Is laying the Tories here an almost total certainty? Like one or two other punters, it seems, I have been taking as much as is available on lay bets on the Tories in the Betfair Buckingham market. My reasoning is quite straightforward – this is the seat of John Bercow, the Speaker, who in the traditional way renounced his link with his former party and all others when he got elected to the post in June. At the coming general…
Has Bercow’s wife made it easier for the UKIP leader? Could today’s news that the Speaker’s wife, Sally Bercow, has been selected to stand for Labour in next year’s London elections add to her husbands problems in fighting off the challenge from Nigel Farage in Buckingham? For her action might just provide the peg for the UKIP campaign to persuade Tory supporters that they “have permission” not to vote for the Speaker who, by tradition, is not opposed by the…
Are we seeing a new approach from the speaker? The main feature for me of a fairly subdued PMQs was the readiness of the speaker, John Bercow, to stop Gordon Brown from using his replies to attack opposition policy – something that has become almost common place. It happened in a reply on the first question on the NHS. Brown was just about to launch into an attack on some comments that shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley had made when…
Telegraph Have the Telegraph editors lost their sense of proportion? If you had been following the PB thread last night and had monitored other political blogs then you’d have thought that the political world as we know it was about to come to an end. I was being texted and called with the news that something “very big was going to break”. The story came out at 10pm and looking at how the paper has treated it you would have…
The UKIP man’s price moves in to 10/3 The big political betting news this weekend continues to be the general election fight in Buckingham between John Bercow and Nigel Farage. When ex-UKIP leader announced on Thursday morning that we would be standing against the speaker Ladbrokes opened the betting with a price of 6/1 that he’d do it. That didn’t last long and tightened to 4/1. Now Ladbrokes have had to bring in the price further because so much money…
Is Speaker Bercow going to follow through on his warning? Last Wednesday in his statement after PMQs Speaker Bercow made it clear that the first place ministers should make announcements was to the house of commons. Well what’s he going to do about Peter Mandelson’s radio comments this morning that the spending review will be postponed until after the election? Surely this big news on the government’s management of the economy should have come first in a statement to MPs?…
What if an “independent” Tory fought Bercow? One feature of the week that I’ve found shocking and unexpected has been the venom from many parts of the Tory party over the man who was elected speaker of the commons on Monday, John Bercow. I was no fan of the Buckingham MP but I made damn sure in my betting that I was covered on a Bercow victory even getting 4/1 on him while the first round votes were being counted….
Will the “dignified exit” then come in September? Ever since his survival after the June 4th elections disaster there’s been talk that a deal was done with Mandelson during those critical few days for Brown to be allowed to stay so he could have a “dignified exit” at a less frenetic time. This, I believe, is the sub-text of much of what is going on at the moment with Simon Carr putting it clearly in the Indy this morning. “And…