politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » LAB heavyweight Jim Murphy becomes the 2-5 favourite to be

YouGov

12% of Scots believe EdM is doing well as leader of Labour, whilst 82% think he is doing badly.

67% of UKIP VI would trust Nigel Farage most to get the best deal for Britain from the EU

The Inside Story of Lamont's Downfall:

But Lamont and her allies believe Curran - who is Ed Miliband's shadow Scotland secretary - knifed Lamont in the back when the Glasgow Pollok MSP needed help.

Labour down, Tories down, LibDems (who dat?) UKIP (and Greens if I keep pushing the meme) on the up.

On the subject of the SNP being within ‘striking distance’, - can’t see many choice seats should Alex Salmond, decide to stand as an MP at GE15.

If Labour had more "Jim Murphys" they'd be laughing.

Gadfly said:

Moving average YouGov polls for the last 12 months...
http://www.mediafire.com/view/ax4pduo4nd3239u/12-month YouGov 26 October 2014.jpg#

Moving average YouGov polls since the General Election...
http://www.mediafire.com/view/m590guli98shz4t/YouGov since 2010 GE 26 October 2014.jpg#

Nice graphs.
Even with a blue/red crossover the purple/yellow crossover may be enough to turf Cameron out of number 10.

I thought I'd update my tables of odds for Scottish seats as a companion to this thread:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bygi8eZw-4q1VGVsZ3Zsa2lqck0/view?usp=sharing

This shows all the seats in Scotland ranked in order of the bookies' odds on the SNP taking each seat. This took rather longer than I'd expected because the odds have moved more in the last fortnight than I'd expected.

For those that want to compare movements, I last looked at this here:

http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/scottish-post-referendum-special.html

The punters are not being put off by the Herculean swings required. For myself, the 6/4 on the SNP in Dundee West still looks an outstanding bargain. The 4/1 on the SNP in Ross Skye & Lochaber does not.

antifrank said:

SimonStClare said:

On the subject of the SNP being within ‘striking distance’, - can’t see many choice seats should Alex Salmond, decide to stand as an MP at GE15.

He's apparently lining up Gordon.

I suggested on yesterday's thread that he would be better deployed going for a Glasgow seat in order to help the SNP maximise their efforts to capitalise on the Yes vote, but JPJ2 gave three cogent reasons why not.

Cheers antifrank, – still in the process of trawling through the weekend threads, I’ll keep an eye out for that discussion. – Quite honestly, what with the recent SNP surge and SLP decapitation, I’m not sure we know how things stand, north of the border - hopefully his lordship will generously provide some new Scottish polling soon.

SimonStClare said:

antifrank said:

SimonStClare said:

On the subject of the SNP being within ‘striking distance’, - can’t see many choice seats should Alex Salmond, decide to stand as an MP at GE15.

He's apparently lining up Gordon.

I suggested on yesterday's thread that he would be better deployed going for a Glasgow seat in order to help the SNP maximise their efforts to capitalise on the Yes vote, but JPJ2 gave three cogent reasons why not.

Cheers antifrank, – still in the process of trawling through the weekend threads, I’ll keep an eye out for that discussion. – Quite honestly, what with the recent SNP surge and SLP decapitation, I’m not sure how things stand, north of the border - hopefully his lordship will generously provide some new Scottish polling soon.

I've found the relevant comment for you:

JPJ2 said:

antifrank says of Salmond:

"wouldn't he be better standing in a Glasgow seat, with the aim of putting boosters under the SNP's hopes of harnessing those Yes voters there?"

Salmond is probably the only senior politician in Scotland who might seriously consider doing such a thing. I cite as evidence that he returned to Holyrood by contesting a seat where his party had come third in the previous election. On balance, however, I think that he will not for at least the reasons below:

* Although Glasgow voted "Yes", many appear to have done so on the basis that a vote for independence was expressly not a vote for Alex Salmond.

* A lot more effort might be required to win in Glasgow than in Gordon which might prove a distraction from the main campaign

* It might be viewed negatively in much of the rest of Scotland, where Salmond garners some support for his party by it not being dominated by Glasgow. It would certainly be easily portrayed as such with Sturgeon also being Glasgow based.

