An Englishman’s Home is not Labour's Castle…

The first of an occasional series trying to work-out why the marginals might be different by Bunnco, your man on the spot.

Have a look at this map.



There’s something familiar about it isn’t there. Notice how similar it is to the map that Mike republished on the main site last week in Is it because the marginals ARE different?

He was referring to a guest slot by geographer, Blair Freebairn, in which Blair tried to show where the election would be won and lost. Freebairn postulated that the battleground would be “heavily concentrated in Medium English Towns and Their Hinterlands (METTHs from now on)…. The marginals are strung like bunting through Britain avoiding the cities and the truly rural. It’s the towns, stupid! These seats are clustered on a fine scale but not a large one, in other words they occur across all parts of the UK but where they do occur you get lots of them…. So we start to get a picture of what a key election battle-ground looks like. It’s a medium sized English town, which is not part of a big conurbation, and was generally held by the Tories until the great Blair landslide of 1997. By contrast with the cities are more socially cohesive with a distinct demographic profile.


We’re now starting to fully understand from ARS polling seems that there is a disproportionate swing from LAB to CON in the English towns and I’m going speculate on a number of practical reasons for this in a short series of articles over the next week or so.

In this article I’ll try to explain why that might be and a throw away remark on a recent thread about the way in which ‘Council House Tenants’ might vote got me thinking. Because it’s not fully appreciated that there aren’t that many ‘Council House Tenants’ in the METTHS.

In the first of my articles I’m going to focus on a little-known process called “LSVT” and whether it partly explains what we’re seeing in the marginal seat polling.

An LSVT is a ‘Large Scale Voluntary Transfer’ of Council Housing to a Registered Social Landlord. This is something I know a fair bit about having been involved in one such transaction. The circumstances were that the Council concerned was faced with a bill of £35m to bring up the thousands of council houses it owned to ‘Decent Homes’ standard.

Government rules prevented the Council from borrowing the money to make the repairs and the process was rigged so that only a Housing Association [Registered Social Landlord] could borrow the money. So the Council had no choice and hived-off their houses and employees to a special-purpose-vehicle, a Housing Association [HA] or Registered Social Landlord [RSL] completely separate from the Council.

The map shows the number of local authorities that have undertaken an LSVT. It’s so close to the Freebairn map, that it’s worth investigating further.

In fact, Councils had an alternative process, the ALMO [arms-length management organisation], where the housing remains owned and managed by the a Council-owned “company” but I want to skip past this at the moment.

Cambridge University’s done a study into the compelling reasons for Councils to transfer their housing stock to an RSL. It allows budgetary and organisational streamlining and the Capital receipt from the transfer [about £30m for a typical council] comes in handy too. Of 354 Local Authorities, 176 (49%) have completed a whole LSVT. More than 1 million dwellings have been transferred from Local Authority to Housing Association sectors. The Transferred stock accounts for half of Housing Association stock.

That’s a lot of houses. It’s a lot of voters. And as we can see from the map, most of the transfers have been completed in the METTHs

Wow!

My thesis is that in Labour held constituencies, where there is Council Housing transferred under RSL-control, the vote is likely to swing slightly disproportionately away from Labour and to the Conservatives. It’s a small explanation of why the marginals in the towns might be behaving differently, because these METTH constituencies have had a disproportionate numbers of LSVTs.

The useful Parliamentary Paper gives some helpful information about the LSVT process.

The current procedure for LSVT housing transfers takes place in five stages.
1 At the first stage, which is usually in the autumn or winter of each year, local authorities are invited to submit applications for a place on the annual disposals programme. The disposals programme is formally announced at the start of the financial year in the spring.
2 Following selection for a place on the programme, local authorities are required to carry out a tenant consultation to gauge whether the majority of tenants support the transfer. This ballot would normally take place in the spring or summer.
3 Only if the tenants vote in favour of the transfer will the local authority proceed to agree the terms and conditions of the sale with the RSL.
4 At the start of the following calendar year the new landlord must obtain registration with the Housing Corporation.
5 Subject to the transfer complying with the policies of the Department, the Secretary of State may consent to the transfer. Crucially, if consent is granted, the transfer must be completed before the end of the financial year.

Subject to the five tests, the new Housing Associations are able to borrow millions of pounds from Private Finance on the back of the capital value of houses transferred from the Council at about four-grand apiece. [Yes, that’s about £4000 each!]. A combination of the maintenance backlog in most housing stock, asbestos liabilities and controlled rents means that the Council is forced to sell at this knock-down price.

The housing association [RSL] is then able to pay for new bathrooms/ bedrooms/ kitchens/ doubleglazing in double-quick time in a way the Council could never have dreamed of. Tenant satisfaction with the new arrangements tends to be stratospheric. Some of them even thank the Tories, who by now control most of these councils!

Not being able to Blame-The-Council for duff housing is electorally important because nowadays most Councils are Tory. They get off lightly. Even the housing waiting list is insulated from political blame by a new bidding process called “choice based lettings”. It explains part of the ‘unwind’ from Labour in the Social Housing social classes.

