Political Betting.com is asking for forecasts. I thought I'd share mine with you...On Christmas Day 2007 who will be…?
1. PRIME MINISTER
David Cameron, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, after Gordon Brown calls an early election.
2. LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Gordon Brown
3. LEADER OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
If prediction 1 comes true, Ming Campbell, if there is no election, Nick Clegg
4. DEPUTY LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY
Hillary Benn
5. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
William Hague
6. PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
Segolene Royal
7. SCOTLAND'S FIRST MINISTER
Alex Salmond (is he standing?!)
8. LEADER IN RACE FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
Barack Obama
9. LEADER IN RACE FOR REPUBLICAN NOMINATION
Rudi Giuliani
For how many days during 2007 will…?
10. TONY BLAIR SERVE AS PM
31
11. MING CAMPBELL SERVE AS LIBDEM LEADER
212
12. DAVID CAMERON SERVE AS TORY LEADER
365
13. LEMBIT OPIK CONTINUE TO SERVE ON LIBDEM FRONT BENCH
365
14. CASH FOR HONOURS INQUIRY CONTINUE BEFORE CHARGES LAID
76
15. TORY PARTY A LIST CONTINUE IN ITS CURRENT FORM
130
Unfortunately, Iain, since all of the first five predictions are predicated on the first, and the chances of a LibDem coalition with the Tories are about as great as George Galloway being welcomed as a new member of his local Conservative Association...
ReplyDelete,,, well, for a non-drinking man, what have you been imbibing over the New Year holiday?
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The reasons for Dave not installing his windmill at 10 Downing Street this year are:
(1) GB will only call an election if he's as sure as can be he'll win, and win well (from his point of view)
and
(2) The LibDem Party will make a coalition with the Devil himself before they make one with the Conservatives.
So, sorry, but can we have less science fiction please?
I wonder what percentage could be ascribed to the incumbency of Brown in the GE. Could it put him over the line, as Paul Linford seems to think?
ReplyDeleteYou may be right about Britain, but, dear Iain, you don't know enough about the American system. Obama is nowhere. (Hillary is also looking like a busted flush, but at least she'll still have her job as a senator, at which, apparently, she has performed quite well.) Trust me, Obama is going exactly nowhere.
ReplyDeleteYour prediction of Hague as Chancellor confirms some peoples view that Osborne just doesnt have the X Factor in parliamentary performance or stature to handle the big office.
ReplyDeleteIain this blog is all Politics and little Policies.
ReplyDeleteIf the Tories do regain power what will they do?
Are you scared to voice an opinion?
Labour are failing on Health, Education and Crime - As a Tory candidate you should be Smashing them to bits not wondering about American Presidential Candidates .
Is it really in our best interests to encourage calls for an early election?
ReplyDeleteConstitutional or ethical questions aside, surely it is better for us to bide our time and build a solid profile, ready for an election towards 2009?
If we enter an early election and form a coalition with the Lib Dems, we will have already weakened our position with a smaller-than-practical sitting of MPs, made worse by working at ideological odds on a day-to-day basis with the Lib Dems- the public will not tolerate the division that will soon become apparent.
Will Stephen Harper still be Prime Minister of Canada ?
ReplyDeleteMy prediction is that he will after an election in 2007 in an attempt to obtain a majority government. He will strenghten his position but will still remain a minority government.
Interesting that you think Gordon Brown would survive as Labour leader if he gambled on an early election and lost.
ReplyDeleteI can't see the Blairites stomaching that, even with the short-term euphoria that would be induced by Gordon Brown going down as a Prime Minister with one of the shortest spells in power in history.
You missed part of prediction 1. 6 months later, the Lib Dems pull out of the coalition with the Conservatives and enter one with New Nulabour, Gordon Brown becomes PM with Ming as DPM.
ReplyDeleteCameron needs to stop alienating his supporters and begin aiming to win - very soon.
There is absolutely no chance of an early Election. Who on earth would pay for the campaigns on either side? It's still 2009 at the earliest, and quite possibly 2010, when time runs out (although there is still the matter of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act...).
ReplyDeleteIf anything is worth betting on, then it is that Cameron will be removed as Tory Leader after the Spring elections, which, although they are going to be disastrous for Labour (numerous Northern Councillors replaced with Lib Dems, otherwise indistinguishable SNP and Scottish Lib Dems forming a coalition on the promise of a doomed independence referendum early on, &c), are neveretheless going to yield no significant Tory gains whatever, at least outside the already solidly Tory South East, which simply doesn't matter electorally.
Interesting that you predict a Tory/Lib Dem coalition. Look at the Lib Dems and ask yourself what it says about the Tories that you either hope or expect that they might wish to have anything to do with you.
Can I mention UKIP?
ReplyDeleteHow depressing if any of your predictions come true; the United Kingdom hurtling towards mediocrity, predicated on moral torpor and stagnation - (in the case of the LibDems) and spin and duplicity (in the case of the Tories).
ReplyDeleteWe are being "led" by weather vanes and not sign posts in a a battle for the hearts of those with no passion and the minds of those with no thoughts they can call their own.
