Thread 2: the verdict of the market on Newsnight
May 30th, 2007
The money moves to Cruddas after the Newsnight hustings
The above chart records the changing fortunes on the Betfair betting exchange of the four outsiders in the race for the Deputy Leadership before, during, and in the aftermath of last night’s Newsnight hustings on BBC2 which started at 10.30 pm. To watch the debate click here.
Most of us have opinions about political outcomes - gamblers are prepared to back up their views with hard cash and that’s what these charts are showing.
The big “winner” amongst the outsiders was the only non-minister - John Cruddas who, until now has suffered from the lack of name recognition. As the Independent reports this morning his support is now growing in the constituencies with many more coming out and endorsing him.
Cruddas has been a long-time tip on this site and many regulars got on him at quite long odds.
This is how punters rated the two front runners.
The next big event that could affect the markets is a new YouGov poll of Labour members. This closed on Monday so the fieldwork took place before the televised hustings. Will Hilary Benn still be enjoying his substantial lead over Johnson?
Mike Smithson
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Ok, before we get onto the whole issue of who is going to win, I want to cover an issue that i thought about after watching last nights show: and that is how much better politics and thus our governance would be if we didnt have this anal mentality of “everyone needing to sing from the same hymnsheet.”
I really enjoyed seeing people have (even mild) disagreements, for me as a Labour party member, I found it very refreshing to see that there are still different ideas being discussed. I just really hate the way that people get jumped on if they disagree with someone in the same party. Alas true cabinet government is but a dream……
As for who I thought was best, in terms of the way it was delivered then blears won hands down, in terms of what she was saying, well:confused:
I really liked what cruddas had to say, I really think that in terms of what is best for the Labour party he should win.
What i found most interesting though was Harmans answers. If she is saying what gordon is thinking then I think that Brown might suprise us all in how much he is willing to change the direction of the Labour party.
Who could fail to fall for the red headed Jack-in the box that could just about reach the podium on tip toes! She also gave the smartest answer to the most interesting question of the night “If you couldn’t vote for yourself which of the other candidates would you vote for?”
“I’d vote for Harriet” said Blears. “We need a woman!”
Nonetheless apart from as a ‘cheer leader’I can’t see what she has to offer. Harman surprised me by being such a wild and loose cannon.Far too opportunistic and disloyal. Cruddas did what she tried but far more successfully. He just seemed too lightweight for the leadership job he’s going for. Hain looks far to Blairite and I can’t see him shaking this off.
So it’s articulate Johnson with his interesting history-delivering letters to Dorney Wood might come in handy when leaders histories become a story during the next election campaign! And Hilary Benn whose name alone is a story.
I felt proud to be in the Labour party after watching this debate. With the exception of Harman, who looked decidely third rate, all came over very well. I was even impressed by Hazel Blears but it won’t change my vote for John Cruddas who realy is in tune with the mood of the membership.
Interesting that on this occasion, the market and the commentators’ views seem to be in alignment: Blears looked to do well but on reflection perhaps there wasn’t so much there (that’s not a height gag).
Still, this is a contest for the deputy leadership. What is demanded of the position? Not much, really - it’s whatever the incumbent chooses to make of it, so being a cheerleader without stepping on Gordon’s policy toes might not be a bad thing for Labour. Blears may yet do quite well and even if she doesn’t make up too much ground on first preferences, she must be improving her rating on lower preferences - and that could be cruicial in a six-candidate race.
One question for the Labour members among us: have the ballot papers gone out yet and if so, when did they arrive? I wouldn’t swear to this, but I think about half the papers returned in the Conservative leadership election were returned in the first week (it might even have been the first two or three days).
I don’t think ballots have gone out. In fact, until 1st June, you can still join the Labour Party in order to obtain a vote.
Mike - you did a great job a couple of years ago trying to spot false hair-pieces on Tory leadership candidates so why are you not doing the same with the Labour race? Alan Johnson looked terrific last night and must be the only man of his age with an advancing hair-line. So come on Mike - what about “outing” the Labour baldies - or is this something you only do to the Tories?
Harman appears to have got more coverage after the event for her adverse comments on the leaking of police powers ideas over the weekend. I thought she set the agenda for the early questions (on Iraq and police powers) but did rather poorly on the “yes or no” questions.
I have to say that I think the format was good and that if I was Labour I would be encouraged by there being six surprisingly capable candidates there.