Housing policy is generally going quite well in the METTHs which doesn't actively help Labour hang on to vulnerable seats. Former Labour authorities that resisted LSVT have nearly all gone having paid the electoral price for resisting this open goal. And they resisted LSVT for ideological reasons. Some of them have tried to form ALMOs so the stock remained in Council hands, but they’re just not the same.

In the Labour metropolitan councils that are still ‘stockholding, the Council still gets the blame for ghastly housing standards as Austin Mitchell is discovering on “Tower Block of Commons” currently running on C4.

Most RSL’s make a number of ‘promises’ to Tenants in the enabling ballot, normally to deliver a certain number of practical improvements within the first five year period. Over here in Norfolk only Norwich and Great Yarmouth have resisted LSVT. South Norfolk transferred their houses to Saffron Housing in 2004. After just four years of their five-year plan, an independent report highlighted


a) Against a target of 53 additional houses to be built in ten years, the RSL has completed the equivalent of 52 within 4 years with a further 46 currently under construction.
b) Against the 5 year programme totalling £37 million of improvements and repairs, (as at February 2008 with still more than a year to go) the RSL has achieved:
• 162% of the promised rewiring;
• 136% of the promised exterior doors to be replaced;
• 130% of the promised new bathrooms to be installed;
• 118% of the promised homes to have better loft and wall insulation;
• 98% of the promised replacement windows;
• 82% of the promised homes to have central heating installed or upgraded;
• 72% of the promised kitchens have been fitted (Saffron are confident this target will be met)
c) Tenant satisfaction with the RSL is increasing – the last Performance Indicator showed satisfaction overall at 91%.
d) Repairs are completed promptly, for example 99.8% of all emergency repairs are completed on time.”

Two years later in 2010, the South Norfolk RSL houses all have new windows, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. And now they’re building new houses to replenish those lost to the sector by right-to-buy.


social housing subject to LSVT in Norfolk

What’s more, the LSVT RSLs have focused massively on home insulation so they’re greener and cheaper-to-heat leaving more money in the household to be spent as the tenants wish.

In my own backyard in Norwich, you only have to compare houses on one side of the street in Bowthorpe [Norwich City Council, no LSVT] with the other in Costessey [South Norfolk Council LSVT’d to Saffron housing in 2004] to see what a practical difference it makes. Norwich's stock condition is shocking by comparison and last year, Norwich’s tenants passed a vote of no confidence in their council after the ‘Greyhound Opening’ scandal, which dominated the local front pages for weeks.

Why I think this is electorally significant is because ‘Council House Tenants’ see at firsthand how a ‘private’ social landlord can deliver more than the State ever could and more efficiently too. It’s reduced their dependence on the sort of Paternal Big Government that Labour tries to foster. Labour may be blowing the housing dog-whistle but there aren't so many people to hear it.

And so for this narrow band of the population the former Council House tenants now landlorded by RSLs in the METTHs, they are now less electorally-tied to the Council and more predisposed to alternative methods ‘private’ or ‘charitable’ of provision, which plays to the Tory meme. It’s a new take on Right-to-Buy.

The Conservatives now have more than half of all councillors in England ... Labour appears to be in third place in councillor numbers, having slipped behind the Liberal Democrats, and controls only a few more councils. Labour’s policy has insulated these Tory councils from housing problems, which are so electorally toxic.


Councils controlled (England) 2009
Con 207
Lab 33
LD 26
Ind/Other 4
No overall control 81

Councillors (England) 2009
Con 9236
Lab 3743
LD 3759
Ind/Other 1478

[There’s another METTH article following on from this phenomenon next week]

My thesis is that in the 80’s Mrs Thatcher allowed people to buy their own home in Right-to-Buy. It was massively popular but it couldn’t last. In the 90’s Tony Blair almost forced Housing Associations to buy Local Authority homes. It was the right thing to do but he severed an important link between his core-vote and his own Labour Politicians in the process.

Thatcher saw home ownership as an electoral talisman. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Blair’s version of the same policy now helped the Tories win the English Towns.

Bunnco – Your Man On The Spot.

For those of you interested, you can see which Local Authorities have LSVT’d and cross-tabluate to Parliamentary Constituency. Here's the table the map is based upon.

Critical factors and mid-test thoughts

In the long run-up to the testing period, I was wondering about how I’d manage to offer tips given that the main plank of my betting strategy (refuelling) was now a thing of the past. The reason why I opted for refuelling was because it was concrete information known pre-race, and would provide a potential race-changing moment for teams. It didn’t always work out, but sometimes it did.

So, I tried to think of some comparable factors that would be of use in 2010. Here’s what I came up with:

Differentiation of tyre degradation and performance. Now, I know that sounds as sexy and interesting as one of Gordon Brown’s ties, but hear me out. Pit stops will still occur, and teams are still obliged to use both of the two different tyre compounds (unless it’s wet). Typically soft tyres are faster, but degrade more quickly, and with the extra fuel (and thus weight) degradation may be speeded up. So, at tracks where the tyre compounds are very different in terms of degradation/performance, ragged edge drivers like Lewis Hamilton may suffer. Silky smooth Button and those who can race either way (Schumacher, Barrichello etc) should be relatively unaffected, and thus benefit.

