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The Blair loyalist moves into the 4th favourite slot In spite of all the focus on leadership issues in Manchester over the past three days there’ve been only two real moves in the betting on who will succeed Tony Blair. The second favourite, Alan Johnson has now eased into the third place position at 10/1 with the Home secretary, John Reid, being backed down from 20/1 at the weekend to 8/1 this morning. Meanwhile of the outsiders the Works and…

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Could he have greater influence over the succession? Surely the big political impact of Tony Blair’s extraordinary farewell speech this afternoon is that he, and nobody else, will decide on the precise date when the removal vans will arrive at Number 10? The “tour de force” and the amazing reception he was given by delegates in Manchester put him in a unique position for the coming months. It’s going to be hard for anybody, particularly Gordon, to put any pressure…

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How damaging were Cherie’s alleged remarks? After watching and re-watching the vast amount of material coming out of Manchester I’ve come to the conclusion that the real problem with Gordon is that he cannot “do” sincerity. The world “knows” that he was behind the “rolling resignation” plan to oust Tony earlier in the month that it is stretching credulity to it absolute limits for him to be going on the platform talking about the “great privilege” of working for all…

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Gamblers not convinced so the Chancellor’s odds move out The chart shows the changes during the past six hours in the Gordon Brown price for the Labour leadership. Mike Smithson

How much of ICM’s and Luntz’s findings are still relevant? If Alan Johnson was going to have any chance in the Labour leadership race he needed a poll boost from something like the Frank Luntz focus groups or the online session carried out by ICM and reported in the Guardian this morning. At this stage he needs something that will give him the status of a challenger. For his problem is his very low public profile and the only way…

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How the political world has changed in the past twelve months With Gordon Brown due to make what’s being described as the speech of his career at Labour’s conference at Manchester GMEX centre today it’s perhaps worth underlining how the political world has been turned upside-down in the past 12 months. This is how things looked exactly a year ago today on September 25th 2005. On this day a year ago the prices on the Tory leadership on the Betfair…

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Meet the man who could decide the next Prime Minister With today’s YouGov poll in the Sunday Times reflecting a cut-back in the Tory lead and further unease amongst voter towards Gordon Brown a major hurdle in his campaign to get to Number 10 might be a film tomorrow night on Newsnight. Then he’s to feature in a controversial focus group conducted by the US pollster, Frank Luntz. The programme has the Chancellor being compared with Alan Johnson, John Reid,…

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