Could Rentoul be right – that the unthinkable is now thinkable? In the ongoing turbulence over the Labour succession the main developments over the weekend have been a hint by the former Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, that he might run for the job and an extraordinary piece by John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday suggesting that Gordon Brown could be sacked. The Milburn move came in a TV interview in which he repeatedly refused to rule himself out of…
The election that saw Anthony Eden’s victory for the Tories When the House of Lords voted to allow the broadcasting of their work in the House of Peers (which led to the broadcasting of the House of Commons), I doubt any of them paid attention to the question “What happens when we’re not at work?”. Well, in this age of multi channel television, BBC Parliament (who holds the responsibility of broadcasting Parliamentary activities) came across a corker of an idea….
Punters turn to Prodi as the polls open Italians begin two days of voting this morning with the betting markets at least thinking that it is all over for the media tycoon turned politician, Silvio Berlusconi. Under Italian law opinion polls are banned within two weeks of an election so there is no way of knowing whether Tony Blair’s holiday host of eighteen months ago is going to hang on. The markets, as the chart shows, have been moving away…
Tories up 2 – Labour down 2 – LDs no change With the David Cameron set to make his first Tory conference speech since his election as leader there’s news of a recovery in the party’s position from ICM – the UK’s leading telephone pollster. The last time ICM reported, in the Sunday Telegraph a fortnight ago, the party was down at the General Election level of 33% four points behind Labour. The latest numbers are:- CON 35%(+2): LAB 35%(-2):…
So what about the minor parties? One feature of the past 10 years has been the growing willingness of the voters to vote for minor parties. This has been seen at both local level, and at Parliamentary level, with the election of Dr. Richard Taylor, George Galloway, and Peter Law in 2005. These are not old-style Independents (often Conservatives by another name), nor are they the Residents and Ratepayers Associations that still feature in some authorities. They are more likely…
Is Francis Maude right – the problem’s the party not the leader? One of the most quoted pieces of research from the 2005 General Election was that the public public view of a particular policy dropped considerably when those interviewed were told that this is what the Tories wanted. In an echo of that this morning in Guardian the Tory Chairman, Francis Maude says that the public are still unpersuaded by his party but asserts they they have taken to…
Is Cameron’s soundbite giving publicity to a bunch of unknowns? These three men are the leaders of a grouping that in the heady days days of 2004 look set to make a big impact on UK politics. Their party, UKIP, had come third in the UK Euro Elections in June 2004 beating the Lib Dems and coming only six per cent behind Labour on votes. Three months later they beat the Tories into for the third place slot in the…
Betting on a leader’s survival is usually profitable As general rule the best option in the political “How long will they survive” markets is to bet that leaders will go on longer than current perceptions for that’s what they usually do. Politicians who become leaders of their parties are generally pretty tough and resilient. You don’t get to that rung on the ladder without those qualities and it is easy to underestimate them. The power of incumbency is very strong…