Circuits – straight or bendy? This is pretty basic. Try and find out which cars are superior under braking. If a circuit has a stackload of passable corners, these cars will do better. Better straight line speed will enable overtaking at the pit straight.

Launch systems. Yes, KERS is, alas, no more. But cars still need to start and this is a great opportunity. Some cars/drivers are very good at this. I remember a few years ago that Renault had a tasty launch system, and I think Verstappen was damned good at starts. It’ll be impossible to say early on in the season, but this could be a useful bit of knowledge for betting.

Reliability. This applies to both car and driver and is exemplified by Wunderkind Vettel. I rate Vettel’s driving skill extremely highly. However, he was let down by some schoolboy errors (in Australia he was in a 50/50 needless collision with Kubica, losing at least 6 points) and poor car reliability, mostly because his engine kept exploding.

Engine efficiency. Yes, another sexy topic. Basically, efficiency can matter as much as power. Less efficient engine equals greater fuel weight, increasing workload on tyres and brakes, as well as making the car less agile.

We’ll have to wait and see how these pan out. In the early stages of the season, I’ll be keeping a bloody close eye on the practice times.

Now we come to the test times of Valencia and Jerez test 1 (second test starts on the 17th). I have to say, I knew these would be of limited use, but I was still disheartened by the rainfall at Jerez. At Valencia an eagle-eyed fellow at the newsonf1.net forum (Jim Watt) noticed that the top 4 cars were all Ferrari engine-powered (Ferraris, obviously, and BMW Sauber). However, this dominance was not continued at Jerez. Sauber have been faster than expected, although I suspect they’re running on fumes, but we’ll see come race day.

Although it’s hard to compare times as we don’t know the fuel loads, here’s how the top 4 teams’ drivers compare so far. Massa was moderately faster than Alonso at Jerez, the reverse was true at Valencia. Schumacher edged Rosberg at Valencia and they were equal at Jerez. Hamilton was faster than Button at Valencia and at Jerez. Red Bull sat out Valencia to play in the wind tunnel; at Jerez Vettel was faster.

At Valencia the Ferrari was top dog, follow by Sauber. At Jerez, it was a mix of Toro Rosso, Sauber and Force India, but McLaren was probably top of the tree.

To put into context the effect of fuel, every 10kg is worth about 0.3s per lap. A car now carries circa 240kg, fully laden. This makes assessing testing very difficult.

Given that, my early thoughts on testing are thus: Ferrari are looking good. Mercedes are still in the top 4, but may not be the leading contenders I suspected they might be. Red Bull are an unknown so far, McLaren look like being Ferrari’s closest rival. But, it’s very early days.

Sauber have probably been running light, but if they haven’t they could spring a surprise and compete for the odd podium position.

I wish I could offer tips at this point. I haven’t bet on the market since Schumacher returned. Massa at 12 looks the best title bet to me, but I still advocate holding off. I don’t think I’ll be able to offer concrete tips until right before the first race, and those will be a little speculative. Apologies, but I’d rather keep schtum than pretend I have a brilliant 70/1 shot that only a morris dancing genetic engineer could possibly spot.

Morris Dancer

Two Stags Lock Horns: Budget or Bust

"Speculation about a spring general election was heightened last night after Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that he would his hold his Budget on 7 March."



Don't panic! You didn’t miss anything. This is the headline from an article in the Independent on Valentines Day 2001, nine years ago today. It shows that the budget date and a spring election go hand in hand. In this article Bunnco revisits his August 1st 2009 Article where he predicted an April 8th Election following a chance conversation with a senior Tory he met on the Norwich North by-election.

Let’s start with a bit of budget history

“For most of last century, with the exception of the period 1993 to 1996, the annual Budget statement has been delivered in the spring. In his Budget Speech on 10 March 1992 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Norman Lamont) announced that he intended to revise the annual Budget timetable so that tax and spending proposals could be presented to Parliament at the same time – the “unified Budget”... the Chancellor's Budget Statement to the House of Commons covered tax proposals for the forthcoming financial year and the Government's spending plans for the next three years, thus combining the Budget with the Autumn Statement.

However, Labour reverted to spring Budgets once Chancellor Gordon Brown had delivered his first Budget in July 1997, where in words which will come back to haunt him, he boasted “My first rule - the golden rule - ensures that over the economic cycle the Government will borrow only to invest and that current spending will be met from taxation."

Budgets have traditionally been delivered on Tuesdays, though there is nothing sacrosanct about the day. Recently Budget statements have been given on a Wednesday.

