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Category: Labour

Has Labour saved the British sausage?

Has Labour saved the British sausage?

Are Blair-Brown winning the spin war over the Euro summit? If there is one symbol above all that represents “Britishness” (G. Brown please note) it is, surely, the British sausage. For after that wonderful Yes Minister programme all those years ago it’s a good metaphor for Britain’s relations with the EU. Viewers will no doubt recall the classic episode of the programme when a distracting tactic was drawn up to “save the British sausage” as a mean of boosting the…

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Should Gord have offered Paddy the Foreign Office?

Should Gord have offered Paddy the Foreign Office?

Was Brown being serious or just playing politics? Perhaps the element that shows the level of seriousness that Brown attached to his desire to create “a Government of all the talents” is the job that was actually offered to Paddy Ashdown – Northern Ireland secretary. Important? Yes – but not as big a job as it was now the power sharing government at Stormont is operating properly. Surely given Ashdown’s former role as the international community’s High Representative for Bosnia…

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Is Johnson the certainty that the betting suggests?

Is Johnson the certainty that the betting suggests?

But is there still value in a Harriet Harman bet? If punters have got this right then the Education secretary, Alan Johnson, looks pretty certain to pick up the Labour deputy leader crown when the results are announced this weekend. Our chart, showing prices reflected as implied probabilities, indicates the big swing that there’s been in the past few days. But surprisingly betting has been very light. Only £74,000 has been matched on the Betfair market reflecting the lack of…

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Is being on the right side of the polls enough?

Is being on the right side of the polls enough?

Can Brown be liberal and illiberal at the same time? At the recent British Polling Council conference I got into a debate with a Labour party official about being mis-led by polling findings and that the only thing that mattered was the electoral impact. Thus pursuing a policy that was broadly supported was not necessarily the right thing to do. He quoted the national ID card issue which poll after poll has shown has broad public support and on which…

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Would accepting this be the end of Ming?

Would accepting this be the end of Ming?

Should the Tories be cheering such a development? Reproduced above is part of the top political story in the Guardian this morning which, if true and implemented, could change the face of British politics. For Ming Campbell and the Lib Dems such an offer could appear to be very tempting and for Brown it would be a way of showing from day one that his approach is going to be vastly different from Tony Blair’s. Yet such an offer if…

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Voters believe they’d be better off under Dave

Voters believe they’d be better off under Dave

More findings from Sunday’s YouGov poll released The above is reproduced from the detailed data from the YouGov poll that appeared in the Sunday Times and has just been made available on the pollster’s web-site in line with British Polling Council transparency requirements. I find the response to the “Who would you trust more to raise your and your family’s standard of living?” question very surprising, especially in view of all positive scores that Gordon has had as Chancellor. As…

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How much will Question Time affect the outcome?

How much will Question Time affect the outcome?

Was Cruddas the night’s big loser? The above prices (as at 5am) show the impact of last night’s Question Time programme on BBC 1 featuring all the candidates for Labour’s deputy leadership. By a long way the big loser on the evening was John Cruddas who has now moved out from about 7/1 with Betfair to the latest 12/1. The Ladbrokes price will almost certainly move out when their offices open this morning. The comments by Cruddas on his housing…

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Labour getting closer on the Commons spread markets

Labour getting closer on the Commons spread markets

Why I’m continuing to keep my money on Gordon For me the most satisfactory form of general election betting is to buy and sell the number of Commons seats on the spread betting markets. Here the projected seat numbers at the next general election are traded like stocks and shares and you don’t have to wait until the election takes place before you can pocket any winnings. Until now the only Commons spread market that is operating is the above…

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