Are constituency primaries the pattern for the future?

Are constituency primaries the pattern for the future?

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BBC online Is this a way of reconnecting with the voters? The result of the Conservative Totnes primary was announced this lunchtime and the big number that will be looked at is the 24.6% turnout. This puts it on par with what we saw last year in the US presidential primaries and gives the winner a very different mandate from those selected as parliamentary by standard selection procedures. Here it’s almost always in the hands of local parties with, in…

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Could an Irish “YES” revive the Tory EU nightmare?

Could an Irish “YES” revive the Tory EU nightmare?

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Is tolerating Lisbon the price for power? On Friday October 2nd, just before the Conservatives gather for their last conference before the general election, the Irish vote in their second referendum on the Lisbon EU treaty having rejected it first time round. A NO vote would be brilliant for the Tories because Lisbon would then be rejected with the UK having “clean hands”. But if the betting markets have got this right then the outcome will be a YES and,…

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Political betting – a Rumsfeldian perspective

Political betting – a Rumsfeldian perspective

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AntiFrank speculates on “the unknown unknowns”? Chess is a trivial game. I do not make this statement to annoy chess players: it is a mathematical statement. All information is available to both players throughout, the rules are predetermined and in theory at least all possible outcomes are known. Unlike chess, bridge is a non-trivial game. The different players have different information at different times. Each player must make his decisions not on the basis of perfect information but on the…

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Was Cameron wrong with his Tesco comparison?

Was Cameron wrong with his Tesco comparison?

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Is this like Thatcher’s “.. no such thing as society” comment? There’s been a flurry of comment over David Cameron’s comment in his BBC “Westminster Hour” interview in which he suggested that the Tories would run the country like Tesco and Sainsbury’s if they get to power. The exact quote was according to the Sun: “In the situation we will face if we win the election, a budget deficit of maybe 14 per cent, we must find ways to cut…

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Could Labour hold on by re-kindling the Glenrothes “magic”?

Could Labour hold on by re-kindling the Glenrothes “magic”?

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Why was that result so out of line? Just look at the table above showing the change in the actual number of votes cast for Labour in by elections in the current parliament. The list only features those constituencies that the party was defending and the change is compared with the general election. As is generally accepted parties in government do badly in such contests and Labour has lost half of them. But what happened at Glenrothes last November? It…

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The Brazilian futures market

The Brazilian futures market

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Wikimedia Commons Dan Hamilton takes an early look at Brazil 2010 On Sunday 10th October 2010, Brazilians will go to the polls to pick the country’s fourth directly-elected President since the resumption of civilian rule in 1985. The 2010 elections will mark the first Presidential election since 1989 in which incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former shoe-shiner and sheet metal worker, will not be a candidate. Choosing not to emulate the example of Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe or…

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Should you take the 20/1 against PM4PM before 2020?

Should you take the 20/1 against PM4PM before 2020?

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Have you joined the great Mandelson gamble? The news this morning that efforts are being made to find Peter Mandelson a safe Labour seat in County Durham for the general election has set off a big gamble on the political betting markets. Both Ladbrokes and William Hill have issued press release – the latter now making Mandelson 8/1 to be the next Labour leader. The Ladbrokes prices is a more comfortable 16/1. Ladbrokes say that for every pound at the…

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Where have the Labour voters gone?

Where have the Labour voters gone?

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Is it going to be as bad for Labour as 1997 was for the Tories? Reading too much into by-election results is a very dangerous game. There aren’t very many of them and where and when they take place is close to a random process. However, having said all that, there’s one aspect of the recent Norwich North by-election result which could be an important pointer and which hasn’t had much coverage: the scale of the collapse of support for…

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