Thursday, June 21, 2007
Johnson for deputy on Saturday?
Labour’s Deputy leadership comes up on Saturday. Going by the performances on Question Time last week, there were only two serious contenders in these latter stages of the campaign. Any hopes Peter Hain may once have had of a bounce off the back of the completion of the Peace Process™ now seem a long way off. Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson seemed to operate on a higher plane than the others, but if Guido’s report of the betting market is anything to go by, Saturday is already a done deal for the latter.
Mick Fealty @ 11:06 AM
Lets hope so I need the profit to pay for car repairs. A Blears win would allow new brake discs and pads and a front exhaust part though…
There has been a run on Johnson over recent days which has seen his odds go very short indeed. Having said that one should be slightly wary as the volumes on the labour Deputy Leader market, at least with Betfair are not huge and it hasn’t taken huge amounts to see Johnson tighten dramatically.
Having said that the process of polling suggests that maybe there could be indications of patterns emerging from tallies or whatever that may be informing some money. I’m not certain that is so but it may be one explanation on why Johnson has been shortening up.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 11:30 AMDisappointing if true. I think Hilary Benn would be much better.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 11:39 AMDid you see last week’s Question Time featuring all of the candidates?
Neither the audience nor any of the pannellists mentioned NI at all, until right at the end each candidate had to mention one achievement of one of the other candidates that they admired. After they’d all answered, Hain was the only one that didn’t receive an endorsement from any of the others. Dimbleby said, “And none of you have mentioned Peter Hain and his success in Northern Ireland?” Hain: “Oh well.”
It doesn’t register as an issue in Britain.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 11:56 AMEspecially that bloke in the audience who said...’it wasn’t him’.
Hain has been trying to use the NI thing but none of his colleagues believe he was much to do with it and truly enough, he wasn’t. It’s Blair’s & Ahern’s success or otherwise and will always be seen so.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 12:07 PMBut Blair did need a “bad cop” to his “good cop”.
Would the DUP have signed up in time for Blair’s legacy if Hain hadn’t threatened all those direct rule punative measures?
He also gave the Dupes a pressure release valve when they finally did the necessary U-Turn. They could say “It’s Hain that’s got egg on his face” (because the DUP didn’t meet his precise, supposedly ‘immovable’ deadline) when really it was they who were wearing omelette mascara.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 12:23 PMBenn’s good, but can’t help thinking that being stranded at DIFD took him out of the domestic scene for too long. Though he was excellent on the domestic poverty issue.
Johnson was also the only one not to ‘bottle’ the Iraq question.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 12:40 PMLooking forward to the coronation.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 01:49 PMThis is great news for Labour Party members in Northern Ireland. To have such a strong supporter as Johnson as Deputy Leader will be great.
If Johnson comes over as Deputy Leader and appeals for members then they’ll soon hit their 200 targetPosted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 02:09 PMI was under the impression you couldn’t be a Labour Party member in Northern Ireland. Anyway, I hope Cruddas, Harman or Benn get it, in that order. None of the others are much good, especially Blears.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 05:35 PMLooks like Brown also wants Hain out of his current day job.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 08:58 PM