1990 Major Tue 20 Mar
1991 Lamont Tue 19 Mar
1992 Lamont Tue 10 Mar
1993 Lamont Tue 16 Mar
1993 Clarke Tue 30 Nov
1994 Clarke Tue 29 Nov
1995 Clarke Tue 28 Nov
1996 Clarke Tue 26 Nov
1997 Brown Wed 2 Jul
1998 Brown Tues 17 Mar
1999 Brown Tues 9 Mar
2000 Brown Tues 21 Mar
2001 Brown Wed 7 Mar
2002 Brown Wed 17 Apr
2003 Brown Wed 9 Apr
2004 Brown Wed 17 Ma
2005 Brown Wed 16 Mar
2006 Brown Wed 22 Mar
2007 Brown Wed 21 Mar
2008 Darling Wed 12 Mar
2009 Darling Wed 22 April

Since 1998, the Government has held the annual Budget in the spring and has also presented a Pre-Budget Report in the autumn of each year. The main budget cannot be held within three months of the Pre Budget report.

So this is where we start to think about what this year holds.

Last year's PBR was held on 9th December. Three months after that is Tuesday 9th March 2010, the earliest possible date a budget could be held this spring. It’s not an accident that the PBR was held on 9th December. Somebody had been looking ahead.

Politicians are governed by timetables more than you’d think. With requirements to consult laid down in statute, it’s common to set a date and work backwards from that. Politicians don’t have unlimited freedom of manoeuvre. With an April 8th election, you can have a budget before [starting on 9th March] or after the election [last year's was 22nd April] depending on circumstances. It gives you options so 9th December was chosen carefully. In politics, options are everything.

Recently changed, by law the General Election campaign lasts a minimum if 17 working days exclcuding Weekends & Public Holidays. So if a budget is to be given before the election, then it follows that the earliest possible general election date is 8th April following on from 9/10th March budget as per the timetable I don't think that coincidence with the locals in the Mets/Districts-by-thirds on May 6th is that important.

So, how does recent speculation about a March 25th election square with reports in the Telegraph that "In a speech in Edinburgh, the Chancellor admitted that the 2010 Budget will confirm major spending cuts, but added that the extra cuts a Conservative government would impose would damage the economy. He said that the Budget which, he confirmed for the first time, will take place next month, would also cement: "fair tax rises, with the biggest burden falling on those who can most afford it."

Darling just boxed Brown in.

You'd think that this rules-out the March 25th election. And this is where we get political. Who’s in charge here? Brown or Darling? You can’t have a March 25th election and a March Budget. With the ComRes poll gap widening, any remaining March budget is receding and, in any event, this fails the 17-day rule. We're now into an April ballot at the earliest.

I suspect that Darling [decides the Budget] and Brown [chooses the election] may not be in agreement on the date.

Politically, it makes sense for the General Election to be called as soon as possible. There’s a growing consensus that economic data is getting worse, not better. The cold-snap in January derailed the recovery. VAT is up. Fuel and heating oil are noticeably more expensive and everyone has turned up the thermostat. Ouch.

The Greek Euro debacle is still to play-out. Commentators are lining up to forecast a double-dip to be revealed on St Georges day. Tax rises announced last year hit-home in early April and the QE money’s drying-up. An early election would spare Gordon’s blushes with Chilcott, a critical issue amongst LibDems swingers who he needs to woo. I could go on.

It’s inconceivable to think that Brown would go to the electorate without a budget. People would say he’s got something to hide. So having a budget means Election-delay in a deteriorating environment.

And this is where the battle of wills at the heart of Government is being played out.

Brown could call Darling’s bluff and go for March 25th anyway and hang the consequences. He has to decide whether the criticism for dodging the budget and snubbing his Chancellor outweighs the risks of hanging on and see the emerging poor economic data destroying the long-campaign under an avalanche of Tory money.

But then Darling could just keep Brown guessing. It can be done. Brown did it to Blair for a decade. If Darling decides to take his time in March, then you’d think the May 6th election is nailed-on.

Any May 6th election would be called on April 12th, the day that MPs would return from their Easter recess. That sounds easy but as I wrote back in August last year, I just can’t see this. It would mean that for all practical purposes formal campaigning would start at the start of the Easter recess and that would be expensive for Labour and, because strict broadcasting rules demand equal time for all parties, it would be contrary to Mike’s third golden rule that states the more Cameron’s on the box, the better he does. Labour needs the shortest campaign possible before the wheel falls of the Economic stats.

The compromise, of course is to hold the budget on 9/10th March and call the election straight away for April 8th. But it's leaving it all a bit late. If it was March 9th, previous practice would indicate that the date should have been set by now. But there again, if they want to keep us all guessing....

If Brown's thinking straight, he'll go as soon as he can and force Darling to hold the budget asap. On March 9/10th both Brown and Darling would therefore be able to announce all sorts of ‘official’ forecasts without the inconvenience of having them unpicked in the Finance Bill debates that follow.

An April 8th Election Date is the Thursday after Easter. Brown’s going to reckon that the Tories will be on holiday. The clocks will have gone forward giving activists a long Bank Holiday weekend to deliver the final leaflets.

