Did this man mount a botched coup to stop Brown?
March 26th, 2007
What’s behind Mandelson’s series of weekend announcements?
Anybody who has followed the news over the past couple of days could not have missed the presence of the former close aide to Blair, Britain’s current commissioner at the EU, and the person that Brown is said to blame for him not getting the labour leadership in 1994.
We’ve had a spate of interviews with the ex-Labour communications chief, the news of his desire to step down from his EU role in 2009 and even a suggestion that he “might want to return to Hartlepool.”
And also it’s being suggested this morning that he was behind yesterday’s stories that Blair is saying that Miliband could beat Brown
This has led to a counter accusation reported in today’s Independent that Mandelson’s move was a “botched coup” against Gordon.
If this story is right it shows the extraordinary state of mind of the Brown gang. There isn’t a vacancy yet; there is a process that will be gone through when a vacancy does occur; and any Labour MP who can get the backing of 44 colleagues can put him or herself forward.
Why is Brown so desperate that he gets the job without a serious fight? Surely a hard fought contest would invigorate the party and provide a great springboard for turning Labour round?
As it is the Mandelson moves have probably helped the chancellor because there is one thing you can say about the ex-Hartlepool MP - he’s probably less popular within the party than just about anybody.
His actions can be portrayed as someone who has looked into the future and can see a Labour government where he does not have any access to the heart of power any more.
Labour has been making light of the appalling opinion polls since the budget and the latest figures showing that Brown is now the most unpopular politician within the country. That strategy is going to be hard to sustain unless the polling numbers change.
To my mind the post-budget polls have changed everything. There are two mutually exclusive options - either Labour is toast or Brown is toast. At the moment the party appears to prefer the former and be in a collective state of denial about the numbers.
If that mindset continues then Brown’s succession is a certainty. If not then anything can happen.
Mike Smithson
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It’s not very clear how Mandelson stirring things up can be blamed on the Brown camp.
The claim that either Labour or Brown is toast is probably wrong too. We do not have a presidential system, and whatever voters tell the pollsters, come an election they hold their noses and vote for party.
We have seen this most famously in 1945 and 1979. More recently, IDS may have been a terrible leader but the Conservative vote still held up at the polling booths.
If Labour lose next time, it will not be because Brown is unpopular but because voters, especially traditional Labour ones, are badly off (which may well be Brown’s fault, of course). To this end, the next Prime Minister needs urgently to scrap expensive programmes that achieve nothing, like ID cards, and sort out programmes like Tax Credits which ought to help people but too often do not.
Oh, and thanks and well done on the clock, by the way.
OT — when will the book reach the shops, for those of us not attending the launch party?
Well done again Mike. An excellent cover. Need I say that you are probably one of the premier political journalists in the UK right now. Keep it up.
Let’s try an add further light in this discussion. Any insights on the Labour mindset? The earth is bound to begin to move on this. Justice is slow but sure.
Ah, there are other insomniacs
Labour is toast whoever takes over - they will get a heartlands drubbing in the Scottish and Welsh elections, and there are just too many people with too many grievances inside the Party.
Blair managed to square the circle - he produced an agenda and an image a decade or so ago that created the “big tent” that included middle-class middle England and the “old Labour” bedrock. Groups that actually have no common political agenda. Now he’s had enough, and no one else either can or particularly wants to repeat the trick.
I suspect that politicians in all parties know, deep down, that living standards will, at best, stand still and most likely decline over the next 30 years & that the job of government will be to manage that decline. An inevitably unpleasant & rocky road - it’s far from clear that our present parties are fit for that purpose.
In the last 30 years we’ve had only four Prime Ministers. In the next 30 we may have twice as many or more. I hope that parliamentary democracy can withstand the challenge of the “three Gees” (globalisation, global terrorism, global warming, in case you’ve forgotten), but if I were sure I would say so.
5. Got to love that optimism….
5. It’s interesting that you speak about a managed decline in living standards. I don’t think the political debate has reached that stage yet in this country. In that sense we are a long way behind Germany where Angela Merkel focused on that point a lot during her election campaign, saying that if Germany wanted to maintain its relative position then it would have to become even better at exploiting new technologies and science, “If we want to continue to pay ourselves 10% more (than other countries) then we have to be 10% better.”
When people do become conscious of these issues surely someone will come along to challenge the consensus, as Margaret Thatcher did in her time.
Thanks, IA, for that spot of realism! Perhaps that is something that DC has in mind when he mentions that money “is not people’s only goal”. I fear, though, he is too much of a follower of focus group opinion to go very far down that road!
Re 5 It won’t only be in the Welsh and Scottish Heartlands where Labour will get a drumming, don’t forget that all of England par London will be having local eletions on 3rd May. Expect there to be 100’s of ex Labour Councillors on 4th May.
We’re back to Mike’s obsessive views on GB. The press do this sort of thing because it fills a column, makes them look insightful and with luck stirs things up a bit. Mike does it because he doesn’t like GB, struggles to believe that Labour will pick him, and is sure we’ll lose if we do. He’s entitled to his views, but it makes pb.com a bit repetitive at the moment.
The polling evidence is overwhelming that Labour’s problems are not particularly related to the leadership: whether it’s TB or GB or any other the others polled, we’re currently a moderate amount behind - currently on average about 8%. Much of this appears to low turnout confidence among Labour voters; there is also evidence of DC having a positive effect. We don’t IMO yet know how it will play out, and nobody is toast yet.
As for Peter Mandelson, I have nothing against him but I read of his comments on British politics with the same sort of mild interest as a speech by, say, Condoleeza Rice or Richard Branson. It wouldn’t occur to me to take my lead from him, and I reckon that’s the position for most Labour MPs.
The point that this sort of piece misses is that the discussion is over in the PLP. Apart from the odd maverick, everyone is simply assuming that GB will shortly take over. There’s discussion of the impact, the changes, etc.; concern at the polls; speculation about public mood. But serious discussion of whether we should choose someone else? No. Hence John Denham’s hilarity when he was suggested, and David Miliband’s bafflement that the press won’t take no for an answer. We can endlessly debate whether that’s wise, but it’s a fact which I guess is relevant to those who bet on the outcome.
