This was Ed Miliband on BBC Breakfast on May 5th 2011 “The central mission of my Government will be to ensure that we get the next generation to have better chances than the last, because that is under threat in this country and unless we make that the focus – unless we make that the mission of the Government – I fear the situation will get worse.” This was Jon Huntsman, third in the betting for the GOP nomination, in…
Will the government have an easy ride? One statistic released this week that received a fair amount of coverage was the median rate of public sector pay settlements in the last quarter: for the first time since the figures were compiled, it had fallen to zero. What is notable is that this restraint hasn’t been accompanied by industrial action. Why not? One possibility is that the unions are biding their time for bigger battles to come, with pension reform being…
Could something go through before 2015? I’m suggesting to Ladbrokes and other bookies that a market is set up on whether legislation will be passed before the next general election requiring at least part of the membership of the house of Lords to be elected. The detailed proposals for such a reform were published three weeks ago and include a 300-member hybrid house, of which 80% are elected. Under the plan members would also serve for single non-renewable terms of…
The Henry G weekly column Labour has to do a hell of lot of work to get in fighting shape for contention at the next election. I’ll look at some of these issues in future columns. However it struck me straight after Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader there were three seemingly ‘superficial’ things that had to be corrected before he really got a proper look-in at becoming Prime Minister. I know this makes me sound old-fashioned but the first…
ConservativeHome A view from a Top Tory analyst There’s an interesting analysis of the May 5th local election result by Rob Hayward on ConHome part of which focuses on the Lib Dem seats which the Tories would hope to take given current polling. “…Nothing in politics is ever perfect nor consistent and the LDs showed remarkable resilience in a number of places probably in the form of incumbency. Where there was a sitting LD MP or Mayor they generally performed…
Do early polls and betting mean that much? The build up to the 2012 White House race is starting to get more attention with lots of polling and betting interest. The question is whether we can read too much into the situation from early polling and betting. The chart shows the Betfair prices on the four favourites ate exactly this stage in 2007. Notice how the eventual winner John McCain had started to edge out – by July 2007 you…
Welcome to Henry G Manson I am pleased to report that Henry G has accepted an invitation join the PB team and will from this weekend have a regular slot. Henry is a long-standing Labour activist in the North East who has been sharing his insights on the site for several years. It was his posts last August that prompted a lot of PBers to get on Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership when could decent price were available. He’s…
Will he still be in the cabinet by the party conference? Those who bet that the resilient Lib Dem energy secretary would still be in the cabinet by the end of May have ended up as winners and Ladbrokes have been very prompt in paying out. The firm has now opened a follow-up market with the operative date being the start of the Lib Dem conference on September 17th. That’s quite a long way off and the whole business of…