Not surprised Cruddas did well because any coverage is good for him and he had a unique selling point. As the betting suggests, Hain was the least impressive of the five. Benn and Johnson played it cautiously as joint front runners and Johnson did well on the “yes or no” questions. I laughed at Sean T’s description of Johnson as looking like a wartime spiv. I like him but there is something of that in his lean on the podium and in the cut of his suit (slightly sharp edged - smart but not actually that well made).
Johnson appears more like the cheeky butcher to me…’Got you some lovely chops this week Mrs Wiggens’.
Cruddas seems to be the human one.
The ballot papers haven’t gone out yet - I believe they go out on the 6th.
Like most of the comments above I thought nearly all the contestants did well and it was a satisfying debate for Labour supporters - there wasn’t anyone who you couldn’t imagine doing the job competently and it shows we a range of talent that I don’t think the Conservatives can match: try imagine an hour with, say, Davis, Fox, May, Brady (as Cruddas’s counterpart), Lansley and Boris Johnson - can one honestly see them doing as well?
To try to split the difference with HenryG last night: I was following the website poll closely and there was a one-off shift in the space of a few minutes lifting Cruddas by over 10% and reducing Benn by a similar number and Hain from 5% to 0.5%. This one-one shift was mathematically impossible, since during the same period only a few dozen votes had come in. But before HenryG kills me, I also noticed Cruddas leading in votes coming in both before and after the shift, so I think he’d have won the website vote anyway without the sudden shift. And while it’s a voodoo poll, I do think Cruddas was way overpriced in the odds so the correction that Mike notes is right and probably has a bit further to go: 12-1 was daft, and around 6-1 would make more sense. I think that he’d write the media’s script of ‘Labour leadership split’ for them and that members (especially the PLP section) won’t elect him because of that, but he did much better than at the PLP hustings.
It didn’t seem to me that Alan Johnson really justified his co-favourite status, by the way - he was perfectly OK, but I can’t remember anything he said this morning except the Robin to Brown’s Batman joke, which is good but not really enough to vote on. Harriet Harman seemed more left-wing than I suspect most members would have expected, Hilary Benn probably less so, loyally putting the case for most of the armed conflicts of the last 10 years. Peter Hain was the only one to mention climate change and as usual seemed to me the most concrete and the most willing to take Paxman on (hooray), and Hazel Blears showed how steely she is under fire, something that’s vital in a DL. I’m still either Hain/Benn/Blears or Hain/Blears/Benn.
‘What i found most interesting though was Harmans answers. If she is saying what gordon is thinking then I think that Brown might suprise us all in how much he is willing to change the direction of the Labour party.’
That’s exactly what Mrs G was saying. She thought that every Harman position must have been cleared by Gordon Brown, which is perhaps what she found so positive. I’m not sure about that, but a lot of people think of her as Brown’s favourite candidate - which could work for her or against her.
I had a number of text messages from colleagues in the party last night saying positive things about Cruddas. I think he’s tapping into the Fabian intellectual left if the messages were anything to go by. The consistent thing that was said was that he was the only one to answer the questions and didn’t look like he was a career position. Now of course some people may want someone with great style, eloquence and gravitas, but I think many others want ’someone normal’ to bat for the members within the leadership. I think Cruddas’s proposition of turning down ministerial office and focusing on the party is really beginning to resonate. It was only one hustings, albeit broadcast on TV, and I felt before the night that Cruddas had to deliver. I think he did.
10. ‘career politician’ not ‘career position’.
9. I would never kill you Nick
I agree that Johnson was disappointing - particularly for someone who was built up as a leadership contender last year.
Did you really think Hain put in a good performance, Nick? If that was him on form, it doesn’t offer him all that much hope. He seemed the weakest of the six.
9. Johnson’s best line of the night was when he referred to the Tory Party as “The Party we’re not allowed to mention” after Paxman had gone ballistic with Hazel Blears for starting her sentence “Unlike the Tories……”
Well, a good interview helps to define peoples’ positions, and Benn and Blears came out clearly as the more right-wing candidates. Benn’s robust attitude to armed intervention seems to have surprised Nick Palmer but it is well-documented and he’s a signatory of the Euston Manifesto, a pressure group which defends the Iraq war. Blears’ rather strident loyalism is off-putting and she is ill-advised to rabbit on about academies which are unpopular with activists. Harman could be the one. Yes, I know she is a bit wooden and awkward, but people seem to have forgotten that Prescott wasn’t a model of presentation either. As a foil to Tony, he ensured that the leader always looked better.
