But if not the Chancellor – who? The current best price on Gordon Brown to be next leader of the Labour Party is 1/4. That means that if you bet £100 your winnings would be £25 and given Tony Blair’s statement about his plans then you could be waiting for, maybe, four years to collect. If so your winnings would barely cover the interest on putting the money in the building society. But have the recent promotions of Charles Clarke…
In his attempt to pull off an unprecedented and spectacular third General Election victory Tony Blair is making crime/law & order/ and immigration the centre pieces of Labour’s policy portfolio. These were the main items in the Queen’s Speech last month and they are the centre part of his New Year’s message, just published. Before the 1997 Election Blair had the brilliant “Tough on Crime – Tough on the Causes of Crime” rhetoric to underpin his appeal to both the…
Can a divided party continue to win support? As the Tories have proved so effectively in the past two General Elections the electorate likes unity and is turned off by divisions in parties that are seeking their support. With the Cabinet changes following the Blunkett resignation the old tensions between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have come to the surface again with the Brown camp said to be alarmed at Blair’s decision to install David Miliband as Alan Milburn’s deputy…
Will the loss of the Mail’s “Giant amongst pygmies” hurt Blair? The best bookmaker price on Labour winning most seats has eased from 1/7 to 1/6 in the aftermath of the Home Secretary’s dramatic resignation yesterday. Although not a big move it does reflect the importance that David Blunkett had in leading for Labour on the key theme of their pre-General Election legislative programme. Almost all the keynote bills in last month’s Queen’s Speech, including the introduction of compulsory ID…
Could complacency costs votes and seats It’s generally agreed that a key reason why the turnout in 2001 dropped to below 60% was that the outcome seemed like a foregone conclusion. Nobody could really believe that William Hague’s Tory party posed a serious threat and this caused people to stay at home. The polls, clearly, had a part to play in this but even taking in the 6.6% average overstatement of Labour’s margin the Tories were always miles behind and…
William Hill have cut their odds about David Blunkett standing down as Home Secretary on or before January 1, 2005 from 7/2 to 5/2, but make him 2/7 still to be in office on that date. ‘All the money we have taken so far – including the largest bet struck of �200 – has been for Blunkett to go’ said a Hill’s spokesman. Given the publicity there has been and he is still there we wonder whether the lower price…
Is Tony Blair right to back his Home Secretary? So far there have not been any polls since the media frenzy erupted last weekend on the Blunkett paternity affair. We might get a better idea on Tuesday when the December Populus poll in the Times should be out and hopefully there will be some Blunkett-specific questions. The story has already kept the focus away from what should have been the two star attractions of the Government’s pre-election policy portfolio –…
Why no WILL BLUNKETT SURVIVE markets? In recent years a healthy tradition has grown up of betting on whether politicians in trouble will survive. Within days of the David Kelly case last year you could back or lay on whether or not the main players – Alastair Campbell, Geoff Hoon, Tony Blair, Andrew Gilligan, Gavyn Davies – would hold onto their jobs beyond September 30 2003. In terms of taste the Kelly case was far worse than the Home Secretary’s…