Is it worth betting on an early general election?
June 29th, 2007
New spread market: How many weeks to go?
Spread-betting works best when it is linked to a specific numerical outcome such as “how many seats will Labour get?” or “how many states will the Democrats take in the 2008 White House Race?”. You look at the prices and decide whether the total will be lower, in which case you sell, or higher in which case you buy.
You choose how much you want to bet and that becomes your stake level. So if you think in this new market that Gordon will go to the country earlier than the May 2009 suggested by the prices you sell at the current 84.5 level. Should the polls continue to be good for Labour and Brown decides to risk it in, say, October this year the outcome might be 13 weeks. In that case your profit would be 84.5 minus the 13 multiplied by your stake.
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The seductive principle being that the more you are right the more you win and the more you are wrong the more you lose.
What can make this form of betting so tantalising to some gamblers is that you can close down your position earlier and pocket your profit or curtail a potential loss. So you are not betting on what will actually happen but your assessment of what other punters will do.
Thus over the past few months I’ve been trading the number of seats that Labour will get at the election buying and selling when I think that sentiment might change and the market will move.
So what about the new “Gordon Brown weeks” market that is featured? Is there value in the buy price 88.75 weeks or the sell price of 84.5?
What’s going to drive this, surely, is Labour’s poll position and punters’ assessment of whether Gord would take a gamble by going earlier. So if the Brown honeymoon continues and poll ratings look good then the spread will drop and there might be profits to be had.
But if the Brown honeymoon is brought to a stop by, say, poor Labour by election performances in three weeks then the chances of the parliament going to its full five year term will be seen as being greater and the spread will rise.
Mike Smithson
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O/T - Interesting article including good poll news for Al Gore:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2114538,00.html
the murdoch press did not welcome the new cabinet
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,31-2007290830,00.html
Nuneaton & Bedworth DC Slough
Labour 862
British National Party 582
Conservatives 499
English Democrats 102
Liberal Democrats 83
Turnout 40.57%
2004 result Con 842 Lab 696 Lib Dem 292
2006 result Lab 792 Con 708 Lib Dem 346
BB
Note how low down the running order the new cabinet is in all the papers.
The public are not interested.
Sandwell MBC Charlemont/Grove Vale
Conservatives 870
Labour 801
British National Party 544
Liberal Democrats 238
Greens 71
2007 result Con 1460 Lab 970 BNP 768 Lib Dem 671
BB
(OT) to answer my own question from yesterday (about three or four threads ago): it has occurred to me that the statutory timetable for a by-election allows polling day to be on day 15 to 19, not necessarily day 17. Therefore 19th July is (just) possible. The timetable is far too short, IMHO. It is bad enough for candidates and agents (who have the luxury of not having to bother with leaflets) but it must be a nightmare for the administrative staff, who have no flexibility in their need to arrange ballot papers and postal votes etc.
(OT) Oh! I’ve just noticed the new line of pictures at the top of the page. Shouldn’t there be more people?
with strikes imminent in rail and postal services, Iraq getting ugly, real (rather than statistical)inflation and interest rates rising, I doubt he will want to test the water. He’s obviously decided to run a 100 day programme.
Possibly the strikers could be persuaded to postpone their actions, but unions are angry with Brown and might well not cooperate.
With Iraq still an issue, The Lib Dems are still a threat to labour at the ballot box. Cameron should open up on Brown on high interest rates and inflation.
My thinking goes - I think the housing market is going to drop significantly over the next 2/3 years. The economy has been built on a huge debt expansion and the banks have been warned by the central banks to ensure credit lending is sound.
So if the credit is withdrawn and the housing market falters, the public feel less well off and GB’s miracle economy is shown to be the sham that it is.
This makes me think that Labour will be well behind in the polls for several years and that GB will have to hang on for almost the full term before the economy improves and going to the country.
Now if all of that is correct GB’s best chance of winning will be to go as soon as possible. So I think that if the Labour vote keeps up in the byelections coming up then GB could go to the country in September otherwise may 2012.
may 2012. You sure, you expecting a war
How many of their candidates do Labour have in place? Even in unwinnable seats they need to select someone and an acceleration of that process would be one clue to an early election - if the process is still ongoing.
I really don’t think it’s likely there’ll be an early election this Autumn. Before the conferenes, it’s very difficult to maintain any kind of interest over the Summer season and there’ll be a lot of MPs, candidates, party officials and activists with holidays booked for then or just before. Gordon is nothing if not one for planning and a snap election always has to be run a bit on a wing and a prayer. After the Labour conference is a lot more possible logistically but there will still be a big risk balancing up to two and a half years with a guarenteed good working majority against five with the likelihood of a smaller majority - if one exists at all.
Another clue to the election date will lie in what GB announces in the next few weeks. Changes have a lead-in time and he will not only want to deliver on them but will need to be seen to be doing so. How long it takes to get results from his early initiatives will (if all goes well) should put a lower limit on the length of the parliament.
Finally, a quick word on the economy. Many (including me) have been surprised by its strength and continued expansion. Steve at [9] is right to point out the down side risks, but Gordon will be very confident that he has things under control. He has proved commentators wrong in the past and will expect to prove the naysayers wrong again. Whether he will do so or not remains to be seen, but I just don’t think he will ‘cut and run’ on that basis because his confidence is such that he won’t accept the need - and certainly won’t want to be accused of doing it when there is no better come back than ‘no, I’m not; trust me’.
I’d still expect May 2009 if things are going well and May 2010 if they’re not - and that’s the more likely (just).