If Darling holds out for a later date, it would be a case of the tables being turned on Gordon Brown by his Chancellor who, for so many years thumbed his nose at his neighbour at Number Ten.

Recent history tells us that Brown’s going to analyse this to death and then probably miss his chance. And whilst he’s analysing, Darling is digging Labour’s grave with his delay. But what I sense is that the date of the budget is the expression of the battle of wills between two prime stags locking horns: Chancellor and Prime Minister. We'll know who's won in 8 days time when Parliament returns. The budget date announcement can't be delayed much longer than that.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot

Next Labour leader: assessing the field

It seems to have been discussed endlessly, but the identity of Gordon Brown's successor as Labour leader is no clearer than when the subject first started being seriously discussed in 2008. An array of different bookies quote prices on this market, with some coming in and dropping out from time to time. As at the date of writing, you can get prices from Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sporting Index, Stan James, Victor Chandler and William Hill. Prices vary dramatically. By buying Peter Mandelson on Sporting Index, you can get effective odds of 24/1. By way of contrast, you would get a measly 8/1 with Ladbrokes. It pays to shop around.


Best prices last night were as follows:

David Miliband 3/1 (Paddy Power, Stan James)
Ed Miliband 11/2 (Stan James)
Alan Johnson 43/7 (Sporting Index)
Harriet Harman 12/1 (Stan James)
James Purnell 14/1 (William Hill)
Jon Cruddas 20/1 (Stan James)
Peter Mandelson 24/1 (Sporting Index)
Ed Balls 25/1 (Coral)
Andy Burnham 25/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Jack Straw 25/1 (Stan James)
Alistair Darling 28/1 (Paddy Power)
John Denham 33/1 (Stan James)
John McFall 40/1 (Paddy Power)
Hilary Benn 49/1 (Sporting Index)
Yvette Cooper 49/1 (Sporting Index)
Jim Murphy 50/1 (Ladbrokes)
Shaun Woodward 50/1 (Ladbrokes, William Hill)
Douglas Alexander 66/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ben Bradshaw 66/1 (William Hill)
Liam Byrne 66/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power)
Peter Hain 66/1 (Ladbrokes)
John McDonnell 66/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Diane Abbott 80/1 (Paddy Power)
Tony Blair 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, William Hill)
Hazel Blears 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler)
Charles Clarke 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Parmjit Dhanda 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Frank Field 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Caroline Flint 100/1 (Ladbrokes, William Hill)
Geoff Hoon 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
John Hutton 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Tessa Jowell 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler)
Alan Milburn 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
John Reid 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Bob Ainsworth 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Des Browne 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ruth Kelly 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ken Livingstone 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Jacqui Smith 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Sir Alan Sugar 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Stephen Twigg 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Cherie Blair 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Alastair Campbell 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Joanna Lumley 500/1 (Stan James)
Esther Rantzen 500/1 (Stan James)
Nick Palmer 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Kitty Ussher 500/1 (Ladbrokes)


The field is amazingly open. You could back every candidate in order of lengthening odds up to Hilary Benn and provided you'd weighted the stakes right and hadn't lost out to a long shot, you would still turn a profit. This has to be a market which interests the gambler, the more so because many names can be eliminated quite quickly from consideration. At least one of the named candidates is not a member of the Labour party.


The first thing that we must do is identify who is a possible candidate. Gordon Brown has already stated that he will serve a full term (but no more) as Prime Minister if re-elected, so the next Labour leader will presumably be a Labour MP in the 2010/15 Parliament come what may - this is, I understand, a requirement of the Labour party rule book. No fewer than 13 of the named candidates are not standing as an MP at the next election. While they could of course stand at a later by-election, it seems reasonably safe to me to ignore all of these candidates. The most prominent faller at this first fence is Lord Mandelson.

A tricky fence follows shortly after. Even if a candidate is standing, he or she might not be returned at the general election. Several named candidates have problems on this front. Among the shorter-priced candidates, Jon Cruddas, Ed Balls, Jack Straw and Alistair Darling have non-trivial jobs getting re-elected. If Labour are badly defeated, maybe as many of three of these could fall at this fence. If Labour lose less badly, most or all will survive. You will have to form your own assessment of each of their chances.


Next, we must identify who actually might want the job. If, as I do, you assume that Labour will be in opposition in the next Parliament, this will exclude more people than is immediately obvious. Being leader of the Opposition is a tough job. It doesn't have that much immediate power, only potential power. Many tired ministers might feel that they would rather retire to quieter, better paid work.

Each of us will form our own assessment of who has the appetite for the job. For myself, I doubt whether Alan Johnson, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw or Alistair Darling are that interested. They will probably feel that they have done their bit. Each might quite have fancied being Prime Minister, but that's a very different proposition. In the case of Alan Johnson, I'm not even sure that he ever wanted that job.