I still don't feel able to rule it out completely, though it is the third point that is the most important to me.

maaarsh said:

We know from 2010 that Scots will stand by their own even when they're very very odd, but given this is an all Scots affair, does Jim Murphy not get marked down for coming across very strangely - deeply creepy breathy tone of voice and body language full of latent anger being suppressed.

Heh heh. I wonder what you'd make of my handwriting.

NickPalmer said:

I've always rated Jim Murphy highly (as has fitalass. no friend of Labour) - he's unflappable, intellectually consistent, liked even by opponents, skilful in Parliament and, as evidenced by the helicopter crash, personally brave. But if Scottish Labour has an identity crisis, I wonder if they don't need Gordon Brown, as the best tub-thumping orator in a very long Scots Labour tradition. He'd be an uncomfortable partner for the Westminster Government (of any colour), but Scots won't see that as a drawback.

I agree with that completely. Scottish Labour urgently needs to show the Scots that it is not Westminster's toy and that it is going to fight the SNP on Scottish terms. Gordon Brown probably is the best man for that job.

Would he want it though?

That is Murphy's problem. Many Tories and neocons rate him highly. (Former) Scottish Labour voters- not so much.

NickPalmer said:

I've always rated Jim Murphy highly (as has fitalass. no friend of Labour) - he's unflappable, intellectually consistent, liked even by opponents, skilful in Parliament and, as evidenced by the helicopter crash, personally brave. But if Scottish Labour has an identity crisis, I wonder if they don't need Gordon Brown, as the best tub-thumping orator in a very long Scots Labour tradition. He'd be an uncomfortable partner for the Westminster Government (of any colour), but Scots won't see that as a drawback.

antifrank said:

david_herdson said:

antifrank said:

SimonStClare said:

On the subject of the SNP being within ‘striking distance’, - can’t see many choice seats should Alex Salmond, decide to stand as an MP at GE15.

He's apparently lining up Gordon.

I suggested on yesterday's thread that he would be better deployed going for a Glasgow seat in order to help the SNP maximise their efforts to capitalise on the Yes vote, but JPJ2 gave three cogent reasons why not.

Sky were reporting this morning that Brown would not stand.

On topic, Murphy would help stem the losses in 2015 but his effect will be less pronounced in 2016 unless he commits to move to the Holyrood parliament either then or before.

The whole structure's bodged and the cause of the current problem. Having two leaders in one party with overlapping authority is a recipe for friction and trouble. The Scottish leader having supposed authority over Westminster MPs from north of the border was never going to end well as those MPs inevitably look to their leader in Westminster first. The 'Scottish' leader should be the head of their Holyrood parliamentary delegation and no more (or, if outside the parliament, as Murphy is, their designated First Minister nominee for after the next election).

We're at cross-purposes. I was suggesting that Alex Salmond was lining up Gordon (the seat) as somewhere to stand.

Too many Gordons in Scotland!

Of course. Still half asleep. Gordon would make good sense for Salmond. It should be as close to a nailed-on SNP gain as you can get given that it's Lib Dem held and the incumbent is standing down. With Salmond's personal standing in that part of the world, I don't think he'd be taking too many chances.

old_labour said:

That is Murphy's problem. Many Tories and neocons rate him highly. (Former) Scottish Labour voters- not so much.

NickPalmer said:

I've always rated Jim Murphy highly (as has fitalass. no friend of Labour) - he's unflappable, intellectually consistent, liked even by opponents, skilful in Parliament and, as evidenced by the helicopter crash, personally brave. But if Scottish Labour has an identity crisis, I wonder if they don't need Gordon Brown, as the best tub-thumping orator in a very long Scots Labour tradition. He'd be an uncomfortable partner for the Westminster Government (of any colour), but Scots won't see that as a drawback.

Anyone who saw Murphy and Lamont campaigning in the referendum could not be struck by the difference. If Labour fail to make him their Scottish leader in favour of some nonentity in Holyrood, they've missed an outstanding opportunity. However, I'd be far from surprised if they do.

@SkyNews: Brown Not Running For Scottish Labour Leader http://t.co/GDFmXCxtSR

@Roger are you Adrian Harpur in disguise?