Mandelson was supposed to be on Radio 4’s “Any Questions” from Dublin, but he failed to show. Whichever Dimbleby it was put out a rather curious explanation (that PM was doing political things in London) which might tie in with your theory.
O/T France poll of polls update
Sarkozy 28,50
Royal 25,50
Bayrou 20,42
Le Pen 13,08
12 Movement, Chris?
re 10. Well my ‘obcession’ led me to make the right call on the public response to the budget and Brown last week and a walloping profit.
I fear your post is further evidence of the collective state of denial that many within the party are going through.
Mike Smithson
12 Has Bayrou stalled? Seems to be stuck below Royal consistently
Is Mandelson behind the anti-Brown briefing? Entirely possible, given the way the man works, and given his highly inflated opinion of his influence within the Labour Party. On that point, Brown’s allies are entirely right - it will have strengthened Gordon’s hand - who wants anything tainted by Mandelson? But the talk of a ‘botched coup’ is also resonant with Brownite thinking. This is not a monarchical succession but an election, and despite Brown appointing a campiagn manager, he still hasn’t announced himself as a candidate (something that might not be a bad move - whether or not he would be undermining Blair is irrelevant as Blair undermined his own position by pre-announcing his retirement).
I agree with Mike that Brown desperately needs the polls to improve, though he seems to have little feeling for how to do that if the budget is anything to go by. It’s almost got to the situation where Brown needs Blair to have some bad news stories to aid his campaign.
But I disagree that Brown is toast or Labour is toast. As various people have said, changing individuals will only have a partial effect on the party’s image as the party itself has a strong brand. Even a complete outsider such as Denham - and he has no chance - couldn’t undo the last ten years (or the last hundred). Labour has its history and whoever succeeds Blair will inherit that - good and bad. If he wants to create an impression of being different, then he will have to act different - though given that Labour was elected on its manifesto, there is only so much room for manouvre policy-wise.
10. Nick, if pbc is a bit repetitive at the moment, it’s because there’s not much changing the political landscape. Go on: throw your hat into the ring - that’ll liven things up
.
IA @ 5: So either Labour is toast or Brown is toast, but Britain is toast either way? Have you forgotten the call to let sunshine win the day by any chance!
And Nick, while the decision may have been made behind closed doors some time ago, if growing evidence suggests that the worng call has been made, you’re in a unique position to change the decision. For GB to become the most unpopular politician in budget week of all weeks - and imo without an especially well-crafted attack from the Tories - makes you wonder how he’d cope in the limelight week in, week out.
Lastly with Miliband, if he’s so bemused, surely a statement along the lines of ‘flattered by interest …. want to make position clear …. my friend Gordon … formidable experience and vision …. right next step for the party and country ….. continuing speculation unhelpful ….. reaffirm support …. have been discussing with Jack Straw how I can assist the Brown campaign to ensure that we get the leadership we desire and require over the coming years’ would quieten the press a little?
13- Peter the punter : only minor variations (+/- 0.08 due to Ipsos TP). The next poll is LH2. We should have it around 5pm.
15 - kingbongo - Yes he has lost a good part of his momentum and has not got near Royal in any poll last week. His only hope is to receive big defections form royal and sarko’s parties.
Basically, the “equal coverage” rules stopped the media blitz in his favour.
Nowhere near my computer since Friday, I did not comment the CSA poll published on friday. It was delayed one day (CSA polls are usually published on thursdays), in the midst of accusation of “errors” from the polling commission.
I’m not sure this one will give them back their credibility : their 50/50 figure for a 2nd round royal/sarkozy seems wide off the average of other pollsters (52.6/47.4 for sarkozy). Anyway it is only the second poll (out of 60) not to announce a sarkozy victory (the other was LH2 of 24 feb)
14.”I fear your post is further evidence of the collective state of denial that many within the party are going through.”
without sounding harsh, maybe the party is not in a state of denial, they just don’t care about what you and polls think.
The same can be said about the Libdems. Many tell them Ming is pretty useless, but they don’t care about it (you even praised how the PR/communications of the Libdems improved since Ming’s takeover and then they can’t even brief the press on the leader’s speech)
The best way for anyone who wants to stop Brown and Labour; Tories, LibDems or opposition within Labour has been for a still birth to the Brown premiership. There has been a real attempt since 2005 to go for brown. It’s not hysteria, look at the Stalin comments, the Bower book, the personal tory attack or the spin on betting sites given to news stories.
Having been away from PCs for the last 3 days there appears to be hyseria on the blogs, not least pb.com. Whereas the Sundays were pretty neutral. The onloy thing that was predicatble about the budget was that the usual suspects would uise whatever evidence they could get to paint it as a disaster.
19. Is it true Sarkozy was quite rude to Cameron over the EPP thing. They seem to have made up if that happen.
I wouldn’t write off Mandy too soon. Power doesn’t depend entirely on position. He knows how to push buttons, and I doubt he is trying for an immediate coup, but more for a medium term interment of Brown’s hopes.
Nick Palmer says the succession is not challenged and discussion amongst Labour MPs is about polls and the public mood. Mandy is playing on that chattering and building a picture of an unattractive future with Brown.
MPs ( as Nick knows - and this is in all parties) tend to be energised by uncertainties about their future electoral prospects. And if that concern gets high and wide enough then the plates begin to shift as the old certainties are reassessed. That is why Blair is there, old Labour had to accept change or stay out of power for ever.
Brown is leading the Scottish campaign, if that bombs and the locals and WA are as bad then that rush of reality might overwhelm the conservatism of a party in power for so long. They may well come to believe that the only way to decontaminate themselves is to start afresh with someone that has not been responsible for all the spin and spend and waste of the last ten years.
I note that Straw already revealed some supporters. Andy Burnham, Liam Byrne, Geoff Hoon, Phil Woolas and Kitty Ussher. Then Phil Hope, Angela Smith (the Basildon one) ans Angela Eagle.