Then we must see who has the backing to justify a run. Most MPs fancy themselves as party leaders in the abstract, but they need to gather enough support to justify a run and not humiliate themselves. If available, the following will stand: David Miliband, Ed Balls and John McDonnell. Jon Cruddas has been giving recent smoke signals that he proposes to stand also, if the Sundays are to be believed.

Mr Smithson has often noted how the Labour party rulebook favours a woman candidate. I have suggested above that Harriet Harman probably doesn't want the job, but if I am wrong about this, she will certainly be able to get in the race. We should work on the assumption that there will be a woman candidate, and if it is not to be Harriet Harman, the question is: who? Leaving out those who are standing down and those who are bookies' jokes, the possibilities appear to be Yvette Cooper, Caroline Flint and Tessa Jowell. It is inconceivable that Yvette Cooper would stand against her husband, but if he were defeated at constituency level, she would suddenly look a real contender. Betting on her Labour leadership chances on Sporting Index may be a good proxy bet against her husband's constituency chances. Caroline Flint looks a bit too lightweight, but Tessa Jowell is a long-serving Cabinet minister. Those odds of 100/1 look very attractive. Again, would she want the job?

Ed Miliband could also undoubtedly muster the support to stand, but there is a unique question in relation to him: would he stand against his brother? As an entirely personal observation, I regard Ed as a much better possible leader than David. But we should not be looking at abstract preferences, rather at concrete realities. Ed and David would be fishing in the same voting pool to a considerable extent. The brothers seem genuinely close. Could their family relationships survive a contest against each other for the crown? They are already the two frontrunners in the bookies' eyes - how would Ed argue that he would be better than David? How would David suggest that he rather than Ed would have the right answers for Labour? I do not think that the prices accurately reflect this obstacle. While I rate Ed Miliband highly among the possible contenders, I regard it as a relatively low probability that he will stand at all this time.

Three candidates are telegenic and often mentioned: James Purnell, Andy Burnham and Hilary Benn. I discount both of the last two. Neither is prominent enough. In the case of Hilary Benn, he stumbled badly in the deputy leadership contest in 2007. James Purnell is a better possibility. In the aftermath of defeat, might he look like a man of vision? The question to ask there is whether his fans would prefer to support him or David Miliband. Despite his vacillation, I expect David Miliband to remain the torchbearer of the party right.

I hope that this has been helpful in allowing you to form your own views about who the runners and riders will be. It is only once you have it clear in your own mind who might be standing that you can decide where the value for winners might lie.

2010 Rule Changes and a Look Ahead to Testing

One of the reasons why 2009 was such a great season, with different cars doing better at different tracks (such as a brilliant 2nd place for Force India at Spa), was due to the huge number of rule changes.

Next season will see more rule changes, but nothing on the scale of the 2008-2009 shift. The biggest difference is that refuelling goes out of the window, and so the cars will have bigger fuel tanks. KERS is still an option, but all teams are going without it.

This is rather a shame from my perspective, as I liked KERS and the refuelling strategy was integral to my betting approach.

Pit stops will remain as drivers will have to use both tyre compounds during a race (assuming it stays dry). The F1 website reckons this could make them as quick as 4s.

The points system is also overhauled, to reflect the change of having 13 teams (assuming they all make it…) and 26 drivers. First place will earn 25, then 20, 15, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1. So, even 10th place will now give out points. This seems reasonable and will give middle of the pack teams something to tussle over.

I quickly worked out how this would’ve affected last season. The actual result was:
Jenson Button 95
Sebastian Vettel 84
Rubens Barrichello 77
Mark Webber 69.5
Lewis Hamilton 49

With the new points system it would’ve been:
Button 243
Vettel 203
Barrichello 185
Webber 180
Hamilton 128

So, it makes surprisingly little difference at the top end.

Wheel fairings are no more, after Alonso amusingly lost a tyre because one of his pit crew didn’t fasten it on properly.

Qualifying will be much as before, but with 8 drivers eliminated in Q1 and Q2, so that there remains only 10 for the Q3 shootout. All qualifying sessions will be done with low fuel.

There were murmurings about giving points for pole positions and fastest laps, but I don’t think anything’s been done about it.

So, will these changes benefit or disadvantage any drivers more than others? Hamilton may find the no refuelling tricky. With only one pit stop necessary each race (for tyre changing) he may struggle in certain places to manage his tyres properly. Button’s smooth driving style should prevent him suffering a similar problem.

Last season Vettel was the most consistent qualifier, and the absence of refuelling will increase the importance of qualifying even more in the forthcoming season. Alonso is also very reliable so it might assist him (though he’s not had a top class car for a few seasons which may’ve dulled his edge).

The rule changes are available here:
http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/sporting_regulations/8692/

2010 could be a brilliant season, even better than 2009. There are four potential Constructors’ winners, and probably six potential Drivers’ champions. Testing (12 days of it) begins on 1 February. I strongly advise not betting until at least some of it is complete. Brawn threw an enormous surprise last season, so much so that the world champion-to-be was 70/1.

