Has Gordon decided that it’s better to have a contest?

Has Gordon decided that it’s better to have a contest?

Is Brown-Miliband contest looking more likely? Over the past month all the indications from the Gordon Brown camp suggested that they were totally opposed to a contested election for the Labour leadership and everything was being designed to give the Chancellor his coronation. We had Margaret Beckett and Peter Hain making statements suggesting it was almost being anti-Labour for anybody to consider fighting against Gordon. There was also the reported plan of Brown’s campaign manager, Jack Straw, to close down…

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Can Gordon’s gang manage the end game?

Can Gordon’s gang manage the end game?

Will they cope as the pressure builds up? Yet again Gordon and his team are having their weekend spoilt by a hostile story about a past action by the Chancellor from a part of the media empire that they used to think of as being supportive. Today in the Sunday Times it’s Gordon’s decision to flog off half of Britain’s gold reserves in 1999 that comes under scrutiny. Unfortunately, as the paper observes, the price of gold has trebled in…

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Could the pollsters be overstating the SNP again?

Could the pollsters be overstating the SNP again?

Are both Labour and the Tories be doing better than the surveys suggest? With the Scottish elections less than three weeks away and almost all the polls pointing to the SNP finishing up as top party in the Scottish Parliament it is perhaps worth looking at the record of polling in Scotland. For as the above table on how the pollsters fared in 2003 illustrates there is a strong tendency for all the firms to over-state the SNP vote. Could…

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PBC Combined Book Launch and Party

PBC Combined Book Launch and Party

Tuesday 17th April – National Liberal Club – 3pm – 7pm Harriman House, publishers of Mike’s book, are offering a bottle of champagne to whoever gets closest to guessing the amount of the advance to Tony Blair for his political memoirs. Entry is free. Just email me at arklebar@talktalk.net. If you want a copy of the book to collect at the Launch, you can get it for the knock down price of £10 by contacting Tom Orchard through this link….

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Sean Fear’s Friday slot

Sean Fear’s Friday slot

A Guide to the Local Elections (Part I) – The Background On May 3rd, approximately 10,500 council seats (including by-elections) will be contested in England, and another 1,100 in Scotland. In England, 154 District Councils and 25 Unitary Authorities have all-out elections, while the 36 Metropolitan Boroughs, 20 Unitary Authorities, and 77 Districts are electing one third of their seats. The 32 Scottish Authorities have all out elections, although they will change from first past the post, to election by…

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Do you fancy being a “trader” on the general election?

Do you fancy being a “trader” on the general election?

Is there money to be made looking for short-term movements? After the May 3rd elections at least one other spread-betting firm will be offering a general election seat market to run alongside that from Spreadfair (see latest price above) on how many MPs each of the main parties will get next time. If the next election follows previous ones then this form of betting and these prices will play a key part in the next two years or so. For…

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Will the “Draft Miliband” plan persuade him to stand?

Will the “Draft Miliband” plan persuade him to stand?

The Guardian steps up the pressure with today’s main splash With just four weeks to go to May 9th – one of the the dates being touted for Tony Blair’s historic exit announcement – the Guardian ratchets up the anti-Brown coronation rhetoric with its front page lead this morning. Under the headline “Blairite plot to lure Miliband into leadership contest” the paper’s Patrick Wintour reports that MPs would be encouraged to declare their support for the environment secretary on the…

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Could the postman stop Royal at the first fence?

Could the postman stop Royal at the first fence?

Will Bescanot prevent Sego getting to the final run-off? This is Olivier Besancenot, the 33 year old postman who might have a crucial part to play in the French presidential election a week on Sunday. He’s standing for the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), the French section of the Fourth International and five years ago he gained 1.2 million votes or 4.25% of the vote. This was several times the gap that the far right leader, Le Pen, had over the…

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