10. Perhaps one of the consitution amendments is a return of the Septennial Act?
11. Brown has got tax wrong - the rates are too high. Interest rate rises have if anything been deferred to assist his coronation. It’s too late to cut and run. The chickens are already coming home to roost.
9. with inflation running at somewhere around 5-10%, house prices only have to stand still for three years to ‘drop’ relatively. The demand for housing is intense due to lack of new supply, increasing divorce rates and immigration.
Brown’s media and rebranding campaign looks less like a pitch for an election, but more a battening down the hatches targeted on sliding through the Constitution, while offering no referendum or any election, so that democracy cannot stop the process.
He hopes to maintain media backing by selling out on the Treaty, grub down the Lib Dems while exiting Iraq, and keep Cameron on the back foot.
His Achilles heel is the economy which has a far higher inflation rate than government statistics are permitted to reveal. Interest rates are heading for 7% this year. Hadly time to cut and run to the voters.
3. Terrible Tory result in Nuneaton & Bedworth. IIRC there was a byelection in that council also earlier this year in a Lab/Con wards and ended up with BNP over-taking the tories for second place
So what is Brown’s big constitutional announcement going to be?
From BBC this morning:
“Justice Secretary Jack Straw is expected to reveal more details of constitutional change after the special Cabinet meeting. He said: “It is about ensuring that our citizens are better represented, have a better sense of their rights and responsibilities and are able to enjoy their lives to the full inside our democracy.”
Commission on PR? Fixed term parliaments (as in Wales & Scotland)? Bill of Rights/Responsibilities? One thing we can probably be sure of, is that it won’t be an EU referendum.
BOmb in central London made safe by police.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6252276.stm
Looks like the terrorists were planning something for D+2 of Brown’s premiership. Plus ca change…
Not good results for Lib Dems either. On the basis of these two the Brown Bounce is impressive.
Still think Brown honeymoon will have gone by Christmas though. I am with Steve at 9 - Brown may have ended Stop-Go whilst he was chancellor but he has left Darling holding a faltering economy. With the B of E independent, and running about 6 months behind the game,he has no tools to do anything about it.
There won’t be an election this year. I wish there would be but there won’t.
13. House prices dropping in ‘real’ terms is not a problem, in fact it would be the best thing that could happen to that market.
When people sell houses the money that comes from the sale usually goes to pay for a new house. Even when someone is downsizing it will just mean that there is a little less left over than before and for upsizing households, the relative difference is less, making better housing available.
The other usual source is sale of inheritance or investment property. Again, because of the scale of rises in house prices in recent years, a couple of years with prices rising at 2-3% would not cause any great dent in the scale of profit.
The problem is that this scenario of sustained, low growth is rare. Prices usually fall outright or increase well in excess of general inflation due to the multiplying effect of interest rates. House prices falling would be a severe threat because of the negative equity that come with it.
16. Jeepers. If that IS a bomb, it’s somewhat gonna overshadow these “exciting constitutional developments”.
Talking of which - I note that the Mail has again called for an EU referendum today (perhaps no surprise) - but, more surprisingly, UNISON the Union have also called for one. Brown is being attacked from left and right on this issue. And even by the odd Lib Dem.
Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.
Unison called for one, eh? Very interesting
14, 3: the combined BNP/Tory vote is well over 1000 though. Without the BNP’s presence, you suspect the Tories would have won that seat. Whilst the Lib Dems crumbled away in both Midlands seats reported above.
Depressingly high BNP votes in both of those seats, I’m fully expecting a shock at the next election comparative to Le Pen getting to the run off in the French Presidential. Nothing would be won (well, maybe one of the Essex/London seats) but there’s your big story.
This is one of the reasons why I totally oppose the main parties working together outside of coalitions, that disaffected vote is potentially huge at the moment and the BNP are in prime place to mobilise it. Distance must be maintained or the ‘they’re all the same’ vote will change the scene substantially.
21. Indeed.
However, Test, I’m afraid I’m gonna be a crashing bore on Iraq again. But there you go.
I was just Googling “bomb” to find out more about this London thing, but I got directed to Iraq news instead. I’d quite forgotten about Iraq during our domestic excitements.
Anyway here’s the latest news. At least 60 people died in Iraq yesterday. 20 corpses were found beheaded. Hundreds were injured. British and American soldiers were also killed. Basra is now collapsing into factional fighting as the Brits give up and withdraw; the US “surge” has palpably failed.
The UK has helped to devastate an entire country, we’ve caused more terrorism than ever, and we’ve “facilitated” the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. And all because of New Labour, because of government lies and ineptitude, and because in particular, of Tony Blair. To think that this man was given a standing ovation as he left the Commons is quite bizarre.
Historians may one day look at that Commons footage and think: WTF?
Page 1 of The Daily Telegraph’s Business Section - headline: “Markets fear global credit crunch.”
Page 2 headline: “Confidence in cheap credit could have had its last call”.
Page 3 headline: “Credit crisis threatens market as funds topple.”
Is someone trying to tell us something?
15. regional Parliaments
16. Sky News now reporting that the bomb was “potentially massive”.
Not quite sure what that means. But still….
26 - Brown has no mandate to introduce anything that wasn’t in Labour’s 2005 manifesto. If he wants to saddle us with any such nonsense, he should put his “new Government”’s manifesto to the public at a general election.
Could it be PR? He knows the game is up, so get PR in for the next GE and he can be sure of jumping into bed with Ming and staying in power, even if Cameron does get more votes and seats.