McLaren finished the 2009 season as the best car, Red Bull were consistently at or near the top throughout and Brawn started with a fantastic advantage over all others. My suspicion is that Mercedes (formerly Brawn) might just have a monstrously good car once again. The Top Gear F1 blog asserted in early November that Ross Brawn switched efforts from developing the 2009 car to producing the 2010 car as soon as the seventh race, after Button’s sixth win. Brawn is an engineering genius, and he’ll now benefit from the support of his old comrade-in-arms Schumacher.

http://sundayafternoonclub.blogs.topgear.com/2009/11/09/ballsy-brawn/

My hunch is that Mercedes will be the top team to start with, but I’m not putting money on it until I see test times. Unfortunately Red Bull won’t be participating in the first 3 days of testing, as they’ll be playing with the wind tunnel instead.

The drivers I’ll be keeping my eye most closely on are Schumacher (not because he was the best of drivers, but because I suspect he’s still good and will be in a great car), Vettel and Massa. Vettel’s around 7/1 and Massa is 14/1. If the Red Bull is decent, Vettel stands a good chance as, possibly excepting Schumacher, I think he’s the best driver on the circuit. Massa I think is very good indeed, and certainly not 3x worse than Alonso who is just 4/1. But, as I said, I’m only keeping my eye on them at the moment.

My intention is to have 1-2 more posts pre-season, regarding the testing times. I’m also considering having pre-qualifying, pre-race and review posts per track rather than just a preview and review.

Morris Dancer

The path to Super Bowl XLIV

Greetings to you all from PoliticalBetting.com's Special Correspondent for Colonial Affairs, and hoping all are having a lucky and prosperous New Year thus far!

With gratitude for my recent TotY gong, I thought I would trash my reputation in one fell swoop by offering an overview of the betting markets covering American Football as we head towards Super Bowl XLIV.

The Super Bowl is the cup final between the winner of the AFC Championship and the NFC Championship. Both championships have a final to decide who plays in the Super Bowl - so the AFC and NFC championship games are like semi-finals. Each of these 'semi-finals' is populated by 2 teams out of 6 seeded teams who made the playoffs. 1st and 2nd place get a first-round bye, and play the winners of 3rd v 6th and 4th v 5th respectively in the divisional deciders (quarter-finals).

So this year, the AFC seeds are
(1) Indianapolis Colts (bye)
(2) San Diego Chargers (bye)
(3) New England Patriots vs (6) Baltimore Ravens
(4) Cincinnati Bengals (5) vs (5) New York Jets

The NFC seeds are
(1) New Orleans Saints (bye)
(2) Minnesota Vikings (bye)
(3) Dallas Cowboys vs (6) Philadelphia Eagles
(4) Arizona Cardinals vs (5) Green Bay Packers

American Football really does have a tradition of 'Any Given Sunday' - that form and talent can be overturned by sheer hard work and luck, and the worst team can (and frequently do) beat the very best. Prediction is a dangerous game, but I think there is some value that might be eeked out of the markets.

A brief look at Ladbrokes, and Shadsy is giving little away - there aren't too many big-odds bets available on this weekend's games, but the one that did catch my eye was under American Football - NFL Player Props - player rushing props: Cendric Benson to rush more than 81.5 yards available at 5/6. I think that's value - Benson rushed more than 100 yards a game in most games he played in full this season (almost got a 200-yard game) and if he is fit, he could run double this, even against a good NY Jets defence - I'm biassed (I'm a Bengals fan, and I have "32 Benson" on my jersey), but I would be very surprised if he didn't breach this mark, even if he's having a bad game.

My expectation is that Jets@Bengals could be close, but that the Jets - who were statistically very good, but only got through because the Bengals and Colts rested all players for the playoffs, letting the Jets win easily - don't really belong in the post season. They are highly unlikely to make even the AFC championship, whereas the Bengals (in my view) stand as much chance of winning three games as winning none. A talented-but-erratic team, they have only played well against good sides (sweeping the difficult AFC North vs the Ravens and Steelers, but losing 3 matches in the final 20 seconds to the Chargers, Broncos, Raiders because of errors). In spite of my fandom, I can't help but feel that the Bengals' Chad Ochocinco, Cedric Benson, Jonathan Joseph and Heismann Trophy-winner Carson Palmer are value for the Superbowl at 42.0 on Betfair, if just as a trading bet if they should happen to win a game or two back to back.

Having seen a lot of AFC North archrivals the Baltimore Ravens this season, I also fancy them at 36.0 for the Super Bowl (they are absolutely capable of winning it). They will be playing the Patriots first, but the latter will be without the injured Wide Receiver Wes Welker - the Ravens only need shut out brilliant Patriot WR Randy Moss (!) with the focus of their secondary defence to render Tom Brady's passing game next to useless. A strong line and good rushing could well see the Ravens take this game, and I'd fancy their chances against the San Diego Chargers too. They came within inches (and 17-points *cumulatively*) of beating the Bengals, Vikings, Patriots, Colts, and Steelers during the regular season, which instead of posting a mediocre 9-7 season (9 wins- 7 losses) could have been an NFL-leading 14-2 in spite of the toughest schedule in the league. With Ray Rice on fire, a solid defensive line, and QB Jo Flacco gaining confidence, they are a fieldgoal-kicker away from being perhaps the best all-round team in the AFC.

