Will Cameron bomb or not tomorrow? Your chance to bet

Will Cameron bomb or not tomorrow? Your chance to bet

How long a standing ovation will the new leader receive? Sir Menzies Campbell’s lasted five minutes, Tony Blair’s seven minutes, now spread betting firm IG Index has opened a market on how long a standing ovation David Cameron will receive after his closing speech tomorrow. The spread is between five-and-a-half and six minutes. By comparison last year when he was a leadership contender the standing ovation went on for three minutes. Then, of course, there weren’t the “floor managers assisting…

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What’s behind the Cameron “screw the party” on tax plan?

What’s behind the Cameron “screw the party” on tax plan?

Is it necessary for him to be seen to have a victory? As an ace public relations man nobody is better placed than the Tory leader to understand the problems of holding a party conference when there is little real news about. For unlike last year when there was the excitement of the leadership race this year there’s not a lot happening. That’s fine except there are hundreds of journalists with them by the seaside all looking for some angle…

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PBC – now the UK’s most read political website

PBC – now the UK’s most read political website

New data from Alexa – the Amazon.com subsidiary that monitors Internet traffic shows that in the third quarter of the year that ended at the weekend only two UK political sites were in the top 100,000 websites of all kinds in the entire world. One was Guido which is in position 78,062 and the other is Politicalbetting.com that’s rated at 98.904. The difference between the two sites is that while Guido attracts upto four times as many visitors each day…

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Will the Tories suffer most from Blair’s delayed departure?

Will the Tories suffer most from Blair’s delayed departure?

Are we about to enter the year of limbo? One of the consequences of Tony Blair’s desire to leave during the summer could be that we won’t see Brown, or whoever, facing Cameron across the dispatch box until October 2007. For if Blair actually steps down to allow his replacement to be in place at the end of July then the first weeks of the new Prime Ministership will be during the parliamentary vacation. We will then have next year’s…

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Will Populus wake up Labour’s leadership race?

Will Populus wake up Labour’s leadership race?

Are we going to get a poll that will confirm or refute Frank Luntz? In terms of political betting the key focus this morning is not on anything coming out of the Tories at Bournemouth – but on whether Gordon Brown will face a serious challenge in his quest to succeed Tony Blair and if so by whom? For we are talking here about who will be the next Prime Minister and we might get a better indication of how…

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Will Cameron be able to take his party with him?

Will Cameron be able to take his party with him?

Meanwhile the young leader plans to attack Brown for being “weak” There’ll be a bit of a relief as the Tories gather in Bournemouth this morning that the second poll to come out since the Labour conference still has the party in the lead. The survey by ICM in the Sunday Mirror, has with changes on the last poll by the firm CON 36 (nc): LAB 35 (+3): LD 19 (-3). Fieldwork began on Thursday, a day later than yesterday’s…

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Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Sean Fear’s local election commentary

Has Election Night Special Had its Day? One of my pet hates is the BBC’s Election Night Special. It’s not too bad for General Elections, but their coverage of local elections is woeful. One spends hours watching talking heads, trying to spin the results on behalf of their respective political parties, and all piously agreeing with each other about how dreadful the British National Party is. Amid all this verbiage, one then gets about ten minutes of Professor Anthony King,…

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YouGov: Labour now level-pegging with the Tories

YouGov: Labour now level-pegging with the Tories

Lib Dems suffer most from Blair farewell conference boost On Tuesday in the aftermath of Tony Blair’s extraordinary farewell speech I predicted here that this would “give the party a small but significant boost in the polls and … might even see Labour back into the lead..” And so it has happened. A Yougov survey for the Telegraph that was mostly carried out in the immediate aftermath of the Blair speech has these shares this morning with comparisons on their…

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