Talking of Ming, he was done up like a kipper on Question Time last night. Surely the game is up for him too? He looked a right old duffer. And Dimbleby massacred him.
Actually, I can’t help thinking Dimbleby would make an excellent Tory leader; I tend to think he’s broadly that way inclined.
25. Yes. see my post at 13. Greenspan, Clinton, Blair have all cut and run. Brown who’s created the credit binge in Britain will now collect. Hubris. Nemesis. The wheel turns.
23. the rise of the BNP continues. In polling, ‘others’ has gone from 8% in 2001 to 15% now. They never tell you which parties make up the 15% but UKIP seems to be a busted flush and are not growing at all.
Greens are part of it and Plaid, SNP. The unmentionable is the BNP. Their support might be rising as quickly as Liberal Democrat suport is falling, but as far as the media is concerned, they don’t exist so it’s hard to gauge.
The media blanking them helps them to win support. They blanked Sinn Fein in the media, and that helped them win support in the 1980’s and 90’s.
Of course Brown will go early and he’ll go this autumn. One he’ll want his own mandate, his desire to break with Blair is an overriding priority, two, Callaghan’s failure to go in October 78, (he’d have probably won) will haunt him. Such things as candidate selection, money etc are secondary considerations, candidate selection you can accelerate, money worry about that afterwards.
I know that you get yourself in a lather over Iraq seant (entertaining though it is) I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue at the next GE. When I was serving in the ME in an earlier unpleasentness, as far as arab deaths were concerned, (always refered to of course as w**s) we never gave a toss, in fact we thought they deserved it anway. Of our own people, sad of course, angry yes, but the two most vital pieces of equipment you draw from stores on your first day, a black sense of humour and a very thick skin, all moans are always met with the same response, ‘If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined’
24 - you forgot to mention that a brutal dictator has been removed, who had attacked four of his neighbours and murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people; democracy has been introduced with three national votes to date, with very high turnouts in two of them; the minority Sunni no longer suppress the majority Shia; and the new Iraq is a friend of the democratic world!
Apart from that your summary was reasonably accurate!
31 Even though I’m not keen on capital punishment, (there are times when I do think it is appropriate) I’ll raise a glass to the hangman when Chemical Ali gets topped.
31 yes.
The war was right and just. The post-war planning was inept to the point of moral culpability, and Blair is culpable for having allowed the US to plan it all.
Labour’s NEC will shortlist for Ealing Southall (Open Shortlist) next Tuesday.
As for Sedgefield (I suppose they’ll do the shortlist on the same day), deadline for applications for Labour hopefuls is by noon on Monday. Blair is expected to campaign for the byelection.
Phil Wilson (who worked for Blair) is interested. He’s a parish councillor and is backed by TGW.
Other names in the run are Simon Henig (agent of Kevan Jones MP) and Pat McCourt (leader of Ferryhill Town Council, backed by Unite)
With that glowing approval of all that Blair has done in Iraq, Rik (31), it sounds as though you could be the next Tory defector to switch over to Labour…..
28 Bob Sykes I did not see QT. Was Ming asked about Shirley and how did he perform
Two excellent Labour results there, and a bit desperate of Bob to imply otherwise by adding the Tory and BNP votes together - don’t the Tories always claim the BNP take votes from Labour? Moreover, in Sandwell the BNP vote went down in numerical terms (not in % terms) at the same time as a big Con->Lab swing.
Let’s be serious here - of course there’s a Brown bounce under way this week, and of course we can’t be sure how long it will last and how much will last.
As for an early election, I have no inside information, but common sense suggests we shouldn’t rule it out. If it were up to me, the conditions would be (a) a hefty poll lead into late September (b) minimal national funding in place (if we’re well ahead we don’t need to spend a fortune) and (c) a date after the Labour conference, which would be the launchpad (it’s late September). It might disrupt the Tory conference, but these things are sent to try them. I think it’s not especially likely even then, but a possibility. The next plausible option would be May 2008, if we’ve had a good run up to then. Otherwise a long parliament looks probable - I can’t see much case for 2009 since either we do well (in which case go early) or not (in which case go late).
Hooray RickW its about time somebody attacked the anti Iraq war political correctness.
Persionally I think it verges on racism. If Saddam had been in Europe the feeling would have been that we have to sort this out. But as it is a few arabs, nobody cared
30. Why would Brown go for an election this autumn when his ‘bounce’ is puny? If he had a ten point lead, then sure he would. But -1%? No way.
Mike, it is going to be hard to tell which way the marke is going to go on this one. There certainly seems to e no value in the buy position.
That said if you sell, and things start going horibly wrong for Labour you could be in trouble.
30. Slightly weird post, Coldstone, you OK?
I never said Iraq was an upcoming G/E issue. For most people - like Test - it is “boring”. Personally, I think that’s like saying the Holocaust is “dull”, but there ya go.
31. All this is reasonably true, Rik W. But, sadly, totally outweighed by the utter moral, strategic, and human catastrophe that has since enveloped that country and the region.
To prove this, play a mindgame. Ask yourself this. Knowing what has happened, if you could turn back time, would you do it all again, exactly the same way? i.e. If you think Iraq has been such a succcess, whuch you do, presumably you would answer Yes. You would say, Sure, let’s invade again. The same way. There’ll be problems but it’s worth it for all that success.
But of course you wouldn’t. No one in their right minds, given the chance, would invade Iraq again, the same way.
In fact, I venture to suggest we wouldn’t do it at all, would we?
