The heaviest traffic since the General Election hits our servers A big apology to all PB.C’s users for the problems getting through to the site from mid-afternoon today. In the immediate aftermath of Tony Blair’s speech and the Tory vote on the leadership rules trafffic soared dramatically on normal weekday levels and the servers could not cope. Today saw the site at its busiest since May 5th as an estimated 20,000 of you tried to access the discussion forums all…
Labour’s ping-pong continues as the PM’s aides say Brown is being “presumptuous” On what will surely be the biggest day in British politics since the General Election Tony Blair is making his big conference speech in Brighton and the Tories will announce the result of their ballot on how Michael Howard’s replacement will be chosen. In the immediate aftermath of Gordon Brown’s speech yesterday all seemed clear – the Chancellor was giving the Prime Minster the accolades and was using…
Huge moves in Brown’s price as markets react to the Chancellor’s speech Based on best betting prices the implied probability of Gordon Brown being next Labour leader touched more than 80% this morning as punters took stock of the Chancellor’s conference speech and news of his forthcoming Middle East trip. Brown’s unveiling of “New Labour renewed” will set the backcloth to the expected transition from Tony Blair and has clearly been designed to allow the Prime Minister to step aside…
Will the Iraq situation affect voting in Robin Cook’s old seat? After seeing themselves safely home by holding the Hartlepool by-election in the same week as the Labour conference a year ago party officials have adopted the same tactic for the Livingston Westminster by-election and the one at Glasgow Cathcart for the Scottish Parliament. During conference weeks parties get much more broadcast coverage than usual and Labour officials clearly felt that this was extra insurance just in case there was…
Tory leadership betting: RED Davis, BLACK Clarke, BLUE Cameron, GREEN Fox But what if the rule changes are rejected? With the Labour Conference, the Scottish by-elections and the announcement on Tuesday of whether the Howard changes to the Tory leadership rules have gone through it’s the biggest week in British politics since the General Election in May. For the Tory leadership our latest chart shows further a improvements in the implied probability of David Davis winning based on the latest…
Is AC Milan’s George Weah the right man to become Liberia’s next President? Of the 22 candidates standing for President in the tiny West African country’s presidential election, few have anything like the name recognition of Liberia’s soccer legend and FIFA 1996 player of the year, George Weah. The former AC Milan striker won the nomination of his Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) more than a month ago and is campaigning evergetically. In the UK the Spreadfair spread-betting exchange has…
Was the decision taken while on holiday? The big unanswered question over-hanging British politics is when will Blair step down? When will he make his big announcement? When will the baton be passed on to Gordon Brown? We have long taken the view that this will happen later rather than sooner and that he would serve most of his third term. Now we are not so sure and next week’s Labour conference, which Tony Blair is surely not looking forward…
How will tonight’s by-elections go? In the immediate aftermath of last year’s Lib Dem conference the party’s poll ratings soared to the dizzy heights of 29% – a point ahead of the Tories and just 3 points behind Labour. The share was never to get anywhere near that again and on May 5th 22.7% of the electorate cast their votes for Charles Kennedy’s party. The dashed expectations were surely one of the causes of the widespread view in Blackpool this…