Comments on: The shifting fault lines: Labour on two edges

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:39:59 +0000

Nw listen up people.

The Record is not Political Betting and our staff team, though large in number, does not have the resource to run a bookmakers-style operation with odds and such like.

This is a simple sweepstake, where winner takes all, so please simply provide me with one politician type (does not have to be MP, can be PPC or other known person), and send me a used tenner in the post as your punt (plus another used tenner to cover legitimate expenses).

For the record, I’m going for Quentin Davies, for obvious track record reasons, and have given myself a tenner.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:45:24 +0000

Field is surely a no-brainer, but such short odds that there’s not much of a return in it. Jackie Ashley a couple of Guardians ago was saying the Tories wanted to keep “elections? elections are for the little people” Adonis and….TESSA JOWELL!

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:46:40 +0000

I’m not sure about Purnell. He at least had the decency to wait until after the election before resigning – though what the fuck was he doing spending two hundred odd quid on fridge magnets? He wrote an article a while back about “egalitarian capitalism” which might be a more comfortable way for “moderates” to tip-toe away from neoliberalism.

By: donpaskini

donpaskini — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:04:32 +0000

An ethical dilemma. It would be uncomradely to write about the need for unity on the part of all wings of the movement and then immediately start betting on which Blairites are going to eff off to the Tories.

Ah well – I reckon Flint and Purnell must be favourites (assuming you don’t count Frank Field as a Blairite), but I’ll have an outside punt on a national government and a whole load of them teaming up with the Tories if the economy gets a lot worse after 2010.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:11:43 +0000

No, you’re quite wrong. I’m sure No 10 hangs on your every word.

Yes, the whingers and the ball-takers. I do see the possibility of some defections to the Libdems (or even Tories) if and when things do start to swing properly back towards leftish policies. I may even start a sweepstake on the first nameworthy Blairite/NL-ite to make the jump, though in many ways the most interesting question is who will be second, as that will set in all in train for the sheep to follow. You a betting man?

By: donpaskini

donpaskini — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:48:37 +0000

For the avoidance of doubt, I wasn’t thinking that the government are listening to us lefties, I was winding up the commentators on LibCon who think that anyone in the Labour Party is a war criminal by pretending that I thought that.

Agree that there are new fault lines, though, and it will be interesting to watch how this develops. For what it’s worth, I think the key fault line will be between the people who realise that we’ve all got more in common than what divides us and that we need to work together in rebuilding the Labour Party, and those who are going to whinge, complain and take their ball home if they don’t get their way all the time on everything (as many of them have been used to over the past decade and more).