Can the Tories end their 23 year old by-election famine? Unless you aspire to be in the higher echelons of political anoraks you can be excused for not knowing that today is the 23rd anniversary of the last occasion when the Tories won a seat from another party in a Westminster by-election. For you have to go right back to Thursday June 3 1982 – three years into Mrs. Thatcher’s first term – to find a Tory by-election gain. That…
Can we expect a comfortable Tory majority with a very low turnout? With just three weeks to go before the South Staffordshire election that had to be postponed from May 5th because of the death of one of the candidates there are quite a number of betting markets now available. But anybody trying to forecast the outcome should be aware that this is not a by-election as we know it and that has big implications for the campaign. Steherts posted…
How strong are his opponents within the parliamentary party? As each day has gone by since his third successive General Election victory the widely held view that Mr. Blair would stand aside for Mr. Brown relatively soon has been on the decline. One of the site’s regular commentators, the Labour MP, Nick Palmer, posted this observation….I currently expect TB to serve most of the Parliament and the new leader (presumably Gordon) to call an election for a renewed mandate shortly…
The Politcalbetting party is going ahead in London on Saturday June 25th and Bookvalue – also known as Philip, is handling the organisation. We are being helped by a generous contribution from IG Index which should cover some of the core costs. The plan is to book a room in London, possibly Westminster. There will be some cost to participants. Please could those interested in going send an email to book_value@hotmail.co.uk as soon as possible. Thanks to Philip and thanks…
Will party workers be less reluctant to “help” postal voters get their ballots in? In an article in the Times just three weeks before polling day Cheadle was singled out as the prime example of a marginal constituency where there had been a big increase in postal votes over 2001. It noted on April 15th that In Cheadle, Manchester, where the Liberal Democrats have a majority of 33, the number of applications stands at 8,226, nearly five times the 1,695…
Can the Tories to expunge their Euro nightmares? Perhaps nothing demonstrated more that the Tories were not interested in returning to power was in 2001 when the party’s grass roots membership chose IDS in spite of the fact that his opponent, Ken Clarke, had the support of more Tory MPs. For those who worked closely with Clarke at Westminster knew that whatever his views on Europe he had the capability to deal with Blair in a way that the hapless…
After the French NON will Blair now serve a full third term? In April last year Tony Blair came under huge criticism for agreeing to a UK referendum on the EU constitution. Many commentators saw the sort-term gain of taking the wind out of Conservatives’ sails ahead of the Euro election campaign but Tony Blair would still have to deliver on the commitment. A prevalent view was that he had made a huge mistake but now the whole treaty issue…
The Balance of Money prediction on the French Referendum: NON 54.5 % OUI 45.5% Because French law bans opinion polls on election day and the day before gamblers are having to rely on the surveys that were published on Friday. And even though two of these showed a weakening in the NON position the mood of UK gamblers is to put their money on the treaty being rejected by quite a big margin. IG Index has the current YES spread…