Is it a way to try and cut a Miliband’ potential serious bid at the beginning releasing supporters from some Blairite junior ministers?
21 but on the day you thought it was a huge triumph, the tories succeeded in associaitng Brown with deception and spin and increasing tax on the poor. You can continue to spin it but from when Cameron was first elected Brown has been on the verge of crushing him. Originally it was going to be witihn Cameron’s first 100 days and Gordo had a plan. Now we are told he has a plan for his first 100 days as premier.
Like all good Marxists Brown has a plan, but like all Marxist plans they don’t work. Labour are stuck with Brown unless TB puts off his departure and Brown is a loser.
re 21. What evidence is there other than it has gone down badly with the public? This is what drives my betting. I fear that you are also in a state of denial.
Mike Smithson
The key attack that MS makes on GB is that his ‘brand’ is damaged. This is nothing to do with GB’s macro-economic successes, or his micro-economic failures. GB’s views on the Iraq war, or health and education, are similarly immaterial.
If the labour party’s ‘brand’ is also damaged, then it doesn’t matter who takes over as leader. But it is reasonable to assume that, though tired, the labour ‘brand’ remains fit-for-purpose. In that case, for our host to repeatedly query whether it is sensible for the labour party to continue to annoint a brand-damaged GB looks fair enough.
So what is the state of the GB brand? What is the zeitgeist? Who’s right, MS or the brown backers?
Making Jack Straw his campaign manager was a masterstroke for Brown as it sends all kinds of signals that the Brown campaign is unstoppable.
I continue to be astonished at the posts from Nick Palmer, although I don’t doubt what he says, I think Labour MP’s really have become so out of touch with the public (just as Conservatives did in the early 1990’s) that they don’t believe the polls anymore and believe their own spin that Brown is a winner.
I was at a private dinner on Saturday at the home of journalist friends and one of the guests there is a leading Labour Westminster PR consultant (ok, spin doctor).
The party machine has learned to manipulate and control internal discussion to such an extent that ‘dissent’ for want of a better word, can be spotted and dealt with so early that it never picks up serious momentum beyond the usual suspects.
The PLP has been remarkable since 1997 for being so weak and flaccid, they could and should have deposed Blair after the Iraq WMD fiasco - they failed to save themselves then and they will fail to save themselves now.
I think unless Blair holds on for another year it is now too late for a serious challenge to emerge. Brown has it.
25 - describing Brown as a Marxist is about the daftest of many daft comments from Tories about Brown. I’m not a particular fan of his but Marxist!! Get real…
19 Merci, Christoph de Paris.
22- Punter
It’s possible but frankly I don’t know. The French media did not talk about it for 2 main reasons I guess :
- european parliament politics are one of the most boring possible subjects;
- nobody (yet?) in France cares about Cameron.
I agree with Nick at 10.
In fact i’d go so far to say that this is getting dangerously near ramping now.
10. Nick Palmer’s degeneration into Labour astroturfer-in-chief seems to be continuing. Calling Mike ‘obsessive’ is really an unnecessary and unwarranted piece of abuse. Pity.
32. Nonsense. Mike Smithson is right as usual. Either Labour is toast or Brown is toast. Sadly the former is more likely because of the pervading ostrich mentality as exhibited here by Nick Palmer et al. Hopefully Labour will wake up to its impending disater before its all too late.
Re 20 Andrea “without sounding harsh, maybe the party is not in a state of denial, they just don’t care about what you and polls think.”
Not caring what the polls and people say is a state of denial.
Brown had a small opportunity to portray himself as the “new broom sweeping clean” and instead chose a budget sleight of hand that carries on the spin that his ex-mate has been derided for.
If Gordon is going to do wonders for Labour’s appeal and the Labour MPs believe this, then how come he has not been installed ahead of May’s elections? Is the loss of;
1,000 Labour councillors,
Control of Scotland
Majority in Wales
worth the wait for Gordon?
I think Mike is pretty well right on this. My general position from a long way back has been that Brown is a clever politician with a few tricks up his sleeve. But nothing has gone right for him for a long time.
Paul Whiteley of the BES argues that Brown has suffered from contamination with Blair (ie Blair has dragged Brown down in the polls), so I can understand Brown being frustrated at the length of time he has to wait for a handover. Over the last few weeks though, Brown seems to have surpassed Blair.
If he does take over, I still expect Labour to get some kind of bounce, and I suppose it is likely that he will best Cameron in any discussion of policy. Bit if I were a Labour member, I would be looking for an alternative. The downside to any alternative is that the Party would contain so many frustrated Brownites - not least the man himself.
Labour might be toast but it does not stop the Conservatives, locally at least, from reinforcing the old stereotypes
http://www.ashfordlibdems.org.uk/news/000106.html?PHPSESSID=7984969885296951c5aaed89c0507545
31. Well Hollande cared enough about him to declare how difficult “President Royal” would find it to work with that “anti european”. So if she is President and he is Prime Minister, that should make things interesting. You’d have thought Sego would be more interested in France’s affairs than those of other countries.
38. Well if you take the view that the French elite see the submersion of the UK into a (French-run) European Union as a vital national interest, then Royal’s comments make perfect sense.
Nick Palmer is presenting PLP reality and bettors should take note. More interesting is not whether the PLP will go for anyone else, but why they won’t. They have to be discussing the polls and the bad reaction to the budget.
Can we have a column on Europe? And the Undead European Constitution? It looks certain to re-emerge as a major UK issue, like Grendel rising from the fen, over the next year - following the Berlin summit.
It has the potential to seriously upset both major parties.
New Labour, in their slimy, amoral and nauseating way - which we have all come to know and love - are desperately hoping to slip a EU Constitution Lite past the British public, without the need for a referendum. How nice of them. But I don’t think they will get away with it, they will have the tabloids howling for their blood and they will risk losing the support of all Murdoch papers if they do so, unless the Treaty is absurdly and genuinely trivial. Which it won’t be.