We wouldn’t do it with fewer troops, we wouldn’t do it with more troops, we wouldn’t do it with Rumsfeld, or without him, we just wouldn’t do it. Because marching into a volatile Arab country, bombing them all to smithereens, and occupying them for years turns out, on reflection, to be quite a disastrous thing to do. Civil war was practically inevitable, as Chirac told Blair at the time. Blair ignored him.
I supported the war. I was an idiot. But I’m not paid to get these things right, politicians are. They got it very very wrong.
37.”Two excellent Labour results there”
Labour should have also held their Milton Keynes ward
35 - another typically silly posting from Tressage! I have always supported the Iraq invasion and make no apology for that. That doesnt make me a Labour supporter!
37 - thanks for the analysis Nick - so you think 2008 is a real runner then? I must confess I’m surprised 2009 is generally odds-on (1/2 at Hills).
Could this be the Other Big Defection?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6252430.stm
“More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth…” etc
38. What a truly preposterous post. Opposing the Iraq war “borders on racism”??
By this argument, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal war is “anti-racist”. Something positively encouraged by Trevor Philips and the Commission for Racial Equality.
I’m glad the British Library is archiving this blog. That post deserves immortality.
41 SeanT I accept your point totally that if we could re-wind the clock, we would not have done what we have BUT that is true of a huge amount of life so hardly startling.
My arguement has been to contest the moral case against the war. Being a simplistic person I saw Saddam as very bad man whom it was morally correct to try to be rid of.If we had the capacity, then we should do it. There is not one rule for whites in Europe and another for the rest
The miscalculation was that it was do’able, and that the yanks would make such a horlicks of whatever opportunity they had.
But I refute all false moral outrage as being mainly that sad syndrome that many people, mainly on my side of the political fence, enjoy being morally outraged. So I see much of this moral outrage rather self centred
If Big Gordy got the boys home - then he might go to the polls
Nick, there is a change of leader bounce and it has restored the Tory lead.
your problem is that the bounce is so small it still leaves you trailing in the polls.
41
Only slightly weird, I’m on the mend!
From vote2007: Milton Keynes result:
Labour 1108 Con 914 EFP 221 Lib Dem 129 UKIP 109 IND 49
More or less the same margin of 2004 when the ward was contested for the last time.
34. This morning’s Northern Echo says that they will be shortlisting on the Sunday afternoon straight after the deadline for applications. The hustings will take place on Tuesday which gives latecomers next to no chance. They also mentioned former MP and Minister Melanie Johnson was interested. They will need some female candidates, so I wouldn’t be suprised if she was in the mix, though her chances of winning will be quite low. Simon Henig is able, but lacks a common touch. I think it will be between Phil Wilson and Pat McCourt (if he gets shortlisted).
48 by restored I mean reduced
47. OK, fair enough. Pax. And yes I agree that there are some people who enjoy the moral outrage so much they positively want the West to fail in Iraq. Most of them, but not all, are on the left.
And, like you, I also saw Saddam as a bad man who needed to be kicked out. The WMD argument always seemed a bit flimsy to me, but I was wlling to take it on trust - I believed Blair - and anyway I thought the moral case for ousting a vile dictator was in itself clinching.
But looking back my naivety is amazing. Did I really think we could send half a mllion troops into a massively volatile country, brutalised by decades of dictatorship, armed to the teeth, divided by creed and clan, surrounded by dangerous foes, then simultaneously bomb half their cities, and kill off their leaders, then quickly install a nice democracy and be home in time for tea? What was I on?
Idiotic. Just because something is morally right does not make it always feasible or even correct. It would have been morally right to get rid of Stalin, but that would have involved nuking Russia at the time and killing millions. So we didn’t do it.
Sadly, we had a fatuous and vain idealist in charge of the country when all this was being planned. A more intelligent, moral and pragmatic PM might have told Bush to think again.
45 Oh dear, he won’t want Clare Short back, that would frighten the Middle England horses
51. Henry, I got those info from here
http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/journallive/thejournal/tm_headline=hopefuls-line-up-for-blair-s-patch&method=full&objectid=19377989&siteid=50081-name_page.html
They seem to give different info about the deadline for applications: is it Monday or Sunday?
According to BBC Cruddas has turned down a government job
54. GB’s defections so far - Quentin Davies and Claire Short…is this a ‘government of all the fat, ugly people’?
This London bomb thing gets scarier by the minute:
“An eyewitness told Sky News that he saw a car being driven “erratically” before crashing into some bins. Bouncers from the nearby ‘Tiger Tiger’ nightclub saw the driver of the vehicle running away.
Other eyewitnesses reported gas cylinders - believed to contain propane gas - and nails inside the car.”
If this is true it sounds like an incredibly narrow escape for London. Sheesh.
55. The Labour party website doesn’t clear it up either.
57. Goodness I forgot to mention Digby Jones in that list as well…
56. I think that’s a shame - I would have liked to have seen him in Government. I wonder what the offer was? I would have thought it would have been better for Brown to have him onside.
#24 - Iain Duncan Smith egging Blair on hardly helped. I’m not being partisan about it seant, but I do wonder how much better things would have been if the Europhile Ken Clarke, who opposed the war, had been leading the Tories.
We were let down by the Opposition failing to oppose, as well as by Bliar himself.
57 Send us a pic of yourself, Scally, so we can consider from what Olympian heights you speak.
4 - “Note how low down the running order the new cabinet is in all the papers. The public are not interested.”
Errr, surely that just means the papers aren’t interested?
