Will my 33/1 bet on Kennedy come good? On March 29th, barely three weeks after Ming Campbell’s election as Lib Dem leader, a betting market opened on who will replace the 65 year old ex-Olympic sprinter. One price stood out as I recorded at the time. “..For a real long-shot Charles Kennedy is priced at 100/1 – which looks like a great value bet. If he could show that he has really conquered his problems he would have a good…
If Kinnock did it – why shouldn’t Brown? This might sound like a completely crazy idea, totally off the wall, but would not there be advantages for Gordon Brown if he followed the example of Neil Kinnock in 1983 and put himself forward for the Deputy’s job as well as the leadership? The idea of Gordon being deputy to anybody is so alien to how he is perceived that I have no doubt the bucket loads of scorn will be…
Is the Guardian right about Peter Hain’s chances? The main story on the Guardian this morning is a report that the ex-Young Liberal President turned Labour minister, Peter Hain is now “in the lead” in the race to replace John Prescott as Labour’s Deputy leader and, presumably, Deputy Prime Minister. The career-minded Hain, who ditched the Liberals to join Labour in 1977, has, according to the report been “…assiduously courting the unions in the run up to the conference season….
Following last week’s guest slot by Tabman raising the question of the possible impact on the Tories if a new UKIP leader seeks to occupy their territory UKIP Insider has written this appraisal of the contenders. Nigel Farage is seen as the favourite to win the UKIP leadership. He will win plenty of support from armchair activists because he is UKIP’s best-known face on television. However, it is by no means certain that he will actually remain in the race…
Will Labour get back on top with a new leader? The above chart represents the collective decisions of a very odd group of political gamblers – people who have bet on the next General Election even though though they know they will locking up their cash for several years at not particularly attractive prices. The odds they bet at are represented over time as an implied probability and the changes produce a graphic illustration of how the chances for the…
Why’s Reid using Tory 2005 campaign slogans? In an extraordinary interview on BBC 1 this morning the Home Secretary, John Reid, outlined his new policies in language that seemed to have come straight from the Tory immigration plan published three months before the 2005 General Election. This is a direct quote from Reid: “We have to enforce our borders better and…we have to get away from this daft so-called politically correct notion that anybody who wants to talks about immigration…
The Good Week – Bad Week Index: July 28-August 3rd With the next scheduled nation voting intention opinion poll not due until the end of August and almost no council by-elections the best information we have on the public mood is from the the YouGov data from which we can compute the “Good Week – Bad Week Index”. This is the data from the pollster’s daily brand index survey which involves surveying 600 people each day about their perceptions of…
The latest YouGov tracker poll is embargoed until midnight After making their tracker data available to PB.C exclusively last week YouGov is now issuing it to all the press and has put a midnight embargo on it. So I’ll have to wait until then before I can publish it on the site. This is the data from the pollster’s daily brand index survey which involves surveying 600 people each day about their perceptions of major brand names. Reactions to some…