Who will be dragged to the chair next? When Michael Martin decides to step down as Speaker of the House of Commons, a new mechanism for election to this office will be used for the first time. Following the glut of nominees for the post in 2000, proposals recommended by Tony Benn were modified and adopted by the House Select Committee, whereby MPs will vote by secret ballot, eliminating a candidate who comes last or receives less than 5% of…
How long until a BME PM? Trevor Phillips, former Chairman of the Comission for Racial Equality, now a Labour member of the GLA and head of the equality watchdog, claimed yesterday in a Radio 4 interview that “institutional racism” would prevent a black or Asian politician from reaching Number 10. He was particularly damning of the unions and the left-leaning think-tanks for supporting the notion of ethnic minority candidates, whilst (in his view) the systems and structures of political parties…
CON 43(+1)LAB 30(nc)LD 18(-3) No solace for Brown in new poll A new ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph puts the Conservatives on 43%, Labour on 30%, and the Liberal Democrats on 18%. The changes from the last ICM poll (in the Guardian on October 19th) show that the Tories gained 1 point, Labour saw no change, and the Lib Dems fell by 3 points from their previous score of 21%. In spite of a good win in Glenrothes, increasing…
Can Our Genial Host do it again? After the dramatic events of this week, and with some issues such as Nebraska’s college votes and the Minnesota senate race still unresolved, already the bookies are pricing up the markets for the 2012 race. Mike’s 50-1 Obama bet is rightly and firmly enshrined in PB legend, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to “benchmark” the odds for the next election just days after this year’s vote. Obama is already…
How much was down to Gord being local? (Note: this posting was prepared before I left for my short holiday – if it has been overtaken by events then that’s the reason) One feature of this election is the extent to which we should have taken into account that there is undoubtedly a lot of Fife pride about a local man being prime minister. This is the same pattern that we see in the constituencies of party leaders during general…
A day for humble pie from punters? There’s little doubt that Labour’s successful defence overnight of Glenrothes, and by such a margin, is a sensational result that has the potential to change the political landscape. It is also one in the eye for punters who got this terribly wrong. My initial call on this, just ten days ago, was to back Labour at prices that were then about 7/4. The opinion polls in Scotland were running in the party’s favour…
The result thread? I am still knackered from Tuesday/Wednesday so won’t be staying up for the result. The betting should continue right until the declaration. Cheers, Mike Smithson
Could there still be a shock? The chart above shows the best Labour betting price expressed as an implied probability over the past 24 hours and as can be seen there has been a steady decline. Generally on by-election days the party campaign HQs start to get a feel in the early evening of how well they are doing and this often is reflected in the betting. Alas that has yet to happen though it does seem to have bottomed…