How Did the Parties Fare on May 3rd? The Conservatives won 5,315 English council seats on May 3rd, a net gain of 911. The Liberal Democrats won 2,171, a net loss of 246. Labour won 1,877 seats, a net loss of 505. The Conservatives made a net gain of 39 councils, leaving them with control of 206, Labour a net loss of 8, leaving them with control of 46, and the Liberal Democrats a net loss of 4, leaving them…
Is this an indication of things to come? It is an indication of how much we have become accustomed to slick presentation and attention to the fine detail of how they look on the screen from the Blairs and Camerons of this world that today’s Brown launch comes as such a shock. For the moment that Gordon has been waiting since 1994, the official launch of his leadership campaign, appears decidedly odd on TV screens because a large part of…
At what price does the risk become too great? My final bet on Brown to succeed Tony was last Sunday when I got a price of 0.08/1. This means for my £200 stake I’ll make a profit of just £16 should, as seems almost certain now, he takes over at Number 10 at the end of June. With Blair’s announcement now over with and the only possible challengers, Meacher and McDonnell, arguing amongst themselves over who should fly the flag…
..Or will the pro-Iraq war Meacher be the left’s standard bearer? The question of whether Brown will get his coronation or face a left-wing challenge is still in the air tonight after the pro-Iraq war Michael Meacher and John McDonnell, who opposed it, announced that they had delayed until Monday a decision over which one of them will run. The plan is that the candidate with the most backing will go forward to see if he can get the 45…
What will politics be like in a world without Blair? We have known for months that this was coming but still the hard fact that Tony Blair will not be Prime Minister from June 27th still comes as a shock. Politics have been so framed for so long by Blair that’s it’s going to be hard adjusting to what things will be like without him. Will this mean that Labour can start to rebuild its popularity or has Blair been…
Uncertainty over the betting market continues until the last For months many have been saying on the site that the terms of the Blair departure date market added a level of real confusion so that what punters might be betting on is not when he is going but how the betting exchange interprets the rules that it itself set. Given that all the consensus is that at lunchtime in his Sedgefield constituency Blair will announce that he is stepping down…
How will this move in the Brown era? On the eve of the Tony Blair’s historic announcement the table shows how punters were assessing the chances of the main parties for the next general election in the Spreadfair commons seats market. In this form of betting you buy or sell seat numbers and you can trade them day in and day out right until the final election is known maybe three years hence. You also do not need to tie…
Philippe almost spot-on in 2nd Round Competition Following Sarkozy’s win over Royal by 53.06% to 46.94, winning 73 départements to her 33, the results of the pb.com 2nd round competition are shown above. The top five players all managed to get their predictions within 0.1% of the actual result. Also, the tie-breaker was needed to separate second and third place. Final ratification of the election results is awaited from the Constitutional Council, but the Interior Ministry figures are unlikely to…