UK general election: Brown going down
Too early to worry about lines on the next UK General Election (or even, Smith forbid, about the election itself)? Yeah, surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre. After all, Betfred has the lines open and ready for your bet in the category.
The options aren’t very appealing to the average punter as of yet, however, unless he/she has some serious insight into the British populace and/or undying confidence that Gordon Brown can turn things around right jolly quick.
The table for the proposition bet, “Which of these parties will win the most Parliamentary seats at the next UK General Election?” looks like the following.
Conservative Party: 1/6
Labour Party: 7/2
Liberal Democrat Party: 80/1
No win for young stud Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems this time out, eh…?
While it may be tempting to consider backing the Labour Party as a 7/2 longshot – after all, it might not take a whole lot of Conservative skullduggery to produce a majority Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition in Parliament – the Conservative lead is pretty massive at present.
In the monthly poll undertaken by market research firm ComRes for the Independent newspaper showed the Conservative Party with 44% of likely voters (up 3% from the February poll); Labour with 28% (also up 3%); and the Liberal Democrats at 17% (down 5% after a conspicuous 5% jump last month). While Labour can take heart in the first significant increase they’ve seen since Thatcher knows when, the like jump in Conservative support and close approach to 50% is beyond troubling after the election of Boris Johnson to the London mayorship last year.
Even worse (for the party), the mass media appears to be in fine form in dismissing the current Labour-Party prime minister Gordon Brown’s chances. In consecutive weeks, the almighty Economist described Brown’s bid as seeming “doomed to lose” and, um, “doomed to lose.” (Gee, how about a different turn of phrase, guys?)
And the Economist is just at the front of the frontline. Opinionaters at the Telegraph think an apology is warranted for the credit crunch and unfavorably compare the PM to Bernard “Ponzi” Madoff. Brown’s desperate attempt to somehow leverage his expected success at April’s London-hosted G20 Summit into brownie points — so to speak — is probably as desperate as it sounds and pretty freaking blast-worthy. After all, the Os Man doesn’t think it takes Oxford expertise to figure most of Britain’s remaining hardcore Europhiles are lining up in the Liberal Democrat camp.
The Os Man’s advice? The best Obamian tactics (and Brown’s got, what, maybe 3% the charisma President Barack has) won’t cut it for this prime minister. A Conservative Party victory looks pretty good no matter when the election is held. If that 1/6 at Betfred gets any better, plunk it down! It’ll probably be a better investment that anything Brown’s boys push.
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