Jeff Randall has a good descrition of the last ten years of government which shows why this is not a ‘new start’:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/06/29/do2902.xml
55 One of the possibles is a doctor in Politics from Sunderland University - AArgh - I bet Gordy would rather have Claire
61. 12-18 months from now the left are going to be horribly disappointed with GB; he will offer them nothing of any substance. The question is whether he can engineer an election and coalition with the Lib Dems in the meantime.
63. Ooh did I touch a raw nerve there, Peter?
62 The conservatives must be less culpable though, Timothy. They would not have had the same detailed inside knowledge, nor would they have known what slant the Government was putting on the information it had.
It’s likely they would have supported the invasion had they been in power, but we will never know, and we they shouldn’t be blamed for something which was not their direct responsibility.
58. PS. And a bizarrely inept reaction to the bomb incident from Jack Straw
“Jack Straw, who was named justice secretary by Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said ministers had been informed of the incident and called it “very saddening,” but added “these things happen.”"
“Very saddening”, but “these things happen”?? That’s what you say when your child’s puppy gets run over, or some old lady loses her marbles.
“These things happen”? Propane gas nail bombs in central London??
Now the media master has left number 10, I wonder if Brown’s government will be quite so dextrous. Blair may have been a warmngering etc etc but he knew how to say the right words.
62. Agree, totally. The Tories are also culpable for the Iraq disaster, though obviously not anywhere near as much as Labour. Trouble was IDS is one of nature’s subalterns - as someone called him at the time - his automatic reaction during Iraq was obedience and loyalty: rally to the PM’s side, support America, wish god speed to our boys, etc etc. All natural Tory reflexes. But wrong in this instance. Ken Clarke was right and so were the Lib Dems, to their eternal credit.
68 Being excruciately ugly and and a tad overweight I suppose I feel it more than most!
Any news about the by-elections in Wigan and Pendle?
Following on from Cruddas not taking a job, I wonder if Brown will have a little bit of a problem getting the support of the centre-left/left of the party? Lots of talk of Tories, business people and promoting Blairites plays well with some, but I would have thought he’d want the Compass MPs on board to shore up the left and the unions?
This bomb in London could be anyone. Gas cylinder style jobbos are possible for any number of groups (or an individual loop) as they are fairly rudimentary. The key is if the detonator & detonating charge are in place. If so it shouldnt be hard to work out who is responsible.
As for the driver, sounds liek an attack of the collywobbles.
65
That of course, being the same Jeff Randall who said of David Cameron, ‘I wouldn’t trust that man with my daughter’s pocket money’ Obviously not that convinced, by any of the present crop of politicians.
75. Yeah, seems like the driver bottled it. But it does sound possibly Islamist. Wasn’t one of the plans of that recently jailed al-Qaeda guy exactly this - to drive a car full of propane gas into central London and blow it up?
Silver Mercedes too. Very Arab. The lunatic right would have used a patriotic British car. The IRA favoured cheapo Transits.
I know, I know. One shouldn’t joke. Coulda been nasty.
70
‘“Jack Straw, who was named justice secretary by Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said ministers had been informed of the incident and called it “very saddening,” but added “these things happen.””‘
What do you expect? Straw was the moron that went on TV after 7/7 saying that the war in Iraq was nothing to do with the terrorist attack in London!
Punter - if you are out there - I have posted a response to your query with regards the Interregnum as you requested
It is on the thread about Jack Straw being snubbed, from yesterday. It is long, so I didn’t want it blocking the thread today. It is also about a O/T as you can get.
73 Yes, Henry. The DL contest didn’t go that great for him. OK, Harman isn’t a problem but I’m sure he would have preferred Johnson. Cruddas’ supporters might be feeling a bit miffed that HH stole it under slightly false pretexts. A decent post for JC might have helped smooth matters over.
There a danger Cruddas might be cast in the role of rebek outsider and he would attract a fair bit of support. Better inside the tent…?
70 - “these things do happen” !!
Indeed. I am reminded of the lines from the Phantom of the Opera:
—-
ANDRE (to CARLOTTA)
These things do happen.
CARLOTTA
Si! These things do happen! Well, until you stop these
things happening, this thing does not happen!
—-
What a monumentally stupid thing to have said.
Andrea at 50. Whaddon was last contested in 2006, where the results were:
UKIP: 202
Lab: 1125
Con: 984
Ind: 93
LD 220
So the Labour majority has gone up from 141 to 196, LD vote down significantly (from an already low base).
79 Or even a rebel..
Btw, no tennis tip today Henry?
How long do you think it will be, before the first Tory poster comes on to this site, or Conhome/Guido Fawkes etc., accusing Brown of setting up this whole bomb thing, to make himself look good? The clock is ticking.
Nick Palmer The two local elctions you refer to do not fit your spin.
The two main features are the collapse of the LibDem share of the vote and the strength of the BNP which got 26% of the vote in Nuneaton and in Sandwell increased their share to 21%.
There seems to have been a lot of churn with Labour’s share of the vote declining in Nuneaton and increasing in Sandwell where it would seem you squeezed the LibDems in a way the latest opinion polls suggest you might be doing nationally.
In Nuneaton the LibDem share went down by a massive three quarters.
The Tory share declined in both elections but there is nothing to suggest that they, and in Sandwell the lost Labour votes, went anywhere but to the BNP or the English Democrats. A move I am not pleased about to put it mildly, as I am sure you are not either.
