The fourteen minutes that changed the shape of British politics If you want to find just how David Cameron managed to pull off his spectacular victory you need do no more than look again at the fourteen minute feature that appeared on Newsnight on BBC2 on October 3. For it was this report of a “focus” group staged by the US pollster Frank Luntz that did more, I contend, to boost the Cameron campaign than anything else during that week…
It’s 7/4 that he’ll visit his old school during 2006 Amongst a range of rather weak special bets from Paddy Power on David Cameron there’s one that could be quite interesting because it touches a bigger issue – his background as an Etonian. Whenever former pupils achieve positions like that which Cameron will secure on Tuesday there is real pride at the institutions where they studied. Eton, for all its glories, will not escape that and there’s probably a good…
But will the internet pollster’s panel approach be proved right? The only betting interest left in the Tory leadership race is for those, like me, who were tempted by the vote share market that Paddy Power had up for a time. On November 1st I suggested that the 3/1 that was then available on Cameron getting below 66% seemed good value and I put on as much as the bookie would allow me. Today’s final YouGov poll of Tory members…
Only nine days to go before the pay-out Whatever your personal view of the Tories or David Cameron we hope that all those who have been tempted to bet will have had a profitable leadership election. The changing implied probabilities Cameron based on best betting odds are illustrated in our chart. From a best price of 10/1 his price has tightened even further overnight to 0.03/1. After going strongly for him on July 3rd and then on August 1st I…
But survey shows he’d be 5 point behind Brown As a curtain-raiser for their Tory leadership debate today Sky News has commissioned YouGov to test different Tory-Labour leadership combinations. It’s headline conclusion is that the 39 year-old cyclist, David Cameron, is ahead of Tony Blair. In a form of polling that forces respondents to choose between two options without any regard for any other party these were the main splits:- Cameron-Blair 41-38 Davis-Blair 36-41 Cameron-Brown 38-43 Brown-Davis 46-32 We’ve said…
Could “Daily Mail-speak” be having less influence? Will Labour’s first big Labour onslaught on David Cameron after, as expected, he becomes Tory leader on December 6th be on illegal drugs. Not only would an attack focus further on the ambivalence of the 39 year-old’s personal statements but it’s the one policy area where he has said a lot on the record that Labour spinners could use against him. For one aspect of Cameron’s relative lack of front bench experience is…
Betting price set to tighten even further The heavy betting in recent days on David Cameron winning the Tory leadership should continue this morning after getting a pretty good press following his combative interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. In the Times, under the headline “Paxman’s cocktail of rudeness fails to shake Cameron” Ann Treneman amusingly describes the opening when Cameron was asked if he knew what a “Pink Pussy was”. She goes on “…Dave relaxed (always a mistake). “Oh,…
Will Cameron survive the “ordeal by Newsnight”? Six months and ten days after the marathon Tory leadership started the the look on Davis’s face says it all. After being front-runner for so long and then seeing the events in Blackpool turn the contest on its head is there anything he can hope for from the campaign’s final set piece tonight when David Cameron faces Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight? For if there is going to be a last minute upset then…