Sky on Brown.

http://news.sky.com/story/1360547/brown-not-running-for-scottish-labour-leader

Ref SNP gains, from the very useful table in the header, it's true that there aren't many pickings for the SNP from Labour on a sub-10% swing. On the other hand, there are ten winnable on swings of 9.5% to 15% (actually, there may be more but I've not checked the seats where they start in third or fourth but still with a chunky share of the vote). Those numbers are achievable - they happened in 1997 for Labour and, more relevantly, in 2011 for the SNP.

Salmond talked about winning 20 Westminster seats prior to 2010. It may be that he was one election out.

The problem for Scottish Labour is that they are trying to face in 2 different directions at once. As the provider of 41 seats they have provided a significant part of the Westminster representation for Labour and, until recently, they had a disproportionate representation in its leadership.

But the major game in town in Scotland is no longer Westminster and it will be even less so when devomax is applied. If this is combined with EVEL then those 41 MPs are going to be increasingly useless in determining the government of this country.

Until now Labour has, with very limited exceptions, looked at Holyrood as some sort of local government, a training ground for the B team. They paid a massive price for that in 2011 and Scotland nearly did too in the referendum.

Scottish Labour needs to focus on Holyrood building policies and personalities that have something useful to say about the impending crisis in the Scottish NHS, our catastrophic education system and the increasing centralisation of power away from local government.

Any Scottish leader either needs to be in Holyrood or at least committed to being there very soon and needs to spend all their time focussed on devolved matters. Jim Murphy has been extremely reluctant to make that commitment. Brown even more so. As Henry McLeish put it yesterday: “I think Johann is absolutely right to make the comments she has made. For a decade now the party have been in decline and the SNP have been in the ascendancy. There has been a failure to rise to the devolution challenge." That is what this is about.

We may well get to the point when the Labour cohort at Westminster is as relevant to Scottish political life as those MEPs that we elected and will not hear from again for several years.

Roger said:

Murphy though a huge improvement on the lamentable Lamont is but a shadow when compared to the mighty Brown. This is the job he was born to do. He'll not only tower over Scottish politics but UK politics too. Imagine how feeble grinning nonentities like Farage and the Bullingdon Boys will look when compared to this towering collosus up North.

Haven't we already had that match-up, in 2010?

Roger said:

Murphy though a huge improvement on the lamentable Lamont is but a shadow when compared to the mighty Brown. This is the job he was born to do. He'll not only tower over Scottish politics but UK politics too. Imagine how feeble grinning nonentities like Farage and the Bullingdon Boys will look when compared to this towering collosus up North.

Eh???

You mean - this sort of towering colossus?!

http://wingsoverscotland.com/gordzilla-returns-to-the-back-benches/

[edit: cartoon for weekend morning]

I don't know about Ed Miliband saying different things to different audiences but every politician does that - David Cameron is a past master at it.

To the Conservative faithful, it's all red-meat right-wingery but to the more sceptical it's the sweet sugary taste of "liberal conservatism".

For the domestic audience, it's all about standing up to the EU and trying to out-UKIP UKIP in his distaste for all things European while in Brussels, I suspect, it's much more conciliatory and asking that nice Mrs Merkel if it's all right for him to get a little cross for domestic consumption but don't worry we'll pay the money on time as good members of the club.

Good morning Doc.


"@Roger are you Adrian Harpur in disguise?"


It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he made the most notable ground moving speech of the last decade. Few politicians can make a difference without being in office. Gordon possibly single handedly did it with just one passionate speech. A speech which might have saved the union. There aren't many in the UK who can outperform Alex Salmond from a standing start but Brown did.

Underestimate him at your peril. The futures bright.The futures Brown

The return of the undead Gordon Brown in Scottish politics is an obvious reason why Scotland would never, EVER have been able to retain the pound....

His dipping into the Bank of England joint account would have made the EU's additional tax demands look like small change.

chestnut said:

stodge said:

Whatever did we do with that windfall

Dealt with the 1970s deficit? The one we needed an IMF bailout for?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10103345/We-wasted-North-Sea-oil-lets-not-do-the-same-with-shale-gas.html

Or you could actually come up with some facts before posting the usual fatuous nonsense. Read that as a condemnation of Conservative and Labour economic policies from 1979 onwards.

"Successive Governments have beggared the future to fund today's indulgences" - and if you want to know why I'm no fan of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, it's all in that sentence. Every tax cut we got back then has come back to bite us now.

Roger said:

Good morning Doc.


"@Roger are you Adrian Harpur in disguise?"