83. You are the one suggesting it
83. With you posting, any such wingnut would at least feel at home.
Wigan Tyldesley LibDem hold LibDem 784 Lab 619 Ind 377 Con 170 - May result LibDem 1838 Lab 447 Con 370 Green 260
Pendle Craven LibDem hold LibDem 632 Con 260 Ind 241 BNP 237 Lab 76 - May result LibDem 736 Ind 428 Con 405
A good night for Labour ( but not spectacular ) and BNP , poor for LibDems and Conservatives although some mitigating circumstances in Wigan for LibDems and Sandwell for Conservatives .
80.
“These things happen.”
??
What’s Jack Straw gonna say when there’s another terrorist attack?
“You have to laugh or you’d cry”?
“These things happen” may go down as one of the most inadequate and foolish remarks ever made by a British minister, and we’re only in day two of the Brown government. Good start, guys.
Sean T Pax etc
And surely the point is, as I may have mentioned before (!) that the time for military action with Saddam - even by depriving him ofmilitary supplies, was when he launched his totally illegal war on Iran. If “the international community” (perhaps such a concept was less evident the - cold war and all that) had taken a tough line then, we could have avoided Kuwait, sanctions etc, and could have come around to a jaw jaw way of settling Iraq’s intercommunal issues. But, oh no, the Americans had to get in their revenge against Iran for overthrowing their puppet the Shah.
By the time we got to 2001 /2 we should have been able to organise, help with the coordination of some intercommunal effort to pull the rug from under Saddam his relatives and his henchmen by agreement. So instead of the current ridiculous situation where Iran, a major player, is perceived as some sort of “enemy”, we do start a genuine approach to pluralism in the region, not by perceived imposition from outside, or involving oil and other resources being “secured” (ie purloined) from outside.
83. Coldstone that’s your second rather weird remark of the day. You are normally an articulate, interesting if slightly crotchetty member of the gang, but you seem to be overheating this morning. I suggest you take a couple of aspirin and watch the tennis?
Sounds like Strawman was sad about the bomb incident itself, but about it spoiling his grand announcement to the cabinet of any constitutional reforms he might be planning.
Sounds like Strawman was not sad about the bomb incident itself, but about it spoiling his grand announcement to the cabinet of any constitutional reforms he might be planning.
85
Well of course he did, just like Blair, he had that ‘Peoples’ Princess’ speech in his pocket the day he was elected, then as soon as he was in, got the SAS to rub her out, ask Fayed, he’ll confirm it.
The BNP doing fine in Pendle, christ they haven’t been seen in that area for ages. Wake up people, big tent government is a recipe for disaster.
90 seanT. Calling Coldstone “crotchetty” reminds us of another poster of this realm … a certain pot amd kettle !!
89 - A bit naive as a post. The “Great Game” of Victorian memory is alive and well. The chinese or Russians would never have gone along with unified action.They could get in to Iraq’s good books by oposing it. This is what actually happened in the UN.
“Intercommunal effort” nice sentiment, but only happens in extremis
93. You are not particularly funny, suggest you take a few deep breaths count to 10 and then may be try again….a good starting point is knock knock
Constitutionally, who is in charge of reassuring the nation after failed bomb attacks: Jack Straw at Justice or Jacqui Smith at what remains of the Home Office?
If you mean me, old timer, I’m never crotchetty. I’m splenetic. BIG difference.
Incidentally if any of you guys are in London, tread carefully. From the Guardian just now:
“A car bomb was today defused in central London after a member of the public alerted Scotland Yard to a suspicious vehicle.
Police are now frantically searching landmark sites across the capital for further explosive devices. They were not sure whether the bomb was a lone device or one of several deployed across London.”
88: I thought Jack Straw’reaction was great.
For people who haven’t heard it yet, it’s here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6250000/newsid_6252400/6252416.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm
These people are trying to terrorize us - the best response is not to be terrorized.
Keep calm and carry on.
(Tee-shirts here: http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/pages/history)
The absence of fearmongering on this even makes me slightly optimistic that Brown’s government is going to be less authoritarian than Blair’s.
Could they be planning to quietly bury ID cards?
The hair splitting grief you are giving Jack Straw - who’d be a politician. No wonder they use spin
83 - never one to go for the trivial - i would imagine guido would use it as an opportunity to question the charitable status of the john smith institute
I must lay off the double espresso’s
Morning all :).
Re: 87 - Not sure I quite agree there, Mark. I think the LDs have put up one good and one satisfactory performance with the holds. I think Nuneaton and Sandwell were always going to be very difficult and the vote there has been squeezed.
Labour have done fairly well as have the BNP. I think the Tories may be worried about the Nuneaton and Sandwell results. I accept the latter has mitigating factors but Nuneaton looks poor for both Tories and LDs with Labour and the BNP advancing and the Tories coming third in a seat they won in 2004.
Re:70 and others: I’m left with a lot of questions over this. Busy as Haymarket is, it’s busier in the early hours of Saturday morning than early Friday morning so was this a “rehearsal” ? The whole incident to me is odd but after thirty years of living with terrorism in various forms, I am once again grateful that an atrocity has been thwarted.
83. Gordon is capable of bombing all by himself..
O/T - Have been looking at the card for tomorrow’s Northumberland Plate at Newcastle. I see that Monolith is available at 33/1 with Paddy Power and Bet 365. Ground conditions in the vicinity are attrocious. The horse is an out an out stayer and soft ground specialist.
A small each way stake is recommended.
81,”Andrea at 50. Whaddon was last contested in 2006, where the results were”
Thanks.I missed the 2006 contest
103. Try posting on the many conspiracy theory oriented sites instead, where you will be very welcome.
re 38 John. So when can we expect the troops to rumble into Sudan, the Congo, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Chechnya, etc.?