But all is not easy for the Tories, either. An EU Constitution would be rejected by ninetyfive percent of Tory voters, MPs and activists, and with some venom, and the issue will throw light on the sheer depths of anti-EU anger and loathing that lurk beneath the placid New Green Tory facade. DC doesn’t want this.
The EU Constitution could therefore destroy either a Brown premiership or a potential Cameron one, if the new Treaty is anything like the one proposed by Germany etc.
38- Hollande is no more specialist of foreign affairs than royal. The point was to try to create the formula Sarkozy=Cameron=anti-european.
39- I don’t know on which planet you live, but,believe it or not, the French elite don’t give a fig about the the UK (especially when we have other things to do now, like electing a president, for example).
And anyway France is deeply eurosceptic now…
41. Cameron has made his opposition to the euro and an EU constitution quite clear SeanT - I don’t see how the revival of the latter can seriously split the Tories.
29 But he is. Marxism is a state of mind where one believes that the best way for the people to progress is through control. Brown is an authoritarian who genuinely beleives that private decisions disadvantage people whereas ‘the people’ acting through the State are better of. His Marxist mindset is evidenced through the tax credit system. You might not like this portrayal but you should ask GB why he keeps going to America to discuss entrepreneurship but when he gets back he seeks ever further state control over the economy.
OT. Former Labour Scottish MEP calls for a SNP vote in May :
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1284809.0.0.php
Mike I have to agree with just about every word.
Mind you I do like to watch a bit of a fight as long as it is not in my party
42. Got you. So it was just the latest in a line of Sarko is a neo-con, Mrs Thatcher, rapacious capitalist etc line of attacks. BTW do you think the “Disco” Sarko on his website in pursuit of the yoof vote is just a little naff. On another point how do you think Sarko looks at this country, is he friendly or in the classic line of Gaullist British=American stooge thinking.
BTW The comment number on the main site is disappearing…….
38- Besides, in the unlilely case of a Royal victory, she would not be so ridiculous as to name the father of her children Prime minister ! His expectations are supposedly limited to the Economy and finance ministry
OT. Scots may have two independence referendums :
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=465522007
49. JFK made his brother attorney general. Mitterand made Papa m’dit his envoy to Africa so you never know……….
49. Do you think she would give him a major ministry at all?
By the way, what was the reaction to Borloo’s pamphlet? Is he in with a chance of being made Prime Minister by Sarkozy?
All those on here saying Labour are toast and do not understand why Labour MP’s think they have no chance of winning the next GE are forgetting history .
If pb.com had been in existence in 1976/77 , they would have said that Labour was toast and would lose the next GE . True they did but this was more down to Callaghan not calling a GE in Autumn 1978 and allowing the Winter of Discontent to be the deciding factor in the 1979 GE .
If pb.com had been in existence in 1981 , they would have been saying that Thatcher and the Conservatives were toast with dreadful poll figures and byelection results and would have been wrong .
Yes things do look bleak for Labour and Brown but I am sure that Nick P and most other Labour MP’s feel that the next GE will be decided on what happens in the next 2/3 years and their fate at the next election is still in the balance and as they are the government still their’s to win .
47- Punter
i won’t comment about the “disco sarko” thing, but at the big rally of “young people with sarkozy” (10.000 under 30ies last week), the DJ Martin Solveig had a 2 hour session after sarko’s speech and it worked quite well…
about Sarkozy and Britain, I think he is much less anti-american and anti-anglosaxon than chirac or many French politicians.
He often quotes Blair and laments the French socialists’ incapacity to grasp basic economic realism as Labour did 15 years ago.
But as a Frenchman he is still more pro-european than most British politicians…
53. There is of course always room for ‘events’ to shift the plates. But what event of similar seismic importance to the Winter of Discontent or the Falklands is going to rescue your beloved Labour from their current parlous state?
Chris from Paris I know for a fact that Sarko was very impressed with DC. Merkel is too but is certainly not best pleased with the Tory plan to pull out of the EPP in 2009.
On the question of a possible candidature by Milliband I don’t see it. However, the notion that his career would be destroyed by a failed bid is surely nonsense. GB is not in such a strong position that he could sideline a leading young turk in that way. There would be some sort of coming together afterwards(as Major and Heseltine did in 1990) and Milliband would remain, perhaps as Environment Secretary, able to fight another day after the election in the event of a GB defeat. Obviously he wouldn’t want to do very badly; say less than 30% of the electorate; but personally I don’t think he would. The problem is he shows every sign of not wanting to get involved. There really is no evidence coming from his side that he’s at all interested. I agree with David Herdson, as I usually do, that the GB camp’s reaction to the speculation shows an odd combination of arrogance and defensiveness. The idea of a ‘coup’ is nonsense; there has been no contest and anyone is entitled to stand when there is one if he can get enough support. GB’s strong antipathy to the idea of any challenge is a sign of his lack of confidence; he can’t escape the contest of his life in 2009/10 so why be so timid at the thought of falling short of a crushing victory against McDonnell? I have no doubt that such a contest would be a useful left versus new Labour demonstration with the latter winning hands down. Is GB toast? No. However, his recent performances and his general bearing don’t encourage a lot of confidence that he can pull off the trick of selling to the public the idea that he represents a fresh start, something that Major did in 1990, but which is very hard to do in Government.
52- tYes he would probably get a major ministry (and keep the helm of the party)
The reaction to Borloo’s book was not enthusiastice : the timing was bad because at this stage the only thing the people want to know is which candidate he supports. he stays genuinely popular and has a chance to get back in government with Sarko.
Prime minister Borloo is difficult to imagine for two main reasons :
- sarkozy will be a very directive president, implicate din government’s work, and would like to have a totally faithful PM;
- Charles Kennedy - like issues…
56- blue moon
I think Sarkozy would be able to communicate well with Cameron. For the moment though he talks only about Blair, because, for many Frenchmen Britain = Blair.
58. Yes I’ve often thought being Prime Minister under Sarko will be a little like being Chancellor here under Brown, or Foreign Sec under Blair…………
Sarko certainly got a big turnout on his trip to London. His point that London is now the “seventh largest Frnch City” was very thoughtful for France I’d have thought.