It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he made the most notable ground moving speech of the last decade. Few politicians can make a difference without being in office. Gordon possibly single handedly did it with just one passionate speech. A speech which might have saved the union. There aren't many in the UK who can outperform Alex Salmond from a standing start but Brown did.

Underestimate him at your peril. The futures bright.The futures Brown

A speech which he has already effectively repudiated as pretty much based on a tissue of lies from the party leaders. We have yet to see the full consequences of Mr Brown's intervention.

Every tax cut we got back then has come back to bite us now.

And every spending increase.

chestnut said:

stodge said:

Or you could actually come up with some facts before posting the usual fatuous nonsense.

So you decided to post an article from the Telegraph.

Very droll.

And you decided to come up with a meaningless jibe in response.

Very typical.

Swiss_Bob said:

Roger said:

Murphy though a huge improvement on the lamentable Lamont is but a shadow when compared to the mighty Brown. This is the job he was born to do. He'll not only tower over Scottish politics but UK politics too. Imagine how feeble grinning nonentities like Farage and the Bullingdon Boys will look when compared to this towering collosus up North.

Is this the colossus that goes to parties with empty beer cans covering a brick in his carrier bag? That mighty colossus?

Maybe it's the mighty colossus that throws phones in temper tantrums, or the one that has delusions of grandeur that he saved the world.

I hope Labour do elect him leader and I hope the Scots vote for him as FM. They deserve him.

Jilted John knew all about Gordon. Never truer words in a song title.

That must be why the MPs dumped Thatcher in 1990 and the electorate dumped the Conservative seven years later.

I did not blame any particular party in my post.

I have often castigated Osborne on here for his inability to control spending.

@Stodge; re LNG tank farms.

Some of the sites of our former refineries are now being used as storage for LNG which is imported from Qatar and its neighbours, who are often part owners of these LNG tank farms and only sell gas to the grid when the price is right.

However a lot of auxiliary LNG powered electrical generation is being installed for times when the wind is too weak or too strong to generate electricity.

Perhaps we should return to local gas works or even start fracking!

Could any of our Scottish chums expand on what Lamont was getting at in her departure? What was behind her leaving? And who are these dinosaurs of Scottish Labour politics? (In my innocence, I thought they all were....)

Morning all,

Can anyone enlighten us on the system for electing Scottish Lab leader? Murphy isnt even in the parliament - does that matter?

Some background
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/london-called-shots-during-johann-lamont-tenure-1-3584124

MarqueeMark said:

Could any of our Scottish chums expand on what Lamont was getting at in her departure? What was behind her leaving? And who are these dinosaurs of Scottish Labour politics? (In my innocence, I thought they all were....)

Most amusing to discover that TSE thinks that 'plebs' was a term of insult in Roman discussions.

When in fact the plebians were around 99% of the Roman citizens including at the end of the Republic Cicero, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Brutus, Cassius, Antony and Octavian.

And I can assure everyone that in South Yorkshire an Establishment Tory lawyer who's father is a doctor, who went to boarding school and who lives in Dore is the epitome of posh.

No matter what accent he puts on.

Replacement of Blunkett as Sheffield Brightside & Hillsbrough Labour candidate is to be selected today from a shortlist of 4:
Cllr Harry Harpham
Cllr Leigh Bramall
Cllr Jackie Drayton
Mike Buckley frrom Movement for Change

david_herdson said:

stodge said:

taffys said:

Every tax cut we got back then has come back to bite us now.

And every spending increase.

The world didn't begin in 1997 - decisions taken or not taken in the Thatcher-Major years are as much responsible for our current plight as those taken by Blair and Brown but it seems that, as with many others on here, you have a blind spot for that period and consider everything done in those years to be wholly positive.

That must be why the MPs dumped Thatcher in 1990 and the electorate dumped the Conservative seven years later.

No, the world didn't begin in 1997, 1979 or Year Zero. On the other hand, the Conservatives handed over an economy in vastly better shape to Labour at the end of Major's term, than Labour handed back in 2010.

Indeed.

But the Cameroons seemed unaware of that and bought into Brown's 'economic miracle' when a few hours looking through the ONS stats on borrowing, home ownership, trade deficits, industrial production and productivity would have shown that things were far from well with the economy even before Northern Rock became famous.

