind on TU endorsements. Candidate Best bookmaker price Betfair back Betfair lay David Miliband 4/7 Betfred 1.61 1.62 Ed Miliband 5/2 Paddy Power 3.75 3.8 Ed Balls 14/1 Ladbrokes 15 16 Andy Burnham 33/1 Betfred 38 50 Diane Abbott 50/1 Ladbrokes 90 120 Links – Ladbrokes; PaddyPower My main betting during the…
It’s 6/1 that it WON’T be one of the two? Ladbrokes has a market that the winner of Labour’s leadership contest won’t be a Miliband. It’s 6/1 against that option with 1/14 that it will be a Miliband. If you are tempted then I’d suggest backing one or more of the other three rather than taking this bet. The best traditional bookie price is 12/1 against Balls with 25/1 against Burnham and 33/1 Abbott. The betting exchanges have even longer…
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What’ll the schools fiasco do to the race? We’ve still got about two months to go before the Labour movement starts voting on its next leader and I’ve long argued that it’ll be the political environment at the time that will determine the outcome. It’s how Labour collectively feels about itself in eight or nine weeks time that matters and I just wonder whether Ed Balls has been given a golden opportunity to show his prowess with the Gove school…
Is this now a contest between the brothers? Early on in the Labour leadership battle, Mike drew what I thought was potentially a good analogy between David Cameron’s succesful campaign for the Tory leadership in 2005 and Andy Burnham’s candidature for Labour this time round. Young Burnham, he surmised, could turn out to be the Cameron of this campaign – a relative unknown coming from behind to win while better-known front-runners faltered. As it is, Burnham has hardly achieved lift-off.  …