Your chance to nominate the best contributions As many regulars will know the number of posts on PB since we started in 2004 is just about to hit the million mark. We are currently just over 18,000 short of the magic number which should be reached in the next two to three weeks. So of all the the comments that you have seen are there any that really stand out? Are there any that could be worthy of the title…
Has he been defeated by the markets and the Bank? After Tuesday’s forthright comments on Number 10’s economic strategy by the governor of the Bank of England and the failure of yesterday’s UK auction it was always going to be difficult for Brown to continue with his plan for a further economic stimulus. So the comments in New York highlighted by the Guardian perhaps come as no surprise. But how damaging is the apparent change of direction to him personally…
Would his appearances highlight the Brown absences? Yet again Gordon Brown had other “pressing business” and managed to avoid his weekly commons scrutiny at PMQs – his place being taken as usual by Harriet Harman. I haven’t added this up by my guess is that the PM so arranges his diary that he is facing far fewer PMQ sessions than any other prime minister in modern times. It’s getting to look like a deliberate strategy to avoid something where he…
Bloomberg Could the crisis spark off an early general election? I don’t claim to be an expert in the financial markets but just how seriously should we take the news the the latest British bond fails to find enough buyers? It sounds awful – but is it? The idea that the markets will no longer fund the government is something that sounds coherent and most people will grasp it. The question whether or not it is serious? On Spectator Coffee…
How good is a 100/1 long-shot bet? At 10 pm last night, after an evening in which the right-wing blogsphere had been buzzing over a speech directly to Gordon Brown in the European Parliament yesterday by the Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, our friend Shadsy, the political market maker for Ladbrokes, popped up with a great bet. He had a simple posting here: “If anyone does want to take a flyer on Hannan as next Tory leader, you can have 200/1…
STV News Remember the pollster’s 17% Labour lead in Glasgow East? Last July as the Glasgow East by election campaign was going into its final weekend there was a poll from a firm called Progressive Scottish Opinion suggesting that Labour had a 17% lead. On the following Thursday, of course, the SNP won. This had an immediate impact on the betting with the SNP price moving out and Labour becoming and even tighter odds-on favourite. For those who saw this…
PoliticsHome Marginals Survey September 2008 The PH polls says it’s a Tory gain – so why the long odds? Ever since general election constituency betting started in earnest I’ve been cross-referencing the available markets with last September’s Politics Home Marginals poll which surveyed more than 38,000 voters in 238 different seats. My hunt has been for value bets – good odds on a party named in the survey as the likely winner where perhaps the PH prediction is not the…
Opt2Vote Has postal voting made contracting out inevitable? Anybody who has an interest in the way elections are managed and operated should check out the website of Opt2Vote – a firm based in Londonderry in Northern Ireland which seems to have built up a thriving business on the back of Labour’s changes in the election system since 1997 – particularly with the big extension in postal voting. The scale of the firm’s role in UK elections is reflected in its…