The upcoming departure of Stephen Breyer, the oldest judge on the US Supreme Court and one of three progressive judges, has triggered a frenzy of speculation on who will get the nod to replace him. Ordinarily I avoid markets like this like the plague, since they are so dependent on the whims of a single person whose mind we cannot know. But Supreme Court watchers have become extremely good at this game, and I might make an exception here. The…
March 2nd – City of London – 6.30pm Next month this site, politicalbetting.com will be 18 years old and to celebrate there is to be a party at the headquarters of Smarkets near Tower Bridge in London. Full details of the event will be announced next week but we are very fortunate to have the backing of Smarkets in making this happen. Also Quincel is playing a big part. It would be great if as many PBers as possible could…
There is little doubt is that whether Johnson will face an early VONC is going to dominate UK politics until it actually happens if that is indeed the case. He’s hanging on by a thread at the moment and Team Sunak is reported to be all ready to fight an early leadership campaign. The big fear that those Conservative MPs opposed to Johnson have is that a vote could be called and end up like the one on Theresa May…
I was wrong about the Southend West by-election which the Tories have retained with a vote share that was just 03% higher than LAB’s at Batley and Spen in 2016. Both contests, of course, were caused by the murder of the sitting MP and in each case all the main parties stood aside. The turnout yesterday was 24% which is just short of the 25.8% in the 2016 by-election. My belief that during a very difficult period for the Tories…
As we near the end of another extraordinary political day with key resignations from Number 10 it really looks as though time is running out for Johnson. It appears a mess because clearly, it is a mess. Without some of the key advisors who have restrained him in the past the PM could be even worse. Why oh why did he launch and stick with this attack on Starmer when it was blindingly obvious to those around him that it…
Thankfully we do not have too many by-elections being held because the sitting MP has been murdered. Back in 1990 other parties did NOT stand aside after the killing by the Provisional IRA of Eastbourne MP, Ian Gow, and the LDs went on to take the seat in the October 1990 by-election. In 2016 following the murder of LAB MP Jo Cox we had the Batley & Spen by-election with CON/LD/GRN and UKIP all not putting up candidates allowing LAB…
The big question is how many letters have gone in Another day, another PMQs and the overwhelming topic at Westminster is whether there will be an early confidence vote on Johnson by CON MPs. We all know that such a vote will be triggered by 54 CON MPs sending letters to the 1922 committee chair, Graham Brady. When this happened during TMay’s time the vote came out in her favour and she was able to carry on. It is that…