51 Punter. And of course John “family values” Major offered his paramour, Edwina Currie, a Minister of State position in the Home Office.
Chris Sarko has already had at least one meeting with DC which went very well. Of course they don’t talk regularly; they have no occasion or need to do so. On another point I see it reported that Sego has come out in favour of Turkish membership of the EU; on the face of it a bad move. What do you think about it? Why did she do it?
New poster here. Been following all the news on the labour leadership over the weekend. Am i thick or is the 20/1 that Stan James are offering on Milliband being PM on 31 Dec 2007 a great arb opportunity????
Well, the sun’s out & I’ve had another sleep cycle: so thankyou for all your comments on my earlier effort
- but it’s interesting that no one from any point of the compass denied my basic thrust, let alone offered evidence against it.
And I agree with Tim13 that Cameron is, in effect, fighting the last war. (While much of his party wants to fight the one before that, of course.)
If Brown wants a “Major effect” he had to do what Major did and dump a key government policy that is already in effect and hurting people, as the Poll Tax did. However, there isn’t one. What’s hurting is an accumulation of little ones, the shoe’s pinching different people in different ways. Much harder to fix, even if the will was there, which it isn’t.
61- Probably to offset (in typical Royal style) her strange outburst of nationalism on Friday (inciting French people to have national flags at home and put them at windows on national holidays…)
61. Where did you see that? Segolene has always said that she will abide by the result of a referendum on Turkish membership and that Turkey does not meet the criteria for membership yet. If she’s just said that she hopes Turkey will one day meet the criteria I don’t think it will have much impact.
It must be difficult for someone who is sufficiently politically opinionated to start a site like this to remain an objective-though astute observer-without trying to make the political weather themselves.
It happened to Guido. From being an amusing observer of political sin he soon morphed into an excitable Cameroon desperate to crush his political foes. Probably interesting if you are like minded but for those looking for political satire you’ll no longer find it there..
For the last five days this site has produced one article after another saying how Brown must be ditched. Maybe he should be but the tone and frequency of the articles doesn’t encourage that sort of conversation. It just bores the non-Tories off the site and even the Tories attracted by this kind of stridency aren’t the Sean Fears or the David Herdsons but the Herbert Propres and the assortment of ‘aliases’…….
62 Caveman. Welcome !!!!!!!
If you believe that our Gordon will for whatever reason NOT become PM then 20/1 on Milliband is OK ….. accepting of course that Milliband has said he will not run against our Gordon.
Thus you are relying on our Gordon wandering in front of the omnibus !
66. Maybe you should write a guest article or two Roger, to show Mike how it’s done. I’m sure we would all be thrilled to see your undoubted talent for clear and objective analysis translated to a longer format.
67. Jack W - 20-1 on Milliband by end-2007 can be layed off on Betfair at 10.5. The only risk to this is that there is no leadership contest by end-2007, so surely this is indeed a decent (though not pure) arb.
Mike, your options are not mutally exclusive - if Brown becomes toast it does not mean that Labour will not be toast. In fact, if Milliband is the best other piece of bread that Labour can come up with then Labour will be burnt to a crisp! The only reason the Blairites want him is because they know they could control him.
Although, accusations that Brown is a Marxist are a bit silly really!
But I agree that Nick P has taken a much more “on message” position than usual, probably because there is a lot of frustration among Labour MPs that the media and public at large just doesnt “get it” that Brown should be treated as a new regime and be given a fair chance. But of course Brown isnt a new regime - he is part of the original brand.
Finally, it’s not surprising that Labour hacks are posting with accusations that Mike is ramping, because they know that it’s the only accusation that can get to Mike, and they are desperate for him to lay off Gordo. Around the country as we speak, Labour election campaigns are kicking into action, and looking downt eh barrels of guns all over the place. Never underestimate what a wounded animal will do when cornered. I’ve already seen some of the stuff Labour is putting out in various local contests; let’s just say that they are going to do anything to hold on where they can. This will be one of the dirtiest sets of elections in a while…
Am I the only one who can’t see the number of comments x thread from the homepage (as it used to happen)?
Re 63 Innocent “If Brown wants a “Major effect” he had to do what Major did and dump a key government policy that is already in effect and hurting people, as the Poll Tax did. However, there isn’t one. What’s hurting is an accumulation of little ones, the shoe’s pinching different people in different ways. Much harder to fix, even if the will was there, which it isn’t.”
Well put. I don’t agree with your points at 5 about declining living standards though. For the most part they will improve, although in part that me be just a perception thing. After all just how many new toasters does one family need?
71. No you’re not.
62 It’s certainly an opportunity, Caveman, but a long way from being the best one you’ll find on PB.
Let’s say you stake £100 at 20s with SJ (if they’ll take it all). You stand to win £2k. Now you you lay Boy David at, say, 10s (if you’re lucky) - £200 to lose £2k. Ok, you are covered in the unlikely event that he succeeds and win £100 if he doesn’t. Note though that you will need £2k in your Betfair account to effect the lay part. Have you got that amount of loose change hanging around? Then there is the very slight risk you could lose on both halves of the bet - he becomes PM in September and steps under a bus in October. Then again you will lose a small amount of interest on the £2k you have tied up. More significantly, you won’t be able to use that money to exploit the many excellent betting opportunities that regular PBers latch onto through visiting this site.
In short, yes, you are right but there are better bets around. Shame you weren’t here on Saturday. You could have backed Straw for Chancellor at 6/1 with Hills and layed him off hours later at 5/2.
Now that, my friend, is an arb! :-):-):-):-):-)
In my view Mike pretty much always picks out the key issue from the media or the most interesting story from polling. The fact that there has been extensive discussion on leadership election is a reflection of the fact that it has been simmering ever since Blair said he’d not stand in another election. Blame Blair not Mike for that! The relatively low number of political betting markets doesn’t make it easy, but Mike sets good topics day in, day out. In fact the first site I view in the morning is no longer the Guardian or BBC, but now PB.com.
