Will Singapore see another UK-France stand-off? Expect a huge amount of betting over the next 72 hours as Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac fly to Singapore where on Wednesday the 115 members of the IOC will decide on which city will get the 2012 Olympic Games. Although strictly this is not politics the choice will have a huge political impact in the cities and countries of the five contenders – Paris, London, Madrid, New York and Moscow – and it…
Would PM Brown put two fingers up to precedent? In the days after the General Election we said that putting money on Ed Balls at 4.6/1 to be the next Chancellor was a cost effective way of bettting on Gordon Brown to be the next Labour leader. Our reasoning was that that only Balls, Brown’s long-serving advisor at the Treasury, could conceivably be Brown’s Chancellor. Only he would have the confidence of his boss and the odds on him becoming…
Davis-red, Cameron-blue, Rifkind-green, Clarke-black, Fox-pink Has Cameron established himself as the clear challenger? If the betting markets have got this right it looks as though the battle for the Tory leadership is now down to a straight fight between David David and David Cameron. The Shadow Education Secretary has made some progress in the best betting prices following calls by his supporters for the other candidates to throw the towel in and support their man. Even so the young Etonian…
Do the Tories stand any chance of wininng? The mood amongst Liberal Democrats at the PB.C party at the weekend was that defending the Cheadle by-election a fortnight today might be a tougher challenge than the current Betfair price might suggest. There are a number of issues:- Will Labour supporters switch? With a Lib Dem majority in 2001 of just 33 votes Cheadle was right at the top of the Tory hit list and this put the squeeze on Labour…
Will the bill give David Davis a chance to shine against Clarke? With about 20 Labour MPs rebelling in last night’s second reading vote on the ID cards bill the betting exchange, Betfair has opened a market on whether the Government will get the legislation on the statute book during this session of Parliament. This is the first time that I can recall that gamblers have been able to have a punt on a specific piece of legislation although so…
Have people really forgotten how they voted already In their latest poll ICM had Labour with a 7% lead compared with the 3% that real voters gave the party in the election seven weeks earlier. Fine you might conclude – the ructions over the leadership are clearly causing problems. However from the detailed data from the survey, now out, it’s possible to draw a different conclusion. More people said they would vote Tory now than told the interviewers that they…
Has the Hague experience blighted Cameron’s chances? Apart from having gone to Eton – his parent’s decision, one assumes, and not his – the other concern about David Cameron’s candiditure is his age. After the experience of William Hague, who was surely promoted too quickly, there are worries about handing the leadership to someone in their 30s. The Howard pattern – going for someone in their 60s – was going in the opposite direction and this might be another factor…
A full round up of pictures from the party is available at the site of Lucille de Villiers – the fiance of my son Robert and the designer of the Politicalbetting masthead. I’m having some problems putting them on this site but this is my favourite – Sophia and Graham seeing each other’s point of view! This has Book-Value and Robert in the foreground with Augustus Carp and Icarus at the bar. In this one TomThumb (pink shirt) talks with…