99. It looks like a lone device at this stage. If there were others they would have probably went off by now.
104. Agreed. The reports are weird and confusing. Police are saying it’s a “potentially massive device”, Westminster sources say it was “relatively small”.
Eyewitness reports say the car was driving erratically, crashed, then a man ran off. But others say they saw a man unloading gas canisters from a car. Which doesn’t sound like a panicky suicide bomber at all. Still other reports say some people saw “nails in the car”. How?
101. OK. Maybe slightly harsh on Jack Straw. It’s just when I saw his words juxtaposed with the description of a massive propane gas nail bomb - “these things happen” felt a touch feeble. I’m sure he’d agree it wasn’t the best line in history - but as you say it can’t be easy to get it right all the time.
Blair did though, nearly always. That was his great gift. He had the ability to make you think he’d found just the right words - even when, looking back, the words were meaningless.
109. There is a word for the constant war that John apparently wants us to wage - ‘crusade’.
111: “Blair did though, nearly always. That was his great gift. He had the ability to make you think he’d found just the right words - even when, looking back, the words were meaningless.”
…and he’d used them to justify taking away your civil liberties and starting an illegal and stupid war.
Isn’t this way better?
111. I think it was because he paused so much every 4 words or so that you just filled in the blanks with your own thoughts - just a theory
109 Chris A I have no moral problem with ousting Mugabe by military action. people are going through hell, and we whiteys are ring our hands and sounding pious.
If I thought it would work, I’d do it, but it will not. That is my point - it is an issue of practicality, not a moral issue.
The issue in Africa is getting African states to take responsibility for what they rightly and proudly say is “their” continent.
100 - I agree that the absence of fear-mongering is a good thing, it just strikes me as a bit too laid back. It’s surely the job of government to try and determine what things happen, to the extent that is possible. I had the impression of Straw repeating the phrase when asked about every future bad event…
Pot and Kettle has never commented on a post by Coldstone
re 22 ‘the combined BNP/Tory vote’… my God, I never thought I’d see that here.
117. Got your hands full enough with Roger, eh?
Today’s Wimbledon 3rd round pic Ferrero to beat Blake at 10/3 with http://www.coral.co.uk and http://www.sportingodds.co.uk. Ferrero is actually a pretty good record at Wimbledon and has won 13 and lost
6 matches at SW19. Blake on the other hand has only won 4 and lost 4 and has incredibly never got beyond the third round.
Ferrero is ranked 18 in the world (to Blake’s 9) and has beaten him in both their meetings. He should definately be no bigger than 11/8 for this match. I’m also having a saver on him winning with http://www.sportingodds.co.uk’s +5.5 game handicap (5/6).
something has occured to me! The happy warrior who should now be sampling his 12 virgins and a fountain of wine,( Is that what you get, I might consider it myself, Chianti for me please, I’m partial to redheads by the way) can hardly return to his compatriots, take some explaining as to why he bottled out. Bit like a Kamikaze pilot taking the Zero home and explaining it away to his Squadron Commander, ‘Couldn’t find ‘em boss, I searched high and low not an aircraft carrier in the whole Pacific, think the Yanks have gone back home!’
In view of the circumstances of the by-election in Sandwell, the Conservatives did pretty well to hold the seat at all.
Nuneaton was undoubtedly a poor result for us, and clearly, quite a number of Conservatives switched to the BNP. The BNP hit Labour disproportionately in some areas, us in others, and the Lib Dems in a few places.
122. What were the peculiar circumstances in Sandwell, out of interest?
123, the outgoing Conservative councillor was found guilty of pimping his mentally ill wife on the internet.
124 B****y H**l
In fact, he started as a Lib Dem, switched to the Conservatives, sat as an independent following conviction, and was actually turned down by the BNP when he sought to join their group on the council.
It says quite a lot about someone if the BNP turn them down as unsuitable.
123. Aha yes. Perhaps a surprising hold in that case, I agree.
122. The only way to neuter the BNP is to do what Sarko did to Le Pen. Talk openly, robustly and honestly about race, crime, immigration and the rest. Sarko did this and Le Pen’s vote collapsed.
The lefties and Guardianistas will squeal and call you a racist, but they can be ignored as the idiots they are.
Most BNP voters are not, I’d say, racist. They might be ethnocentric, but that’s very different. Most people are ethnocentric - they prefer their own. Human nature.
A BNP vote is a cry of pain and protest, on the whole. Answer that cry and the Far Right thugs will wither on the vine. Ignore it and they will prosper, as they are doing now.
Just blithering on about british values is not enough. You need to bring in legislation to limit immigration from non-EU countries, for a start.
Re 126, Sean, yes it does say a lot about someone if the BNP turn them down!
126 Please tell me the Conservatives dumped him as soon as they found out, or was he in our party before he started this?
I hope he’s in prison
124
Is that bad?
106. Looks good to me. Done.
re 120 thanks, good analysis. Any chance of a translation of you assessment of the true odds into decimal? Ferrero is 4.4 on B/f, which looks great value. But isn’t Blake’s form very good?
128 “The only way to neuter the BNP is to do what Sarko did to Le Pen. Talk openly, robustly and honestly about race, crime, immigration and the rest. Sarko did this and Le Pen’s vote collapsed.”
If you want an example closer to home, I give you Mrs Thatcher in 1977 or 1978, with the line about being “swamped” by immigrants when interviewed on TV. Some said she was playing the race card, others said she was de-fusing the National Front.