MattJ Sego says it in her book. Earlier in the campaign she floundered and said her opinion would be the opinion of the french people as expressed in a referendum. Her comments this time are far more favourable. She declares herself to be in favour of Turkish membership ‘in principle’ provided they meet the conditions ie the Copenhagen criteria. That is the UK’s position too. She explicitly says that Turkey has a european vocation and denounces the geographical, cultural and economic reasons given for refusing Turkish membership. She’s definitely got a completely different position now to Sarko and Bayrou who are both clearly against membership.
71, 73. It’s just because of the quotation marks in the title messing up the html.
I must say DC and friends gave Wales the full treatment on the weekend in terms of visit campaigning time. DC looked and sounded very confident. He must think Wales is going to be a very god news story for him.
69/74 Another punter/PtP. Agreed, but as PtP indicates there are some downsides.
76. Still she’ll put it to a referendum so her position isn’t exactly the same as the UK’s.
71 I got Straw for chancellor at 10/1 earlier in the week. Thanks for the tips. :0) Per you example, couldn’t i arb more cheaply by backing Brown instead for £400 at 1.26 and then protect myself by placing a few small stack on other potential outside runners?
75 Absolutely, Henry. In fact I start with PB and work out from there, on the assumption that if it isn’t being mentioned here it’s of little importance.
As for Mike ramping, I know it isn’t true. In fact he is very careful not to do so. Any suggestion to the contrary is insulting, as well as inaccurate.
Now..let me try those smileys again. Got it wrong last time.
That’s better!
It’s poor of some to criticise Mike for bringing up Brown again, it is THE political story of the moment, and to be honest, it could be a signficant and very profitable betting opportunity if the expected coronation doesn’t happen.
55. “There is of course always room for ‘events’ to shift the plates. But what event of similar seismic importance to the Winter of Discontent or the Falklands is going to rescue your beloved Labour from their current parlous state? ”
Erm, maybe an Iranian Hostage Crisis II.
81 Again Caveman, yes but it’s not without downsides. How many others do you have to back to be sure of eliminating enough risk? The only serious threat to GB’s accession is some extraordinary event or accident - ‘the bus’ for short. But if he were hit by a bus, the number of plausible candidates stepping forward then would be legion. The cost of covering them all reduces your profit to shirtbuttons - and you could be unlucky and miss the outsider who storms through at the end to snatch the prize.
Why complicate? 1.26 is a great price. Take it now and trade back when it gets down to about 1.15. This should take no more than a few months at most.
85- you mean like the one that greatly helped Carter’s reelection cmapign in 1980…??
Paisley and Adams met this morning.
81 Thanks for the advice p2p. I’ll stick with the Brown price and keep a close eye on “events”.
MattJ I haven’t seen whether the referendum pledge is there or not but I presume it is. Nonetheless this is is a striking change of policy at a time when the public in France is said to be pretty hostile to enlargement. Indeed in dismissing the geographical reason for opposition to Turkish membership( ‘europe is a political project not a geographical project’) she leaves the door open by implication to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia. Where next Kazakhstan? She hasn’t thought this through.
I’m usually just a browser here but the premise upon this thread is based; ‘the toast argument’ is the most ridiculous I’ve come across.
It doesn’t take a genious to work out that the one thing that would boost Brown’s popularity to almost messianic proproportions (sad but true) would be for him to be to be ‘toasted’ in a leadership duel. Every right wing commentator, every political opponent (apart from Mandelson) would rush to apply ‘The best prime minister we never had’ epithet. There are reservations about Brown but most in the party realise that to reject him would be a slow burning toasting for the next decade and we’d be viewed as idiots by the electorate. The party is in no rush to allow any candidate the unassailability that Blair has enjoyed so I’d be surprise if Brown were to lead into more than two GEs and probably only one. But you don’t look beyond Brown’s incredible resumé for the leadership. And then he’s got to work his b**** off to win the trust of the party.
90- Blue moon
The thing is that “She hasn’t thought this through” could be the automatic comment of at least a third of her public promises and annoucements…
O/T- Paisley and Adams have agreed on a press release announcing a power sharing agreement entreiing into force on 8 may
91 Well if that’s going to be typical of the standard of your posts, Mancunian, I hope you will be posting here a lot more often. There has been much silliness on this subject recently and your dose of common sense is very welcome.
Of course the Party would be crazy to reject Brown now. All those polls which are regularity quoted to show he’s as popular as the pox invariably fail to mention that any other candidate would be even less popular. MPs know that. They ain’t daft.
55. “There is of course always room for ‘events’ to shift the plates. But what event of similar seismic importance to the Winter of Discontent or the Falklands is going to rescue your beloved Labour from their current parlous state? ”
The point is, you never know.
As it happens, I think Labour would have lost in Autumn 1978, and Thatcher would have won in 1983, in any case (unless the Falklands War had been lost).
Mike Smithson is a hero for keeping this website going. It provides excellent betting advice, informed political discussion and a strong sense of where the news is.
Roger - it doesn’t take a psychotherapist to divine your motive for laying into Mike. Since the start of the year the news for Labour supporters has been unremittingly gloomy. More and more people are saying that Brown is a loser. You must hate getting up in the mornings but, truly, it’s THE political story at the moment.
But it’s worse than that. Your darkest fear is that every bad news story in reinforcing the narrative - and here is Mike, reporting the facts and disecting them in front of a specialist audience that itself contains many opinion-formers.
Come on Roger (and Nick P) - I know the whole thing must be galling but don’t shoot the messenger.
PtP, not long of meetings all this morning but it appears that the devolution bet is looking good….
long out of….
95 Sean Fear. The 83 election is on of the best “what if” elections.
As someone who had intimate knowledge of the major players at the time, IMHO if the Falklands had not occured then the Conservative government would have been in desperate trouble and the 83 election may have been defered until 84 !!
We sometimes forget how fragile the early years of the Thatcher administration were. It’s bizzare and most strange how the nation owes a wonderful debt of gratitude to John Nott !!!!!!! … surely one of the worst Tory cabinet ministers in history.
