Nomination tally: May 24 Total Betting Ed Miliband 35 100% David Miliband 19 100% Ed Balls 4 90% Andy Burnham 1 25% John McDonnell 0 15% Diane Abbott 0 25% Betting on who will get the 33 nominations The big political story, today’s Queen’s Speech of the new government, is only peripheral to the main political betting development – the opening up of a new market on which of the Labour hopefuls will actually make it to the ballot. For…
Observer But is the former leader still influential? There’s been a sharp move to Ed Miilband overnight following the publication of today’s Observer which leads on the intervention by the former leader, Neil Kinnock, into the race. On the Betfair exchange the younger Miliband brother tightened from 4/1 to 3/1 on the news while there’s been an easing of the price on his brother, David, who remains the odds-on favourite. This follows earlier suggestions that the “other Ed”, Balls, might…
Is it being premature to write her off? During the morning I’ve wagered about £80 at odds of about 50/1 against Diane Abbott winning the Labour leadership. Crazy? Maybe – but I’ve had political bets at that price coming good over the past two years* and the way Labour’s election system works makes Abbott just a possibility. Firstly she’ll probably get the 33 nominations – the first hurdle for each of the contenders which has to be done by next…
Look at who did best in the three segments Given how much is going to be wagered on the Labour leadership in the next four months I thought it might be useful to examine in detail what happened the last time the party’s system was used – for the deputy job in June 2007. Labour uses the Alternative Vote system in an electoral college made up of a third to MPs and MEPs; a third to individual members, and a…
Labour leadership betting Smarkets Ladbrokes Betfair David Miliband 60.61% 1/2 1.68 Ed Miliband 24% 5/2 4.4 Ed Balls 9% 8/1 11 Harriet Harman 2% 20/1 40
How big a threat is he to the Miliband duo? Labour’s NEC might have decided on a fairly long campaign to elect Brown’s replacement but they’ve only allowed a very short period for nominations to be made. Essentially a candidate has to find 33 Labour MPs to sign his/her form and there will only be a few days to do this. It will be recalled that in 2007 Brown got his coronation because his team got so many MPs to…
We’ll have to wait until the end of September Gary Gibbon of Channel 4 is reporting that Labour’s NEC has decided on a long campaign to find Brown’s successor with the result being announced at the party conference in September. Gibbon says: ” It’s widely thought this harms the front-runner, David Miliband, and that’s exactly what some on the NEC want it to do…” Maybe – though it will look mighty odd if over the next four and half months…
ICM Labour leadership poll Who would you back? David Miliband 32% Harriet Harman 11% Ed Miliband 9% Ed Balls 8% Andy Burnham 2% John Cruddas 2% The above figures are from the latest ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph and are the views of the electorate as a whole – not just Labour supporters or even those who’ll be able to vote in the coming election. An issue of course is that Gordon Brown’s approach to the leadership meant that…