Could smoking be what does for Charles next time?

Could smoking be what does for Charles next time?

Would the train incident thwart any come-back plan? It’s August and yesterday we got what looks like becoming a hardy annual in the run-up to the Lib Dem conference – the Charles Kennedy come-back story. This year’s has been sparked off by his comments yesterday at Scotland’s “Festival of Politics” after he was asked if he was “..going to be the comeback kid?” According to the BBC report he replied: “When you have been the leader of a national political…

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The polling famine is nearly over

The polling famine is nearly over

The Guardian’s August ICM survey should be out this weekend After two weeks without any national voting intention surveys – a period which has seen intense speculation about how the main parties are doing in the new political context – I am advised that we should see results from the Guardian’s August ICM “over the weekend”. That’s likely to mean either tomorrow or on Bank Holiday Monday. The paper’s uninterrupted polling series with ICM is the longest running in the…

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Is YouGov 10% contributing to GB’s referendum trap?

Is YouGov 10% contributing to GB’s referendum trap?

Can the leadership be challenged without Labour paying a price? Aside from the dramatic rise in street violence the issue that’s dominating the political scene is the growing threat of a revolt within the wider Labour movement over GB’s decision not to have a referendum on the EU treaty. There’s a report this morning that at least 40 Labour MPs are calling for talks on the EU plan to be re-opened and a number of unions are gathering forces ahead…

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Hung parliament back as favourite

Hung parliament back as favourite

In the absence of any polls, particularly from the Lib Dem unfriendly YouGov, there’s been a change in the favourite on Betfair’s general election outcome market. The chart shows the betting odds converted into implied probabilities. The current favoured outcome, at 1.48/1 is a hung parliament with a Labour majority at 3/2. A Tory overall majority is out at nearly 4/1. I’ve just heard that Ipsos-Mori, in addition to their Sun poll a fortnight ago, will be doing their standard…

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Is Labour about to lose its poll lead?

Is Labour about to lose its poll lead?

Could Nick Palmer be right about the next round of surveys? In a post last night Nick Palmer – the Labour MP for Broxtowe and the first of any party to contribute to Politicalbetting under his own name – made an extraordinary prediction about the next round of polls. This is what he wrote: “I think we can all agree the media stories this week are mostly helpful to the Tories, so do Tories here expect to be back in…

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How damaging has this been for Dave?

How damaging has this been for Dave?

What do we think of the latest move? The Tory health cuts saga has taken a new turn with the party retracting the apology it found itself having to issue when inaccuracies were found on its list of hospitals at risk. The problem with getting specific, as they did yesterday, is that you can pick off each component and find somebody who will say that a particular service is not under threat. So rather than arguing about the big picture…

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Has the media got wise to Gord’s policy stealing?

Has the media got wise to Gord’s policy stealing?

Are we seeing a change of the political terms of trade? When the chief secretary to the treasury, Andy Burnham (right) accepted an invitation to go on Newsnight on the day John Redwood’s Tory policy review was published he must have thought that his task was going to be easy. Just chuck in a few hand grenades about Cameron being forced to the right and then make the standard attacks on “unfunded Tory tax cuts”. Alas it was not to…

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What’s been your favourite PBC post?

What’s been your favourite PBC post?

Introducing the special area on Facebook for PBC users Last night a PBC regular contacted me to ask if I’d seen what was on the Facebook website about Politicalbetting. I said I hadn’t but when I checked out the social networking site I was amazed to discover that somebody had established what’s called “The Politicalbetting.com Appreciation Society“. Apparently it’s been going for a few weeks and a couple of dozen people have signed up. What’s really interesting is that the…

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