It's fucked. No wonder people top themselves at this time of year.
No offence, Iain, but i don't think the Lib Dem leadership would dream of forming a coalition with Cameron, as they know their membership would desert them instantly. I know i'd leave the party, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly going to be the most interesting year of my life so far, though. I look forward to a GE with the greatest of anticipation.
Osama Bin Laden will be found at a language school in Brighton and claim asylum.
ReplyDeleteBrighton will accidentally destroyed when a US bomber on a "training flight" malfunctions and jettisons its payload
Tony Blair will join a commune in California
Brown won't call an early election. He's so ultra-cautious he's almost paralysed. He's stayed in the Treasury well past his sell--by date and should have moved on to foreign affairs by now.
ReplyDeleteHe has more than a hint of the Callaghan about him - remember 1978.
Besides Labour's broke and as attractive as a donating option as life assurance for Saddam Hussein.
Regarding the Sun friont page mock-up - Is David Cameron morphing into Quentin Hogg?
ReplyDeleteOh please, Odessa Calling, Stephen Harper was DOA and the country is just waiting for Dion to get his shit together before Joe Clarking him once and for all. < /endCanuck>
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was funny is that there's no way on the Guardian's "When Blair will go" poll to register a bet for "when hell freezes over."
Ian, you haven't got the hang of this prediction business. You have to say things like, "Later in the year there will be a significant event involving a well-known politician."
ReplyDeleteWith a little bit of fudge you can then claim a 100% success rate for your predictions.
There will not be a general election. Labour Party is financially bankrupt, donations will dry up and there will no loans; hence no election unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIs that some kind of joke about Alex Salmond standing, or are you just ignorant of everything north of the border?
ReplyDeleteShouldn't that Sun headline read:
ReplyDelete"Vote Tory - You Know it Makes Sensimilia"
Iain,
ReplyDeleteYes, yes - but 'working' days?
Verity - I completely disagree that Obama is going nowhere; I don't know who you're talking to. My sense is that he's getting up a real head of steam at just the right time.
ReplyDeleteOn the Giuliani point, you might be interested in this article from the NY Daily Post.
ReplyDeletehttp://nydailynews.com/front/story/485008p-408347c.html
Oops.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteDepressing that your 2007 predictions contain only career opportunities for politicians to get their grubby snouts in the trough and nothing whatsoever to suggest to the electorate that they're interested in tackling any of the problems besetting this country.
A Conservative/ Lib-Dem coalition? With all due regard, that combination would be unable to agree on a restaurant for lunch if you gave them till '09 to work on it. This wouldn't be a Government. It would be a bunch of place-holders carving up the spoils of office. If GB was still Labour leader it would mean his party hadn't been able to come up with a credible successor post electoral defeat and he'd be presiding over disintigration.
If this is the best you can come up with I can give you some predictions out towards the end of the decade.
High probabilities:
Escalation of conflict in ME. Iran/Israel is the nuclear jackpot but US/Iran or disintegrating Iraq bringing in Turkey/Iran/Saudi/Uncle Tom Cobley & All are on the cards.
(Energy prices go through roof, UK with hundreds of thousands of 'refugees' arriving at its ports & airports )
Economic aggression by Russia.
(Energy prices go through roof)
Economic aggression by China.
(Energy prices go through roof)
Euro goes tits up and EU lurches into political meltdown.
Terrorist spectacular in UK.
A bloody enormous terrorist spectacular in US. Think nuclear/biological/chemical, any of which are easily technically achievable. US people get very mean & very nasty and no, they've been pussycats to date compared to the shit they could start slinging.
(Energy prices go through roof and into orbit)
The bill's arrived for the decade of Brownian economics. That's on the mat as we speak but no-ones dared to open the envelope yet. Inflation/interest rates soar. House price bubble detonates. Debt volcanoes. Commentators run out of suitable verbs.
(UK energy prices go through roof)
Perm two or more of the above and Tory MP's will find themselves trying to patch together a coalition with a LePen style NF possibly as merely junior partners. The seeds have been sown in East London & the Northern Towns. If you pols don't get your act together your toys are going to be taken away from you. Your best bet is that Salmond takes Scotland out of the UK sooner rather than later and a redefined playing field concentrates some minds.
Only 28 more days until we see the back of Blair? Do you know something the rest of us don't?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but Gordy will never do anything so incautious as to call an early election.
I agree with Matthew Dear regarding Barack Obama. For someone who was polling at the 2% mark just over two years at the time of the 2004 general election, to be within 7-10 points of Clinton (depending upon which polls you read) with still over a year and a half to go before a candidate is selected, suggests to me that Obama has the momentum.
ReplyDeleteAnd with Clinton's pro Iraq war stance, Obama will appeal to more and more democrats and moderates in the run up to the primaries.
Iain, I think you may have to revisit your prediction with regards to Guiliani winning the Republican nomination, what with such a personal document to his campaign released to the media.
When is the next Boundary Commission report due ?
ReplyDeleteWhen will its reccomendations be implemented ?