Who knows?
All these Council by-elections have made me think:
In the William Hill market: “What will happen during Gordon Brown’s term as Prime Minister”, one of the options is “Labour lose a by-election”.
Surely a punter could argue that this refers to Council by-elections as well as parliamentary by-elections and pick up some decent winnings.
What do PB.C’ers think?
131 Well, I won’t comment on the ethics, but it is regarded as a serious criminal offence. IIRC, he got a suspended prison sentence.
No chance!
110. Can’t see much damage on that car. Its also not a bad car to use, assuming its been nicked, in that its quite big and heavy and this outwardly shows less evidence of having a large load in the back.
134. Well it certainly worked. The NF vote in 1979 was pitiful - a huge shock to them given their impressive local elections performances in the mid-1970s. Thatcher delivered what the British people wanted and still want - an end to mass immigration. Far right activity remained subdued until..the election of Blair who re-opened the floodgates and breathed new life into the corpse of the BNP.
138
Well he’s not an Arab, that’s for sure. To most Arab’s the Mercedes is an object of worship, I can’t imagine an Arab ever blowing one up. On the other hand he could be an Arab, it was the thought of blowing one up, that made him ‘leg it’
135 You’ve got to be reasonable, Alex, especially in political betting which becomes impossible if subjected to excessive pedantry.
It’s perfectly clear what Hills have in mind, and any tribunal, if it got that far, would be sure to find in their favour.
The ‘palpable error’ rule would also bail them out if nothing else did. You simply wouldn’t get those odds if they included council elections and so if offered, the palpable error would be manifest.
Re the BNP and Tories, I am loathe to put the two together, but my own local ward is a good indication of the ease with which disaffected rightward leaning Tory voters may switch across - a wealthy, solidly Tory mostly rural community which has been a two-horse race between Tory and Labour for decades (ie, nobody else bothers standing), but with the Tories always winning apart from a couple of freak years in the mid-90s.
Five or six years ago, the BNP stood for the first time in the seat and won. It was a result of such significance that the BBC’s “round up from the north” on the Ten o’clock News was broadcast from my local village square. That was the start of the BNP in Burnley, and it was an affluent, Tory seat that elected them first, not some deprived inner-city ward.
Re the Midlands result I commented on, the figures seem to speak for themselves - Tory vote down 500, BNP (from nowhere) up 500. The Lib Dems also crumbled, but you’d hardly think they went to the BNP. Sure, some Labour voters may have switched to the BNP, and some Tories to Labour. But I tend to think Tory voters switch more readily to the BNP than Labour. I even think the BNP and UKIP have the potential to lose the Tories the next election if the right-leaning voters don’t return to the fold.
Alex Williams @ 135 — well, a punter could argue it but since William Hill itself is judge and jury, the prospects of success are not encouraging.
As my solicitor says: you certainly have a case; whether it’s a good case …?
This failed terror attack was entirely predictable. Indeed i thought it was more likely on the day of the handover in those few minutes when there is no PM.
I was suspicious that the BBC played a coded message about 2 weeks ago on a Pakistan terror camp showing footage released by Bin Laden’s terror group. A sort of signal to trained terror cells? Certainly it is a good way for a terror organisation to communicate because if they used the web for instance you could track people down and intercept terror cells that way. Where as the TV is avaiable to everyone and it’s not yet illegal to watch TV!
139 The NF were mainly concentrated in London (particularly the Inner East End), Leicster, and a couple of other towns, like Huddersfield and Blackburn. With the exception of the Inner East End, the BNP poll far better, across a much wider range of constituencies than the NF ever did.
Probably the best NF result was the GLC election of 1997, where they won 5.1% of the vote across London, just behind the Liberals. But the BNP will probably top that next year.
142 As I said, it varies. In 2005, the BNP certainly hit the Conservatives in Keighley, but they hit Labour in Dewsbury. Last year, in Barking and Dagenham, one of their best results came in Eastbury, which elected three Lib Dems in 2002.
145. Yes the BNP are indeed a stronger force than the NF was back then - which is an even greater indictment of Blair’s government especially given that society’s attitudes toward race has on the whole become more liberal since. A greater number of (on average) more reasonable people are knowingly voting for fascists than in the mid-1970s - the frustration, fear and despair that leads them to do so is Blair’s doing entirely.
139. Yes, it seems pretty obvious to me. You bear down on immigration, the far right withers away. You let in millions of people, the far right flourishes. Not exactly quantum physics. Question is finding the balance - seeing as we do need immigrants. I’d say the balance has gone totally AWOL under New Labour.
Now that we’ve let in so many people just rabbiting on about British values is not gonna be enough to crush the BNP. I think restoring the Tories’ “primary purpose legislation”, so foolishly repealed by Labour in 97, would be a start. It might not change the figures that much but it would show a willingness for robust action rather than just words. People need to be reassured.
142. One reason the BNP do surprisingly well in apparently white affluent non-ethnic areas is “white flight”. i.e. white people flee the perceived crime, poverty and bad schools of an ethnically mixed area, and move somewhere whiter and richer in the burbs or the shires. Wanting to keep it that way (given their experiences) they vote BNP. So the BNP vote goes up in these areas.
My home county Cornwall has a lot of white flighters. Impeccably liberal in many ways, these blow-ins can sound like Nick Griffin when it comes to immigration, once they’ve had a few drinks.
148. Cornwall seems to still have some bizarre local racially themed events. Dare I ask SeanT what your analysis of Darkie Day is?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4337475.stm