Rifkind pulls out – Cameron’s price eases As had been widely predicted the former Foreign Secretary who returned to the House in May after a gap of eight years, Sir Malcom Rifkind, has pulled out of the Tory leadership race. He said he wanted the party to be led by a One Nation Conservative which is thought to mean that he will line up behind his cabinet colleague in last Tory Government, Ken Clarke. The move makes next Tuesday’s first…
How big a mountain has the former front runner got to climb? A Populus Poll in the Times in the morning has more gloomy news for David Davis with big falls on previous surveys by the same pollster. It follows the same trend as the recent YouGov and ICM polls which have all recorded a big switch to David Cameron in recent days. When Tory voters were asked who would make best leader it was Cameron 33% (+30): Clarke 33%…
Could the hype shift the General Election markets? David Cameron’s progress in the past eight days has been staggering and although hurdles remain his political-savvy campaign team are going to do everything they can not to let the current opportunity go. If he does succeed Michael Howard then he’ll be the first party leader ever to have had a background in public relations before entering parliament – a fact not without significance. His day job in the years before the…
UPDATED 0730 Tory leadership: RED Cameron, BLACK Davis, BLUE Clarke, GREEN Fox Cameron now odds-on in all markets after YouGov poll boost A YouGov poll of Tory party members has confirmed the betting trend of the past week that David Cameron, 39 today, looks in a very strong position to take the Tory leadership provided that his fellow MPs vote him onto the final short-list of two that will go to the national ballot next month. In just seven days…
Did Newsnight’s survey finish off the other contenders? We agree with Andrew Grice in the Independent this morning, that the most important Tory leadership factor this week was not anything that happened in the conference hall, but a feature on Newsnight showing the leading US pollster, Frank Luntz, conducting a focus group. If you have not seen this yet then this is must and you can still download a video from the the programme’s website. It’s the most compelling and…
updated 0645 Will the Davis waverers resist the ex-whip’s “overtures”? With David Cameron now the 1.36/1 firm favourite the focus in the Tory leadership battle moves to Westminster next week where the big issue will be whether the MPs, pictured here on the David Davis website, will stick with the Shadow Home Secretary. Before the conference they had all agreed to allow their names and pictures to be associated with the campaign and if they don’t change their minds then…
But why’s he talking about the betting at all One of the things that really irritates me is when people tell porkies about betting odds in order to make a political point. Last year I had a go about the Lib Dems claiming to be “second favourite” in the London Mayoral race and now David Davis is saying on TV that he’s still “odds-on” to win the leadership contest. He made the statement in a BBC interview this morning and…
Tory leadership: Implied probability of Davis based on best betting price What are the dangers of having less than a 50:50 chance? One of the key arguments used by Davis’s team as they have sought to persuade Tory MPs to make public declarations of support has been the Shadow Home Secretary’s position in the betting. After all, they were saying, if the bookies are rating Davis so highly you would be a fool to back anybody other than the “obvious”…