9 Nick P. ” … it shows we (have) a range of talent that I don’t think the Conservatives can match.”
Oh dear Nicholas !!
… a little hyperbolical there or as we at the Grand and Most Noble Order of the Cracked Chamber Pot would say “hyperbollox” !
Accordingly I’m placing you on a yellow card for the said damaged wee-wee receptacle !
Cruddas was the CLEAR winner because he actually believes in something. He has views on how to change policy, the others came across as the slimy, spineless and self-obsessed politicians they are. Blears really is a total embarrassment for the party “its about winning the election” no its not luv its about governing the country properly!
On this show Labour are rightly doomed; Tony Benn would be turning in his arm chair if he saw Hilary last night.
For the deputy leader to have any value, there needs to be an element of ‘double act’ about his relationship with the PM. Politically, TB and GB have been a great double act. But think how much better it would have been if the no. 2 wasn’t so obviously thirsting after the top job.
On that basis, it would seem that Cruddas is the best candidate for the labour party. He will spend 0% of his time as deputy jockeying for an improved position in the cabinet, or trying to look like ‘the man’ in a post GB world. Hazel Blears must be second choice as she surely (surely?) has no leadership ambitions.
Blears- big turn off
Benn- seems decent enough, but a bit dull
Hain- don’t trust him
Johnson- shallow
Cruddas- Seems like a genuine guy
Harman- dull, but safe, and probably quite left wing.
If I had a Labour vote (I don’t), it would be Cruddas, Johnson, Benn
Crudass had an audience he had to use this opportunity to speak directly to and resonate with: the membership. He aced it on that test. He also held his own against serious opposition for the first time, in front of a huge viewing audience of Members and Trade Unionists. Job most definitely done. 8/1 is fantastic value. Bandwagon? Clever marshalling of troops to manipulate Newsnight poll an indicator that he’s a smoother operator than the rest. Johnson was the opposite of all the above and must have alienated key voting segments in the party, he came across as the lightweight, not Cruddas, unexpectedly.
Just want to say I have voted for Cruddass and he is still well in the lead on the newsnight poll.
I can’t quite work out why Harman is anywhere, but there you go.
I thought Hain did ok, Blears was like a terrier, Johnson and Benn slightly disappointing. Cruddas just doesn’t have it I’m afraid. Harman came over as pretty left wing. She made good points about Iraq and the labour party being bounced by spinning in the press, but I was hugely disappointed by her answer about taxing the highest earners. The politics of envy are for the 1970’s and 80’s.
So I have no idea who I’d vote for. In the end I think it right for a woman to be in 1 of the top 2 jobs when there is no obvious person head and shoulders above the other candidates. For this reason I’d probably plump for Harman as Blears would irritate me pretty soon.
20. Benedict, Paul Linford has a great column on ‘phrases designed to annoy’. I thought you’d appreciate it
http://paullinford.blogspot.com/
Blears, Cruddas and Benn seem to be the most authentic and consistent in the views they have expressed throughout the contest so far and Blears and Cruddas were the most straight talking.
Johnson seemed very knowledgeable and capable if a little dull - hope he gets a big job in the reshuffle though!
The final question re: ‘who would they vote for if they weren’t standing’ was quite instructive - blears and cruddas were the only ones that answered. Harman wouldn’t even say Blears despite her ‘Deputy must be a woman’ line.
For me Blears and Benn were the top two followed by Johnson and Cruddas and Hain and Harman.
I would vote Johnson, Blears, Benn, if I was a Labour member.
To contrast the dour one you need abit of life which Johnson or Blears would bring. I have alot of respect for Benn but he is too dull. Hain is too slimy, Harman trying to position herself as leftwing is a joke & Cruddas would cause constant conflict within the Labour party. So as a Tory I’m off to add my support to Cruddas on the newsnight poll.
14 The Euston Manifesto Group does not defend the Iraq war, its founders include supporters and opponents alike. It’s an organisation dedicated to opposing the tendency of the current liberal consensus to ignore Islamist totalitarianism, and by extension, turn their backs on liberals and socialists in the poor world.
PBers should get out of the betting shop and sing up now
http://www.eustonmanifesto.org/joomla/
I think Cruddas could help rebuild the Labour Party as a broad church and still be able to work well with Brown. I just don’t think that he’d have had Nick Brown speak at his North East campaign meeting or have Tommy Watson in his campaign team if he was hell bent on causing conflict with the next leader. But at the same time, he has had to let people know the sort of issues he would raise behind the scenes if he were deputy leader and how they differ from the others. I think the Brownites probably want a candidate to demonstrate that the party has moved on from Blair. Cruddas is one candidate who can help do that, Blears certainly isn’t.
