How do they campaign now the media has lost interest A week ago Davis and Cameron were dominating the headlines and almost everything they said and did was being reported and analysed. Now it’s old news and it’s becoming harder and harder for either to get a message through. There will probably be renewed interest a week today when the two appear together on Question Time but it’s hard seeing that publicity boost to the contest lasting. It’s in this…
When are grads of other universities going to get a look in? The first stop on the David Davis campaign trail was to his old university – Warwick – a move designed to make the point that he was not part of the Tory Oxford “mafia” which has been dominating leadership battles for decades. A month ago when Cameron seemed out of the race it looked as though the Tory showdown would be between Clarke of Cambridge and Davis. Then…
Could NuLab be forced into playing a different tune? A key part of the success of Tony Blair’s New Labour has been the way it has occupied traditional Tory policy positions thus forcing the official opposition to the right. Time and time again the Tories have found themselves with little to say on an issue because Labour has adopted their position. This might be about to change. For the current debate over Labour’s education reform programme is giving a glimpse…
Can Cameron get more than 80% of the membership vote? With Cameron looking an odds-on certainty to succeed Michael Howard there’s a new market on the share of the vote that he’ll get in the membership ballot. Given that the current best conventional bookie price on him winning is 1/10 why not try a different bet where the returns could be higher. You can get an attractive price with Paddy Power’s “what will Cameron’s vote share be” punt. The prices…
Tory race helps push the site’s comments’ total into six figures At some point in the next 24 hours somebody is going to post a comment on the site which will be the 100,000th since PB.C came into being in March 2004. As of time of this article the total number stood at 99,679 so we are almost at the point where the total is in six figures. More than 92,000 of the postings have been made since the start…
Brown’s price eases from 0.23/1 to o.4/1 As the chart shows the implied probability of Gordon Brown succeeding Tony Blair, based on the best betting price, has moved sharply since the high-spot of the Chancellor’s speech at the Brighton conference just a month ago. Although this is a very light market with little liquidity it is clear that there the near certainty that last month’s 0.23/1 Brown price suggested has been affected by what has been going on in the…
But Cameron 15% ahead amongst “floating voters” In spite of all the Tory publicity of recent weeks Labour is still on target for a comfortable fourth General Election victory according to ICM in the Guardian this morning – a view backed by the betting markets where Labour is the 0.63/1 favourite. The pollster’s October survey shows the party shares at CON 33: LAB 36: LD 22 – the Labour lead is down 4 points on the month A Gordon Brown…
The Mori polling organisation have just published details on their website of the Tory leadership poll that was featured in the Sun this morning. With a sample of just 508, compared with the normal 1000+, the survey has to be treated with a little bit of caution, but it does show Cameron having 33% support amongst the general public compared with 13% for David Davis and 11% for Liam Fox who was still in the race when the field-work was…