Who wins – who loses from the party funding report?

Who wins – who loses from the party funding report?

But will the main parties come to a deal? Sir Hayden Phillips’ report on party funding is at last out and leaves a lot of questions to be resolved. The big issue is whether the parties themselves can agree to spending limits on specifix campaigns and caps on individual donations. The challenge is that each of the parites comes at this from a different stand-point. The Tories have now wiped off their debts and by all reports are fundraising very…

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Is Johnson right about Labour not attacking “Tory Toffs”?

Is Johnson right about Labour not attacking “Tory Toffs”?

Will the “politics of envy” really lose votes for Labour? With several leading Labour figures urging that the party should make David Cameron’s privileged background a key differentiator at the next election there’s been a warning against this strategy by the only Cabinet member not to go to university, Alan Johnson. According to the Independent the education secretary made a speech yesterday that “will be seen as a warning to Labour not to make personal attacks on David Cameron and…

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Are Straw’s opponents trying too hard?

Are Straw’s opponents trying too hard?

Can he be blamed for something his great grand-father did? After the big coverage of the Quentin Letts call for Jack Straw to enter the Labour leadership race the First Post’s “The Mole” – described as a “Downing Street insider – is out rubbishing the suggestion this afternoon. Under the heading “Six reasons why it won’t be Straw” our so-called “insider” tells us at number five about the alleged misdeeds of the former Foreign Secretary’s great-grandfather. So what? You get…

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Is this a foretaste of the next nine weeks?

Is this a foretaste of the next nine weeks?

After Miliband is Jack Straw going to be the next ABBGC? Yesterday I rearranged my betting on the Labour leadership and put another £700 on Gordon Brown. The price will surely tighten from the current 0.26/1 immediately following the budget and current levels look quite generous. I also put £35 on Jack Straw yesterday at an average price of 90/1 after reading the above piece by the Daily Mail writer, Quentin Letts, at the online magazine, The First Post. My…

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Has Labour seized the initiative on climate change?

Has Labour seized the initiative on climate change?

Can you be green without pain? On the eve of the budget the Government has sought to regain the initiative on green issues with the publication today of their proposed climate change bill. The plan is to create a framework that will bind future governments to work towards a targeted 50% cut by 2050. But what happens if future governments don’t obey? Is the bill simply a way of postponing the pain? For the hard fact is that if emissions…

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Is this the best way of betting against a Brown coronation?

Is this the best way of betting against a Brown coronation?

Who’s going to come second in the Labour race? With Brown’s succession looking like a foregone conclusion there’s one issue that is still wide open – will there be a contest or will Gordon get his coronation? The challenge is to find a way of betting on this in the absence of a specific market on the issue. This is where Cantor Spreadfair’s Labour leadership market comes in. It might look a little complicated but it does provide a range…

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So will the handover day be July 5th?

So will the handover day be July 5th?

Is Jackie Ashley right about the departure time-table? I’ve just discovered this piece by Jackie Ashley in the Guardian today in which she makes a fairly confident assertion about the Labour succession time-table. If she’s right, and she is known to be very close to the Brown camp, then it looks as though we are heading for a Q3 departure – which has hardened in the past week to become the 0.62/1 favourite. The only problem with the bet is…

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Was Cameron’s air tax plan a mistake?

Was Cameron’s air tax plan a mistake?

Are there votes in putting up the cost of flying? Judging by the responses this morning from the Murdoch papers, the Daily Telegraph and CONtinuityIDS the Tories have made a big strategic mistake by going so heavily on green issues in general and the air travel tax in particular. It is not often that a Tory leader launching a new policy initiative comes under so much flak from the Times and the Telegraph – two papers that in former years…

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