As for Obama, the press love him and play him up as the anti-Hillary but most people with an ounce of brains realise he's totally unqualified at present.
MatthewDear,
ReplyDeleteObama certainly has a lot of very positive press at the moment and he's in the first tier of candidates for the Dem nomination because of that but whilst star power is one thing he faces some reasonably stiff competition in his first ever difficult race.
Clinton currently leads in each of the first 4 primary states' polls in the Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com/thefix) and in some previous independent polling Edwards appears to be ahead in Iowa and South Carolina despite his launch being a complete catastrophe (not due to anything he did wrong but unfortunately all the news coverage was gobbled up by the death of President Ford).
That's not to say Obama can't succeed - of course he can - but despite having a high name and face recognition and a very positive rep he's still lagging behind in the polling. The good news for him (and Edwards and Clinton) is that the other candidates are really lagging badly behind in single figures. His campaign may be looking more healthy once other candidates drop out of the running.
Right now I think smart money is on Edwards though I would prefer General Clark policies-and-character-wise.
...Trust me, Obama is going exactly nowhere...
ReplyDeleteOn what basis do you say that, Verity? Not the word I'm getting from American correspondents.
Even though I personally agree with you.
Your Alex Salmond prediction is affected in two potential ways. First, he is not standing in his usual Banff and Buchan seat for the Scottish Parliament having decided to allow his MSP successor to continue in the seat. Such loyalty means that Salmond is standing in a safe Lib Dem seat (Gordon, I think) where his chances are slimmer than they might otherwise be. Salmond is then top of the Nat list for the additional member seats in the north east of Scotland, but this is an area where the Nats traditionally win more seats than their percentage vote warrants, and consequently a seat on the back-up PR list is potentially unlikely (if there is not a big swing to the Nats).
ReplyDeletePerhaps Nicola Sturgeon is a more interesting bet (with appreciably better odds).
Blair to go as early as this month?? What makes you say that, Iain?
ReplyDelete8. LEADER IN RACE FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama
9. LEADER IN RACE FOR REPUBLICAN NOMINATION
Rudi Giuliani
This can't happen by Christmas day 2007, the primaries aren't until 2008.
The way things stand would anyone notice if GB called an early election?
ReplyDeleteCameron - Brown - Ming.....
The tumble weeds will be blowing past the polling stations.
I fail to see any possibility of a Labour victory in a general election, the voters will punish Bliar for the shame he has heaped on this country and if Cameron fails to find his gonads then a hung parliament has to be the most likely outcome.
I find it so depressing that not one party will tackle any of the important issues the public want resolved (only lib dem Iraq policy).
Labour have no chance, Lib dems may do well but will have only a bit part to play and Cameron has no chance(unless by default) without adopting some policies that have support among his own members.
Eco-Sham has been a great place to hide but surely politicians dont really think that its a vote winner? It is delusion on a grand scale to think a Green policy is of any relevance if they refuse to tackle topics like EU membership, immigration, Iraq, Afghanistan and the disgraceful levels of duplicity and corruption in all levels of government etc
2 BNP Westminster MPs
ReplyDelete1.Prime Minister Gordon Brown
ReplyDelete2. Leader of the Opposition David Cameron
3. Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell
4. Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Hilary Benn
5. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling
6. President of France Nicolas Sarkozy
7. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond
8. Leader in Democratic nomination Hilary Clinton
9. Leader in Republican nomination John McCain
10. Tony Blair serve as PM 180
11. Ming Campbell serve as Lib Dem Leader 365
12. David Cameron serve as Tory Leader 365
13. Lembit Opik serve as LD party spokesman on Wales and Northern Ireland - 127
14. The “Cash for Honours” investigation continue without any current members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords being charged - 365
15. The Conservative Party candidate “A-List” continue in its current form - 365
Prime Minister & Labour Leader: Gordon Brown
Deputy Leader & Lord Chancellor: Hilary Benn
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Alastair Darling
Foreign Secretary: John Reid (To keep him happy)
Home Secretary: Alan Johnson
Leader of the House of Commons: Jack Straw
Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Amos
Communities and Local Government Secretary: Harriet Harman
Culture Secretary: Stephen Ladyman
Defence Secretary: Des Brown
Education Secretary: David Milliband
Environment Secretary: Tessa Joweel
International Development Secretary: Caroline Flint
Trade & Industry Secretary: Nick Brown
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Ed Balls
Transport Secretary: Douglas Alexander
Labour Chairman: John Cruddas
Health Secretary: Ruth Kelly
Work & Pensions Secretary: John Hutton
Northern Ireland & Wales: Geoff Hoon
Cabinet Office Minister: David Lammy
The Blair-PM one of 31 days is ridiculous. Geoffrey Booking is probably about right with 180 though I wish it would be around 100-130 myself. But with leadership election taking around 42 days this is getting harder to achieve. Five more weeks before setting the hare running would be excellent. The only way Iain's comes true is charges being brought (not going to happen) ... and then Prezza is in charge for 42 days at least ... aaaaaargh.
ReplyDelete