Will this be the shot we’ll be seeing on January 20th 2009? A couple of weeks ago Madame Tussauds produced the above display showing a wax life-size model of Barack Obama in a mocked up Oval Office. Maybe it’s a bit premature to feature this and even if he gets the nomination he still has John McCain to beat. But there’s a list of good news stories for the young senator this morning Washington Post columnist, Al Kamen, declares “Let’s…
Boris says he’ll quit as an MP if he beats Ken The Tory candidate for London Mayor has said this afternoon that if elected he will resign as an MP thus creating a by election at his seat in Henley in Oxfordshire. At the 2005 general election Boris held the seat with a 53.5% vote share. The Lib Dems were in second place on 26% with Labour at 15%. On the face of it the seat looks like a safe…
A new poll with a sample of 2118 people is just out from YouGov for the Economist and shows Labour moving up a notch and the Tories down a point. The fieldwork was carried out from Monday through till Wednesday and so covered the Northern Rock nationalisation. The vote shares compared with the last YouGov poll at the weekend are CON 40% (-1): LAB 34% (+2): LD 16% (nc). The Tories will be pleased to remain in the 40s while…
Was the Texas debate her valedictory? The overnight debate in Texas between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama certainly lived up to its billing with both contenders performing very well. There wasn’t a victor and Hillary did not get in the knock-out blow in that many were suggesting she needed. One of the critical moments came right at the end. The huge audience rose to a standing ovation as Hillary shook Barack’s hand and said “I am honoured to be here…
Half the voters support nationalisation A “quickie” poll by Populus for tomorrow’s Times has some good news for the government over the Northern Rock crisis. A total of 519 people were interviewed last night with 49% backing nationalisation. The sample supported Darling remaining as Chancellor by 50 to 38 per cent. But it’s not all plain sailing. 58% blamed the Labour Government for some of the problems while 64% blamed the Bank of England and City authorities. There was most…
As some of you may have noticed at 2:20am on Super Tuesday, our existing server infrastructure (which was put in place three and a half years ago), is creaking. A new server has been acquired, and on Sunday (starting in the small hours of the morning) we’ll be migrating everything across. With a little luck, everything will be up and running by 8am on Sunday morning. But, of course, it may take longer, be more complex, etc., than anticipated. Normal…
Will the Stop-Blair coalition get its way? I was slightly reticent about doing this story because the words “Tony Blair” and “European Union” don’t bring out the best in parts of the PBC community. But why not because there is lots of coverage today about Tony Blair’s desire to try to become President of Europe and the coalition of interests that is lining up to try to stop him. Rod Liddle in the Spectator notes that “..the former PM has…
Betfair alone sees £5m being traded on the White House race With eight and a half months to go before the US election in November it’s clear that the race will become the biggest political betting event ever on UK markets. So far on the Betfair exchange alone just on £5m worth of bets have been traded and my estimate is that with the spread firms and the fixed odd bookies well over £10m has now been wagered on the…