After reading endless tips from Mike Smithson on PoliticalBetting.com to back Ed Miliband, Guido switched his bets on Friday. David Miliband’s implied probability of victory had already dropped from 75% to 65% by the time Guido shifted his money from one brother to the other. He is at the time of writing given a 59% chance of winning the leadership (40% for Ed Miliband). Given it is too close to call that could narrow to 50% / 50% soon. Both camps are of course claiming their internal polling numbers point to victory.
In the humiliation stakes punters reckon that despite Guido’s never-ending support, Ed Balls is still the favourite to to be eliminated in the first round. His odds on avoiding humiliation have improved, dropping from a 62% certainty down to a still not good 41%, with Diane Abbott on 35% and Burnham given 30% a chance of going out first. If you are reading this Sally Bercow, and still think Balls is going to win the leadership, a £5 bet will win you £1000.
Part of the reason for the current vitriol from the Labour Party towards the LibDems is that they took it for granted that the LibDems were a party of the left. As patronising as it was wrong.
On election night Guido was on ITN with Will Straw, off screen when it became clear there would be no overall majority, we argued for most of the night about what might happen. Straw basically thought Guido was bonkers to believe that a Liberal – Conservative Change Coalition was not only desirable, but that it was really possible. Will could not conceive of it happening, the subsequent widespread shock on the left when it did happen perhaps explains why the Labour Party is so scornful of the LibDems.
Guido always suspected the ex-Cambridge University Conservative Association member and son of a merchant banker might not be so keen on making common cause with Ed Balls and Gordon Brown. The polls might not support this view today, but that collective mis-judgement by Labour may cost them their second party status in the end.
Papal stories were the most popular of the week, and also the most divisive, abuse and praise was heaped on Guido, much of the praise in Latin. All contributed to a mere 68,807 readers viewing 307,415 pages over the last seven days. Here are the seven most popular stories (in order of popularity) that you might have missed:
- The Media’s Crucifixion of the Pope is Atheist Bigotry
- Pope Seeks to Re-Unify Christendom
- Kay Burley’s Fantasy, Drunken, Nymphomaniac Characters
- Religious Reporting Guardian Style
- AV Means Labour’s Self-Perceived Lesser Miliband Could Win
- Blair Assassin Bryant Calls for Party Unity
- Pollsters Backing Ed V Punters Backing David
You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…
Ed Balls told Steve Richards…
“I have never ever asked Damian McBride to brief against any colleague, elected or unelected. So it’s not true.”
Courtesy of the FringeList.com service, based on users who have registered to receive free SMS text message reminders to attend events, the top 10 most popular events on the fringe are in order:
- Yes to reform! Winning the battle
- Blog Of The Year Awards
- Lessons for future campaigning from the 2010 election
- LibDemVoice Fringe
- Coalition, Cuts and Conservatives: an attractive agenda for the Lib Dems?
- Cable on cuts: the economics of ‘progressive austerity’
- Entering the Coalition: our duty or our demise?
- The Future of Higher Education Funding
- Is the Lib-Lab coalition gone forever?
- The Guardian Debate
Top 50 LibDem fringe events according to registrations can be found by clicking on libdem.fringelist.com/popular. You can even find out which events Guido will be attending here.
Which way is Liverpool?
Former Met Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman says…
“We have to get real over this. This is just another episode of Lord Prescott’s rants… You know, he’s nothing special, he was on a list, along with lots of other celebrities and well-known people, held by a journalist – and that’s no different to a contact list that’s being held by any other journalist, come to that. Now if – and it’s been reviewed – if I have proved to be wrong, then I’ll eat my words and face the music. But my understanding is, there is absolutely no evidence from that initial investigation of his phone being hacked, so why he thinks he is anything special, I do not know. I don’t believe that a judicial review will reveal anything more than what has already been reviewed by my successor, also by the Crown Prosecution Service and by other bodies. It could actually end up being a waste of public money and only ever putting Lord Prescott on a bigger platform.”