98 Yes, I think so Yokel. If what I read is anywhere near right, even Paddy Power will have to pay up.
Interesting that Adams and Paisley met this morning. Did they kiss?
I wonder if Brown has some surprises up his sleave in the first hundred days, assuming he becomes leader.
He was very positive about the ‘Power Report’. His campaign manager is on record as favouring the Alternative Vote. Not a proportional system, but one which might favour Labour, and manitain a constituency link (therefore not needing a referendum).
We shall see if/when GB makes it to the top of the greasy pole.
Miliband into 6.4/1 on Betfair. Last price matched 7/1. Extraordinary for one who keeps declaring himself a non runner!
If Milidand decides to run, what would be the best timing to enter the race?
If Brown is denied the leadership then he will become an incredibly destablising and divisive figure, for that reason alone Labour have little alternative but to elect him.
98. I posted elsewhere yesterday that I was confident DUP/SF meeting would be arranged though I didnt know it was going to be Paisley & Adams direct. I thought perhaps some kind of committee scenario involving leading figures face to face.
I also believe that this, if it is as suggested is spot on for Tony to go very very soon after the locals & Assembly elections over there and was very much on the DUP’s mind with the 6 weeks delay proposal.
One way or another I can’t see devolution being considered as being live as of midnight tonight.
99,And what if Denis Healey had been elected Labour leader,the SDP had not broken away,the huge lurch to the left in the early 80s Labour Party had not occurred? IMHO,even with the Falklands War remaining,Healey,as a WW2 veteran would have patrotically backed the war in opposition,and in the subsequent general election (3 1/2 million unemployed,industrial output down by 20% in 5 years),the Tories would have had a defeat of 1945 proortions-ah well,in 1997 I thought ‘Better late than never’:wink:
Re 104, Houndtag, that has been my view for ages. Not looking good for Labour!
104. If GB doesn’t get the leadership, the best thing for Labour would be convincing him to resign his seat immediately
108. LOL That’s a bit extreme. Why not go the whole way and leave him with a bottle of whiskey and a gun and tell him to do the decent thing?
99 and 106. If you look at opinion polls for the Spring of 1982, they were moving back quite sharply in the Conservatives’ direction, even before the start of the Falklands War. As the economy started to recover fairly rapidly from the 1980-81 recesssion, and inflation moved towards low single figures, I think the Conservatives would have been in quite a strong position by Spring 1983, even had the Falklands War never occurred.
OTOH, if the War had been lost, then I think a Conservative election defeat would have been a likelihood.
Re 106, Patrick, and if Healy had won would he, like Calaghan and Heath before him failed to have implemented the changes that senior middle of the road Labour and Conservatives knew would need to happen.
In other words we would not have got out of the mess of the 1970’s.
May 8 NI executive set up. May 9 TB announces resignation to take effect from election of new Labour Leader. So he goes not in the wake of local elections disaster but in the aftermath of crowning achievement of the NI peace process. No wonder he was more than happy to get off Hain’s line about no delay of the deadline….
Re: 75 - Mike is looking at issues from a punting perspective and rightly so. He advises us on where he thinks the value is and where any arbs may be and again rightly so.
He has called the immediate impact of the Budget based on the polls and again that’s reasonable. Where I part company with him is over the longer-term implications of last Wednesday. As I thought last Wednesday and still think now, this Budget cannot be taken in isolation. The GE wasn’t last Thursday, it’s not this Thursday and it won’t be next Thursday either. Indeed, 2009 or even 2010 are and have always been my idea of the date. Cameron’s call for an election once Blair goes are as vapid and inconsequential as Kinnock’s were after the removal of Mrs Thatcher in 1990.
For me, this Budget was the first shot of the 2009 GE campaign. Even though he won’t be delivering the next two Budgets, I am convinced Brown will be more strongly involved in their creation, development and presentation than Blair has been in any Budget since 1997.
The measures announced last Wednesday were aimed at specific groups as I have argued elsewhere. The “winners” are that key group of earners between £20k and £40k who live in and around London and the suburbs. Brown knows, as I know, that the strongest Tory performance in 2005 was in London and the South-East and that if the Conservatives don’t make progress here, their chances of getting an overall majority (or even being largest party) aren’t great.
The next two Budgets, including the pre-election 2009 Budget, will also be targetted to maximize the Labour vote and make life hard for both the Tories and LDs. Too many on here are assuming the end result on the basis of less than a week’s polls and some press comment. The next election is at least two years and two Budgets away. The slowdown in the American economy may well led to lower interest rates there and possibly here by the end of the Autumn.
101 - Labour could shoot themselves in the head if they go for AV. It isn’t an automatic anti-Tory system, it’s an anti-”the most despised party” system.
Recent polling evidence suggests that the anti-Tory sentiment of non-Labour voters is melting faster than a Peruvian glacier*. Consequently, AV could be used at a future election to ensure that Labour MPs are not returned, not to keep the Tories out.
AV is likely to exaggerate swings in sentiment. Would a Cameron majority of 100+ be a good idea? Was such a large majority good for Labour, Parliament, or the country?
I can see that AV makes sense in an election for an individual, such as the London mayoralty. You could argue that is what the individual constituencies are doing in a UK general election; electing a personal representative for their constituency. However, given the way the party system has evolved over the last couple of centuries, I don’t think that is a particularly defensible reading of our political system as it stands.
Our general elections are still, just, an election for the party that people wish to form the next government, and the system should seek to avoid giving too much power to parties that fail to get close to a majority of the votes cast.
I suppose you could go for AV in the lower chamber, to give a “strong” executive, and PR in an upper chamber to act as a counter-balance, but I honestly don’t think having a strong executive is really that important. In times of crisis the British political class normally rallies around, so a strong executive simply means that we end up with a load of old cobblers on the statute books so that the executive can claim it is “tough on crime”, etc.
* I didn’t say it was very fast. It could still take another 5 years or so to reach it’s minimum.
35: Labour doesnt have a majority in Wales…….