It’s easy to forget who the electorate is here. I previously thought that Cruddas could be a divisive choice and this could yet prove to be the case. Consideration of this fact could influence his support amongst MPs but not necessarily by the other 2 colleges.
I don’t now think he would be divisive. But nor do I think that this possibility will necessarily prevent him from winning or at least going close.
If the unions and the Labour party members like him they will vote for him. It’s no way near as important a vote to get right as the leadership would have been.
I am very Green on Cruddas and Blears and a bit red on the rest. Happy with this position.
I agree wholeheartedly with Nick Palmer’s comments about how competent the Labour candidates are and how the opposition simply don’t match up. So it’s good to see that Alan Johnson, having recognised this sorry state of affairs, has taken steps to rectify it. Er…hmmm…David Cameron appears to have made a more than interesting choice of new shadow cabinet members, though. http://www.newsbiscuit.com reveals all.
The podium set-up didn’t do Hazel Blears any favours, just how tall is she?
Latest figures for clp nominations are now out, about 25% of clps are now there. Given that we have a pretty good idea how the MPs/MEPs section will go ( yes I know there will be a bit of churn but the final votes should be along the lines of the nominations) averaging out the two sets of figures should give a good indication of how things are going; this gives Benn 20%, Blears 12%, Cruddas 17%, Hain 11%, Harman 18%, Johnson 20%. We dont know how the affiliated orgs will go but probably similar to the clps with possibly an advantage to Benn and Cruddas which would push up their averages and drop some of the others.
Transfers are going to be key for instance will Harman pick up most of the Blears vote, was Harman’s left wing pitch last night designed to gather votes from Hain and Cruddas, Will Benn have a large enough lead so that it doesn’t matter if he only gets a minority of transfers.
Hain and Blears ( sorry Nick ) definitely seem to be trailing ( they are on the newsnight poll too as surprisingly is Hilary Benn, Cruddas has always had a good webcampaign and his lead is possibly a reflection of that ).
Both Harman and Cruddas are at 10s on Betfair which seems to be crazy prices. If for instance the yougov poll shows them both with say around 20% of 1st preferences then their price can only come in. Even the prices for Johnson and Benn are pretty good. It is certainly possible to get a position with Benn, Johnson, Cruddas and Harman that assuming one of them wins guarantees at least covering the stake if not a profit which could be quite considerable if either Cruddas or Harman win.
25. In theory the Euston manifesto group includes opponents of the Iraq war, but there are not too many I think. PBers can judge for themselves and there’s a clip of Hilary talking to a recent EM conference on the blog section of the EM site, with the following caption, “Hilary Benn MP, Minister for International Development and a candidate for the Labour party deputy leadership, said he wanted to tackle head-on voter’s perceptions about Iraq. In an excellent exchange with Nick Cohen he defended the government’s decision..”
By the way the Daily Mail recently did an expose on Jon Cruddas’ two houses in London, one of which was bought to get his son into a top RC comprehensive school in the capital.
So much for Jon Cruddas’ campaign to build new council houses in Dagenham. Like all so-called left-wing Labour MPs he is just another bourgeois politician with his snout in the trough!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=457904&in_page_id=1770
Cruddas Targeted in Labour Dirty Tricks
The Mail on Sunday today contains a puff piece on Hazel Blears and a piece on Jon Cruddas which he will find very embarrassing. I am sure there is no link between the two!
The Cruddas story accuses him of buying a second home in Notting Hill to enable his child to be educated there. It was clearly leaked by one of the rival deputy leadership camps.
I have no idea which campaign is responsible, but the man with most to gain from damaging Cruddas is Peter Hain, who has lost no time in slagging off Alan Johnson and repudiating much of the government policy he has got collective responsibility for.
Cruddas has sewn up a lot of the left of centre vote which Hain is targeting. Hain knows he cannot win unless much of Cruddas’s support transfers to him, and he’s willing to do what it takes.
It’s turning nasty.
2. “Far too opportunistic and disloyal.” (H Harman)
Blairspeak for ’surprisingly and unpredictably honest’ !
Roger, you somehow managed to miss out the other two people who Blears said she’d vote for. Are you sure your middle name’s not Lynton?