politicalbetting.com

Could there be a local general election impact?

I don’t think anybody has picked up that all Labour’s current problems seem to have emanated in the same place - Newcastle upon Tyne.

Thus the headquarters of the troubled bank which continues to cause anguish for the party, Northern Rock, is based in the city and is one of its biggest employers.

It was at the Inland Revenue and Customs offices on Tyneside that the data on the 25 million people was down-loaded onto the CD-roms that have gone missing.

And to cap it all this week the property developer at the heart of the latest Labour donations scandal, David Abrahams, is from Tyneside and it is his company’s property scheme just by the A1M that has become the focus of much attention.

All a coincidence - of course. But I just wonder if the cumulative affect of the problems might have an impact in Durham City, Newcastle North and Newcastle East - all Lib Dem targets? Any LAB>LD losses could have a big impact on the overall general election outcome.

This part of the world has been a traditional Labour stronghold for decades and has a history of Labour scandals. In the early 1970s the corruption scandals that rocked Labour involved politicians such as T Dan Smith and Andy Cunningham - both prominent Tyneside party figures who were jailed.

Mike Smithson

How can the winner possibly do better than Cable?

With the Lib Dem leadership contest coming into its final phase could the party be facing a big challenge when the new man gets elected and takes his place at Prime Minister’s Questions?

For after another rivetting performance by Cable this lunchtime it’s hard to see how either Clegg or Huhne are going to be able to do anything like as well.

The biggest laughs today came with Cable’s comment about Brown’s “remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean, creating chaos out of order rather than order out of chaos”.

Huhne or Clegg are going to face a barrage of heckling when they stand up for the first time with both the Tory and Labour thug elements having a real interest in inflicting early damage.

Mike Smithson

What is it about Labour’s friends in the North?

Even when things are going well for a Prime Minister a Wednesday morning is probably not the best of times to be around Number 10. Over-shadowing everything when parliament is in session is Prime Minister’s Questions - the weekly ritual that has to be surmounted and where the post-holder can only guess at what he is likely to be asked.

Gordon’s usual day, we are told, starts very early with a look at the papers and these will not bring much comfort. The donations scandal involving Mr. Abrahams or Mr. Martin, whatever he likes to be called, has exploded as more names are revealed of people who have acted as proxies for him.

Also interesting are the revelations about the selective nature of his support.

Thankfully for Gordon his leadership campaign refused money from this source although at least one of the campaigns of those running for deputy were beneficiaries.

Then there was Labour’s campaign in July’s Sedgefield by-election to replace Tony Blair, which is said to have been bank-rolled by Abrahams/Martin via proxies.

To get a sense of what Abrahams is like there is an an excellent piece by Stephen Pollard on his Spectator blog which was referred to on the thread yesterday and which is well worth reading.

Pollard recalls meetings the Fabian Society, where he worked, from 1992-1995. “One of the regular - indeed, one of the most assiduous - attendees at those meetings was David Abrahams. He would mix, as would everyone in that milieu, with backbenchers, front benchers, NEC members and Shadow Cabinet members..Many of those people are now ministers. Others are Cabinet members, some very senior. It is possible - just - that when they say they have no idea who David Abrahams is, or cannot recall ever meeting him, they are telling the truth. It is, after all, possible that there are people in the country who have never heard of, say, Gordon Brown. Possible, yes; but very, very unlikely..Indeed, far from keeping himself to himself, as is being written, Abrahams was about the pushiest person I ever came across in my time at the Fabians - and in politics, that is saying something.

Abrahams’ explanation of his behaviour makes little sense. Can he really have gone from being one of the pushiest and most self-aggrandising people I came across to being so afraid of publicity that he channelled donations through other people? I don’t think we have got remotely to the bottom of the Abrahams side of this story.”

Meanwhile on the next general election spread betting markets the buy price for Tory seats is now above 300.

Mike Smithson

Could supporting Cruddas be a way showing unease about Brown?

My nomination for Iain Dale’s political blogger of the year (won incidentally by Iain Dale himself - funny that given he was the promoter and vote counter) was Paul Linford. To my mind Paul provides the best insights into Labour party matters and this evening he speculates about who would become deputy leader if Harriet finds she cannot carry on because of the donation scandal.

Clearly Harman would be out of it. Those who came in the bottom half of the ballot, Benn, Blears and Hain would, Paul suggests, probably not put their hats into the ring. That leaves Jon Cruddas and Alan Johnson.

Johnson was tipped by Guido last time as the winner and, indeed, the Daily Telegraph reported during the Manchester conference that he had done it. He’s very ambitious and would, surely be there again.

But could Johnson beat Cruddas who turned down a job offer from Brown and, as Linford notes, “..is untainted by association with any of the disasters to strike the government over recent weeks”? Paul thinks he could win.

Other possible contenders suggested by Paul could be Caroline Flint, Ruth Kelly and Jacqui Smith as well as Jack Straw.

The danger for Brown is that such an election could be a means for the movement to register their discontent with his leadership. If it went along that route then Cruddas would be the man.

But before we jump ahead of ourselves Harman has, first, to step down.

Mike Smithson

Will Gord’s actions contain the damage

Another day and another affair that Gordon has had to answer questions on - this time not just about himself but also including his deputy, Harriet Harman who also benefited from the Durham donor.

It is had to see what else he could say today even though the move will add further to Labour’s financial problems.

But how can he and his party break out of this downward spiral of terrible stories? What can he do to recover the situation?

The challenge at the moment is that everything he does is seen in the context of the run of bad news. Any new initiative is presented as him “trying to recover the situation” thus reminding people of the problems he is having.

There’s a challenge too for Cameron in all of this. I gather that last week’s PMQ strategy of not over-playing the missing disc affair was deliberate. The Tories cannot be seen to gloat

Mike Smithson

Is the Sun right to call it “Labour’s Black Monday”?

There’s a six letter word that figures prominently in a number of the papers this morning that could be very dangerous for Labour and Gordon.

It’s “SLEAZE” - a description that in the 1992-1997 Tory government seemed to get attached to almost everything. It became almost a short-hand and was very difficult for the party to cast off. In fact it’s probably taken it a decade and a half to get rid of it.

One of the drivers behind the massive Brown polling bounce in the summer, surely, was that his arrival at Number 10 allowed the party to put the “cash for honours” scandal behind it. That was about Blair - Gordon was seen as “clean”.

Even though Brown clearly had no knowledge if these latest transactions it gives a bad impression about the party. The resignation of the general secretary, while probably seen as a damage limitation exercise, somehow makes it worse.

An immediate political impact, surely, is that it’s going to be much harder for Brown to push through selective legislation that stops the Tories receiving the so called “Ashcroft money” to support marginal seats while at the same time leaving trade union support for Labour intact.

All this on top of the November ComRes poll showing Labour on 27% - 13 points behind the Tories. The Sun describes yesterday as “Labour’s black Monday” - I’m not sure it is quite that yet but Brown has a mega-challenge on his hands turning this round.

In my betting I am now back as a £100+ a seat buyer of Tory seats on the commons spread markets with two spread betting firms.

I’ll be doing more analysis on the ComRes survey later in the day.

Mike Smithson