For almost the last three months I have been saying that Starmer for next PM is one of the better political bets at the moment. He’s currently a 14% chance on Betfair which has moved up a fair bit since the 8-9% betting chance he was on in January when the narrative was that Johnson would be booted out. I suggested then that Tory MPs didn’t have the bottle or numbers to try to oust him. What is really remarkable…
Exactly a month today will be the first round of voting in the French presidential election in which currently the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, is the strong favorite with Marie Le Penn in second place. The 12 candidates who have satisfied the nomination threshold will be on the ballot on April 10th and the top two go into the second round of voting two weeks later. The widespread expectation had been that the final runoff would be the same as 2017…
The only betting I can find that links to the Ukraine crisis is on the Smarkets betting exchange on whether Putin will still be Russian president on May 1st. He has certainly taken a massive gamble with his decision to invade Ukraine and as the death toll rises on both sides the question is how does this all end? NATO is being very guarded about it getting involved because there must be a risk that if Putin is pushed too…
It is almost hard to credit it now but barely two months ago Chancellor Sunak looked relatively certain to be the next prime minister and the betting he money was on a change at Number 10 taking place during this year. How that different that appears now as Johnson’s ratings rise in response to his steady performance over Ukraine and his growing confidence. He certainly is having a good war as they say. Sunak’s big chance was in ‘January when…
Russia’s proposals to end the war/Special Military Operation amount to asking for Ukraine’s unconditional surrender and remaining under Russian influence thereafter. It is less the proposals which are interesting, more the fact that they have been made at all. And by Russia. The war has, so far at least, “developed not necessarily to [Russia’s] advantage“. And as Emperor Hirohito observed “the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.” Still, it is early days and if Russia…
The voting numbers were: Lab: 37% (-2 from 24-25 Feb) Con: 35% (+1) Green: 8% (+2) Lib Dem: 7% (-2) SNP: 5% (n/c) Reform UK: 5% (n/c) As can be seen in the chart 33% said Starmer would make the best PM compared with 26% for Johnson. This compares with yesterday’s Redfield Wilton where Johnson is on 39% compared with Starmer’s 35%. As I recently argued the format of the R&W “best PM” question is very favourable to the incumbent…