What if it was more than just a rogue “junior”?

What if it was more than just a rogue “junior”?

Could Darling/Brown be accused of being “less than frank”? Two main articles this morning – a competition devised and operated by the site’s regular stand-in editor, Paul Maggs, on the Australian general election and the ongoing implications for the government of the missing data affair. Amongst the acres of coverage of the missing data CDs there are two stories which have the potential to cause serious problems for both Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown. For they suggest that the issue…

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The PBC Australian Election Competition

The PBC Australian Election Competition

Who’ll be the winner Down Under in Saturday’s election? So have all the polls been right and are Labor under Kevin Rudd on course for their first win since 1993 – or can Howard still salvage a fifth term for the Coalition? As with the July by-elections competition, this will once again be by “secret ballot” although there is no Excel spreadsheet this time. Do not put your predictions in the thread below or they will not count – please…

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Will the Broxtowe cats lose out?

Will the Broxtowe cats lose out?

What will the data fiasco do to Nick Palmer’s bet? PBC’s most prolific and long-standing MP contributor, Nick Palmer, often enters into charity bets on the site where the loser, if it is not he, makes a donation to the Cats Protection League in his constituency of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire. One such current bet is that Labour will “not fall below 34% in an ICM poll before the end of 2007”. Given that the last survey had the party at…

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So what will they both say at PMQs?

So what will they both say at PMQs?

Will it be a third bloody session for Gord and his team? With a popular headline this morning being “Another day – another disaster” the Prime Minister cannot be looking forward to his weekly cross examination across the dispatch box at PMQs. This starts at noon. No doubt both Cameron and Brown have been preparing all morning and the interesting element will be whether there will be an attempt to pin the lost data issue on the Prime Minister. He…

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It’s 3/1 that he’ll be out this year

It’s 3/1 that he’ll be out this year

Will Gordon be saying “move over Darling”? Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling cannot have expected good headlines this morning and reproduced above are a selection of the front pages. There’s no denying it – this is bad. There’s no respite on the inside pages. The Sun’s leader sums it up simply under the headline “Strike Two”. This is a story that looks as though it could dog the government for months if not years. The big political question is how…

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The commons spread markets move to the Tories

The commons spread markets move to the Tories

Is this Labour’s biggest crisis in a decade? After what the Mole in The First Post is describing as Labour’s worst crisis in a decade of power there’s been movement on the commons seat spread markets so that for the first time since June Brown’s party is behind. In this form of betting you buy and sell the number of seats that the parties will get at the next election as though they were stocks and shares. Much of the…

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Can it get any worse for the Chancellor?

Can it get any worse for the Chancellor?

News is just emerging about a statement that Alistair Darling will be making to MPs this afternoon about an “operation problem” at HM Revenue and Customs. It is said that millions of records have been “lost”. On the “Next Chancellor” betting market Ed Balls is now priced at evens. Mike Smithson

Obama overtakes Clinton in Iowa

Obama overtakes Clinton in Iowa

Could Hillary’s campaign be impeded by the first state to decide? The main headline overnight on the ABC news in the US is a poll it commissioned with the Washington Post on the state of opinion in Iowa – which on January 3rd will become the first state to make its decisions on the contenders for the 2008 White House race. In the Democrat race the black senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, is recorded as being in the top position…

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