If Gordon is going to do wonders for Labour’s appeal and the Labour MPs believe this, then how come he has not been installed ahead of May’s elections? Is the loss of;
1,000 Labour councillors,
Control of Scotland
Majority in Wales
worth the wait for Gordon?
112. As posted at the weekend, how very convenient.
Somebody within the DUP chose their proposed date carefully
110 True, it wasn’t just the Falklands war that turned it around 81-83 for the new prime minister.
It is intresting to note that, no-one in 1981 would have predicted a Tory Landslide in 1983.
With all the cricket fixing stories, are we in labour leadership fixing story time, a lot of these stories are being planted by one person or another, most of them hokum, but are they being planted to manipulate betting prices.
115 refer you to 78. I also see CK has been visiting.
Sorry Yokel if you posted the point at the weekend I didn’t see it or I would have given you credit; it occurred to me spontaneously as I’m sure it did to lots of other people.
53 If pb.com had been in existence in 1976/77 , they would have said that Labour was toast and would lose the next GE . True they did…..
LOL, the usual in-depth Senior treatment where an unknowable counterfactual is produced in evidence
99 etc on 83 election, I was doing my Politics A level at the time and we started off on the premise that without the Falklands Thatcher wouldn’t have won, but when we looked at the polling evidence found that there was little to support ‘the Falklands factor’ argument. It has however remained a trusim for the left that without the Falkands she would have lost. A sensible Labour manifesto might have produced a different result.
117. If Labour’s hopes now rest on some kind of dramatic unexpected event changing the whole political scene then I think that rather supports the ‘toast’ argument. Most Tories would settle for that too, I’m sure…though perhaps not most Lib Dems :).
Some responses
It was quite a hard call overnight to decide what to run with and I was very conscious of the fact that we have been doing the Labour leadership a lot recently. But it is the big political story of the moment and on Betfair alone getting on for £1m has been matched. What swung it today was the suggestion that Mandelson had been behind yesterday’s Observer splash and that he is is seeking to intervene.
A lot of my analysis is driven by the polls and when there is good news for Gordon I report it that way. This was from January
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/01/09/at-last-poll-shows-labour-doing-better-with-gordon/
110 - I don’t think there were any circumstances with Michael Foot as leader, Labour could ever have won in 82, 83 or 84, despite Thatcher’s unpopularity.
Regardless of the Falklands, Labour would have had a Bennite manifesto - nationalising the top 100 UK companies etc, they would never have been elected. The Alliance I suppose could have, but hadn’t worked out how to win on the ground (and was split between the Owenites and the rest even in 83).
So none of the opposition parties was ever really in a position to take advantage of Tory weakness in 83.
But as Sean says losing the Falklands would have made it almost impossible for the Tories to win and would have seen Thatcher resign. I suppose one scenario would have seen an alternative Tory leader emerge and going on to win narrowly or in charge of a ‘national’ style government.
But it’s all academic…
121. I think labour’s fate was sealed from Foot’s election and Benn’s near election. THe Falklands merely added to themagnitude of Thatcher’s win. A half decent Labour leader like Healey might at least have retained enough seats to give Labour a hope of power by an election in 87 or 88.
Right after Blair announces his resignation. It would immediately wrong foot Gordon.
When did “toast” become the preferred synonym for complete failure ? Most unfair.
All around the country coast to coast
People ask me what do I like most
I don’t want to brag, I don’t want to boast
I just tell em I like toast
Yeah Toast!
Hills have just openud and still got Milliband at 11
Mike I agree, a suggestion, could we have a piece on spread bets for the local elections, is there an over/under on seats won and lost, perhaps Sean Fear could collate all his predictions and give us a national figure broken down by country
107 My (American) wife and mother-in-law saw a picture of Milliband yesterday. Their first comment was “isn’t he a little young to be a politician?”. The second was “why doesn’t he shave properly?”
66- Wow, Woger wants political objectivity. He cannot avoid two key facts. Firstly, the Budget has not been seen to be a success and secondly, before general election polling day there will be tens of thousands of leaflets circulating in every marginal constituency showing what Brown eats when Blair speaks. That alone make sthe rest of the CV seem grubby.
However a lead article from Woger would be amusing.
Facts, policies, stratagies and the like are interesting to analyse by you political experts/anoraks. But if Mike Smithson’s claim that brand brown is damaged, it is all irrelevant.
Many here and elsewhere see GB as merely unpopular, which is completely different from suffering from brand damage.
Is Mike confusing unpopularity for brand-damage, or has he expressed something before everybody else sees it?
Mike don’t apologize for a moment. You do a superb job getting up pre-dawn to get a discussion going. If people don’t agree with you they can and do say so. Equally if you haven’t once in a while hit the bullseye posters quickly move on to other topics. I don’t think Milliband will stand but Nick ought to acknowledge that you’re hardly the only person speculating about it.
121 LOL The usual kingbongo post attempts to ridicule me in Paragraph 2 and then agrees with me in Paragraph 3 where he states that despite opinion polls and byelections in 1980/81 indicating Thatcher and the Conservatives were toast that they would have won in 1983 even without the Falklands and with the mass unemployment and high inflation that we do not have today .
128 Told you, Goupillon!
Can we persuade Jackie Ashley, Tom Watson, Kevin Maguire and Debbie Mattinson to set up a Brownite ‘Good News’ website? That way, Nick P, Roger, Burbach Chris, Bally Eric and the rest of the “Labour Til I Die” crew could start each day with a smile…
Re: 121,122 and others: I think you’re all wrong. The Falklands War or “factor” saved Labour, not the Tories. I was out canvassing in January and February 1982 in a very Tory ward and the canvass returns were incredible. The Conservative vote was very soft and collapsing to the Alliance.
Had there been no Falklands War, the 1982 local elections would have been disastrous for the Conservatives and would have enabled the Alliance to build a stronger local foundation on which to fight the coming GE.
By crippling the Alliance vote and bringing Tories back to the fold, the Falklands War ensured the survival of Labour as the principal opposition party. I think that had the Falklands not happened, the Conservatives would either have won narrowly or been the largest party in a Hung parliament in 1983/84. The Alliance would have