Betfair is also running Conference markets - I agree with the majority of punters that the AFC v NFC Superbowl should be won by the former. The AFC has more strength in depth, and maybe 4 or its 6 teams would be unsurprising winners of the Super Bowl versus only perhaps 3 NFC teams, so there's little value there.

For my money, I think the New Orleans Saints are both brilliant but falling apart. The value for the NFC Conference winner is still the Minnesota Vikings at 4.1 although with QB Brett Favre's experience, I wouldn't make them second favourite to any team in a Super Bowl, so the 9.0 to go all the way is a better bet (but consider trading it) - the Phillie Eagles are a dark-horse, and worth the 14.5 for the NFC conference as well. The Vikings have had a dismal end to the season when it didn't matter, but the sheer talent of Favre and Adrian Peterson make them the most naturally talented offence in the NFL.

Some experts are talking up the Cowboys and Chargers - maybe my inexperience is telling, but I don't see that Super Bowl happening, and there is no value in those positions even if it does happen. I personally cannot see Peyton Manning's Colts failing to secure the Super Bowl, but unfortunately millions of punters agree and have staked the NFL's 4-time MVP to the hilt.

Key bets: Ravens at 36.0 for the Super Bowl on Betfair (and if the Patriots can beat them, proving they can play without WR Welker, then Patriots 8.0 for the AFC championship might be value too).


Morus (Greg Callus)

The author is now a resident of New York, but inexplicably a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals. WhoDey!

Daddy or Chips? Tough choices in the week that gas went short.

Most posts are framed in a timetable of a few days, weeks or months. But Bunnco’s been thinking hard about a post from John Loony on 30th December that has an effect on how well we’re prepared to the challenges facing us in a few decades. .

The whole point of PoliticalBetting.com is that we’re all trying to look into the future. We look at the membership to be tipsters and provide insights that will help us predict what’s going to happen and how might this impact onto the Political careers and outcomes for parties and politicians. And bunnco's wondering whether Loony's got the crystal ball.

Loony wrote

48. General question to whoever: what happens when the oil / coal runs out? We’ve only got a few decades / centuries of it left. Whether it causes global warming or not, it will have to be replaced by something or else we’ll have to have some sort of mass extinction again. Triffids?
by JohnLoony December 30th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

Bunnco knows that it’s the nature of politics to make choices between competing priorities.

* We know we haven’t got unlimited money, so where should we spend what dosh we’ve got?
* We haven’t got unlimited grit, so which roads should be treated?
* We haven’t got unlimited oil/gas, so which factories should we close to eke out the supplies when things get short?

It’s the role of politics to answer these dilemmas and the responsibility of politicians to make the decisions that address them. In post 165 of that thread, madasafish had a go at answering the question as if he were a politician.

Simple. Priority to agriculture. Fertiliser, growing, collection, processing and distribution of food.
Then to armies: lots of wars to fight. Over food.
And then to police. Breakdown of law and order.
Undertakers: body burial.
Above all , no fertilisers = 5 billion surplus mouths not fed.
by madasafish December 30th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Bunnco happens to think that madasafish is right-on-the-money, especially as he knows a thing or two about farming and fertilisers. And politics.

But what’s actually happened this week when the circumstances predicted by JohnLoony actually happened for the first time?
What was the Government’s knee-jerk response to the shortage of gas this week?

To divert the supplies of gas away from the factories on Teesside and in Cheshire that produce nitrogen fertilisers. Nitrogen fertilisers are produced from ammonia, in an energy-intensive process where natural gas is the feedstock.

I suppose it’s understandable to choke-back gas to factories help keep people warm in their homes in the cold snap. But what are we going to do in 15-20 years time when the gas is really running out and there’s a forced choice to be made between using gas to produce the fertilisers that feed the world or heating our homes? In the week when gas went short, Government cut back on the means to grow food with the spring growing season and peak usage just around the corner.

That’s not a long-term solution. It’s a road map to hunger. And we've just experienced the policy that will lead to it for the first time. We've just seen the future.

This week’s shortages of gas have shown what happens when there’s been a failure to formulate a proper energy policy with the ultimate result that we damage our ability to feed ourselves.

Say what you like, but it’s the role of Government to provide the framework where sufficient food, energy and raw materials [like salt] are available to support the population and economy.

Now fast forward a few years to a time when we’ve only got a few days supply of gas on-hand and we’re faced with either the lights going out or going hungry. That’s the legacy of 12 years of Labour chasing the 24 news cycle rather than planning for the future. Who said we were best prepared?

And the PB posters who pointed the way in a thread about the PB Tipsters of the Year were neither mad or loony. They were madasafish and JohnLoony. They're PB's long-term tipsters of the new Decade.

Bunnco – your man on the spot