Slightly off topic but one of the stories on the front page of the ST business section today is that Osborne is going to require UK banks to raise billions in additional capital. This, of course, is not unconnected with the publication of the EZ stress tests on their banks today which are expected to fail at least 10% of the relevant banking institutions (basically the big ones).

We are therefore very likely to see further declines in bank lending at a time when the economy is losing momentum already, basically a repeat of 2010-11. The assumption that everything in the economic garden is going to look rosy (apart from the deficit which far too few people seem to care about) in May of next year looks increasingly misplaced to me.

malcolmg said:

NickPalmer said:

I've always rated Jim Murphy highly (as has fitalass. no friend of Labour) - he's unflappable, intellectually consistent, liked even by opponents, skilful in Parliament and, as evidenced by the helicopter crash, personally brave. But if Scottish Labour has an identity crisis, I wonder if they don't need Gordon Brown, as the best tub-thumping orator in a very long Scots Labour tradition. He'd be an uncomfortable partner for the Westminster Government (of any colour), but Scots won't see that as a drawback.

He is a backstabbing trougher par excellence. So Scottish labour personified. Murphy and labour are hated in Scotland , a severe drubbing is coming and a London patsy as leader will make it even worse.

The SNP talk a good fight against Labour but come GEs you invariably flop. Let's hope you buck that trend next year.

DavidL said:

Slightly off topic but one of the stories on the front page of the ST business section today is that Osborne is going to require UK banks to raise billions in additional capital. This, of course, is not unconnected with the publication of the EZ stress tests on their banks today which are expected to fail at least 10% of the relevant banking institutions (basically the big ones).

We are therefore very likely to see further declines in bank lending at a time when the economy is losing momentum already, basically a repeat of 2010-11. The assumption that everything in the economic garden is going to look rosy (apart from the deficit which far too few people seem to care about) in May of next year looks increasingly misplaced to me.

Does Mr Osborne have that power though? I thought bank regulation was one of the EU's powers.

DavidL said:

Slightly off topic but one of the stories on the front page of the ST business section today is that Osborne is going to require UK banks to raise billions in additional capital. This, of course, is not unconnected with the publication of the EZ stress tests on their banks today which are expected to fail at least 10% of the relevant banking institutions (basically the big ones).

We are therefore very likely to see further declines in bank lending at a time when the economy is losing momentum already, basically a repeat of 2010-11. The assumption that everything in the economic garden is going to look rosy (apart from the deficit which far too few people seem to care about) in May of next year looks increasingly misplaced to me.

Indeed.

We've passed the peak of the economic cycle.

But people now expect spending increases and tax cuts.

Inevitable after been told that we've had years of 'austerity' and that the economy is now bigger than before the last recession.

Cameron's repeated lies about "paying down Britain's debts" have also encouraged that false complacency.

Ishmael_X said:

MarqueeMark said:

Could any of our Scottish chums expand on what Lamont was getting at in her departure? What was behind her leaving? And who are these dinosaurs of Scottish Labour politics? (In my innocence, I thought they all were....)

This is illuminating:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/25/johann-lamont-quits-scottish-labour

LOL that ed had written a "saviour of the Union" role for himself and had to be tactfully told that ‘you’re not well known here’.

That's a little bit harsh on Ed. Enough Scots knew who he was to trash his Edinburgh walkabout and tell him to feck off back to London....

anotherDave said:

DavidL said:

Slightly off topic but one of the stories on the front page of the ST business section today is that Osborne is going to require UK banks to raise billions in additional capital. This, of course, is not unconnected with the publication of the EZ stress tests on their banks today which are expected to fail at least 10% of the relevant banking institutions (basically the big ones).

We are therefore very likely to see further declines in bank lending at a time when the economy is losing momentum already, basically a repeat of 2010-11. The assumption that everything in the economic garden is going to look rosy (apart from the deficit which far too few people seem to care about) in May of next year looks increasingly misplaced to me.

Does Mr Osborne have that power though? I thought bank regulation was one of the EU's powers.

No, the regulation of UK banks is largely a matter for UK authorities and in particular the Prudential Regulation Authority. It is a different story in the EZ because, of course, the ECB stands behind those banks as the LOLR. Of course the UK is signed up to various international accords such as Basle II which has an impact on policy but decisions as to capital will inevitably be made by the LOLR, that is the BoE.