How will next weekend’s vote impact on UK politics? With just a week to go before the French EU constitution referendum betting price on a “Non” have continued to tighten and now a full range of bookmakers are offering markets. The OUI position is still ahead but the best price on a NON is now 5/4. But the result, whichever way it goes, could have an enormous impact UK domestic politics and particularly on the when will Blair go question,…
One of the quirks of modern British politics is that for the last twenty-six years whoever has been the Prime Minister has sat at Westminster for a seat on the A1 trunk road. Margaret Thatcher’s Finchley rests at the southern end of the main route to Edinburgh; John Major’s Huntingdon is on the A1 as it goes through Cambridgeshire and Tony Blair’s Sedgefield covers both sides of the highway in County Durham. So is this “rule” which has lasted a…
Could the Tories really go back to the last leader but two? The big money in the Tory leadership contest has been piling on the last leader to be beaten by Tony Blair, William Hague. At one stage William Hill’s reported that it had taken £85,000 worth of bets on the former leader in just an hour and all the bookmakers have tightened their prices. The best you can get from a conventional bookmaker is 7/2. Hague, who is now…
Who will “win” this final contest? With leadership issues dominating both main parties in this post-election period Hills have opened a new market on which of Michael Howard or Tony Blair will stand down first. The current prices are 1/7 on Howard going before Blair and 4/1 against Blair going before Howard. With the pressure continuing to build on Mister Blair, as everybody now seems to be calling him, the 4/1 looks good value. In the Labour leadership stakes, meanwhile,…
Howard ends up as winner on votes in England For more than a year we’ve been suggesting that a consolation prize for Michael Howard at the 2005 General Election might be that his party “wins” England. In terms of English seats this was always going to be challenging but in terms of votes there is a different picture. Although the all-UK vote split was LAB 35.2: CON 32.3: LD 22 the Tories have exceeded the Labour’s English vote total by…
Will David Davis share the same fate as other Tory front runners? Following Michael Howard announcement that he will stand down as Tory leader “sooner rather than later” the race is now on for a successor. And a wide range of bookmakers are operating online markets on the race. It is no surprise that the Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, has been made the pre-race heavy favourite – but the nature of this contest is that the front runner almost…
Are their dangers in the “politics of fear”? Has there ever been an election where Conservative campaign tactics have come under simultaneous attack in from what in previous times would have been regarded as two great pillars of conservatism in society – the head of the Church of England and the body representing the country’s Chief Constables? Yesterday’s attack by senior police chiefs over a Conservative campaign advertisement on crime for its “misleading statistics”, and the Archbishop of Canterbury warning…
Earlier this morning a former colleague of Lynton Crosby in Australia, Simon Bush, posted a comment on an article about the Tory campaign chief that we had published two months ago. This referred to a complaint he had made to the Times. Because it was posted on such an old file we thought it a good idea to give the comment greater prominence here. I have read with interest your piece on Crosby and his legal notice to the Times…