Tuesday 30 June 2009

Nationwide June housing data - reporting a rise again!!

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Nationwide have released their June data report today here.

The data shows a rise of 0.9% for the month with an annual change of -9.3%. House prices are now down from their peak in October 2007 of £186,044 by £29,602 or -16%.

Nationwide report this as a surprise bounce and expect a continuation of monthly rises and falls.

Nationwide produces a nice chart on page 2 showing house prices 'fair value' on a mortgage payment affordability measure and around 20% above 'fair value' on an earnings to price ratio.

The problem with the first measure is that the amount being paid on the mortgage payment is pretty volatile. At the moment this figure is substantially lower than during 'normal' economic times.

Most commentators expect house prices to drift lower over the coming months with the larger falls behind us. During the last housing market crash between 1989 and 1995, there were 24 +ve months and 48-ve months.

I expect that as bank mortgage rates creep up, the housing market will continue it's downward correction, but at a much slower pace.

I agree with Nationwide's assessment that we are entering a phase of volatile house price data before settling at the end of this year and entering a subdued growth period.

Saturday 27 June 2009

How they line up on the spending/cuts debate

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I have been trying to keep a tally on who is on the side of truth and who is on Brown's side.

The side of truth - there will be real term cuts in spending

The Tory party
The Lib Dems
Mervyn King
All other economists
IMF
IFS
Most journalists
Lord Desai
A Darling
Y Cooper
H Benn - new addition from the Dark side

The Dark side - peddling the lies about investment(spending our money) vs cuts

Kevin Maguire
Gordon Brown
Ed Balls
John Denham
Liam Byrne

Labour minister admits to spending cuts

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Hilary Benn has sneaked this out under cover of Michael Jackson's death.

Mr Benn told the BBC programme: "If I look at my department's budget, it is going to go down a bit and therefore we will have to prioritise."

I'm waiting to see how the crazed one will spin that this is not a cut but spending brought forward.

I dare not imagine what other news New Labour has tried to bury.

Friday 26 June 2009

Land registry monthly data - June 2009

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Latest data out today here showing another monthly fall of 0.2% with an annual fall of 15.9% now.

The graphs on page 12 show the full horror of house sales after a decade of Gordon Brown's debt binge.

To be honest this data is expected to show negative growth now as the data lags the Halifax and Nationwide data by between 3-6 months.

This data series will still be showing monthly falls 3 months or more after the Halifax starts publishing rising monthly prices again. that is not expected until Q4 2009.

6 months to go.

Thursday 25 June 2009

House prices - how to get the real story

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An informative article in thisismoney had attracted my attention this morning. The article analyses the different house price indices and supports my views that the Halifax and Nationwide are good indices for a general idea of what is happening month by month based on mortgage approval house prices.

The Land Registry and FTHPI indices are good for analysing the data 3 months in arrears.

The Nationwide survey is the next due and is likely to be out either tomorrow or Friday. Will it continue with the trend of increasing house prices or are we due a correction back to the consensus of continued falls.

My Time to Buy index will be out later next week after the Halifax data has been released.

Gordon Brown's 10 worst financial gaffes

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The Times has a great article summarising the shambles that Gordon Brown has organised over the last 12 years.

My favourite - so many to choose from - is no. 7 Failing to spot the housing bubble.

Enjoy

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Ed Balls threatens good schools

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Ed has a new plan. He wants good schools to be able to take over poorly performing schools, rebrand them, share leadership and improve.

Nothing wrong there in my opinion, we need to improve what we can within a reducing budget.

But here is the New Labour bit.

Mr Balls added that there would be consequences for schools that opted to “go it alone” when it came to their Ofsted inspections. “If you are a school that has got the potential to do this but chooses not to, you’re not making a contribution to other schools in your area. Therefore Ofsted will recognise you aren’t being as ambitious as you could be.”

Ed Balls is learning well from Gordon Brown - his master. Wave the big stick and scare good schools into following your policy.

Monday 22 June 2009

House prices still falling

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I have been a little slow on updating my data using the FT house price index. This index is a lagging indicator of house prices with the data being around 3 months old.

The data is from the Land Registry and also includes every transaction including properties bought for cash. This is in contrast to the Halifax and Nationwide data which is based on valuation data and is sampled.

The FT HPI data has had a much smoother data set with out wild fluctuations in monthly data.

The latest data set is here and shows house prices continuing to fall, but with the falls starting to moderate with a 0.7% fall for May.

If I remember I will now update this every month along with the Land Registry,Halifax and Nationwide data.

I do not bother with the Rightmove index as it is not seasonally or mix adjusted and is based on asking prices at estate agents, which bears no resemblance to actual purchase prices in this market.

I also do not bother with the DCLG index as this uses the Land Registry data which I already sample.

Saturday 20 June 2009

Why is Gordon Brown such a liar?

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Today's interview in the Guardian contains the same old lie on Tory cuts.

The Tories have made, for them, a cardinal mistake in that they admitted the truth - that if you take 10% off the health service or schools or policing, you've cut into the jobs, the services, the expectations.

Now we all know that these are based on Labour's own figures and so if the Tories are cutting so are Labour. But the 10% cut figure came about because the Tories are going to protect NHS funding and Labour will not. So if the Tories are protecting the NHS budget, why does Gordon say that 10% could be coming off the NHS budget?

What could have happened in his past to make him such a liar, a deceptor?

Thursday 18 June 2009

Kitty Usher's redacted expenses - are you having a laugh?

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I've just had a quick look at disgraced Kitty Usher's expenses claim. She is the Treasury Minister who has been avoiding paying tax by flipping her second home designation, just like her boss Alistair Darling.

She has redacted so much of the details that it is impossible to make much sense of her claims.

Here are some screenshots to show the pi$$take.

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Union turns screw on Gordon Brown

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The BBC is reporting that Unison will no longer give financial support to Labour MPs who do not support its values.

General Secretary Dave Prentis told union members it would not give any more "blank cheques" to the party.

He said Labour MPs and candidates at the next election who backed further privatisation of public services would have funding withdrawn.


Gordon Brown - "Can we have some money Mr Big"
Prentice "Shut up bitch, I'm the Daddy now. From now on you are my missus."
GB "Sigh. Where shall I sign and shall I bend?"

Imagine the uproar if a financial institution withheld funding to the Tories or Lib Dems unless they voted against tightening bank regulation or a building firm withheld funding if they voted to protect green field sites.

The sooner we can rid ourselves of this corrupt party of the Unions the better.

Monday 15 June 2009

Another brilliant Daily Mash article.

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The Daily Mash does it again

BROWN MAKES ARSE OF NEW THING

GORDON Brown continued his political fightback today by somehow finding a brand new thing to make an arse of.

The deputy prime minister had hoped to restore confidence in his leadership by announcing a full public inquiry into the Iraq War, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to make a total arse of it instead.

The arseing of the Iraq war inquiry follows hard on the heels of Labour's catastrophic election results and the worst cabinet reshuffle since Gladstone put Gilbert and Sullivan in charge of the Navy in 1884.

And it come just weeks after Mr Brown made a surprisingly comprehensive backside of attempting to reform MPs' expenses, even by his standards.

Junior minister Bill McKay insisted: "Gordon faced a real dilemma. Do you have an inquiry in private that makes it just look as if you care? Or do you have an inquiry in public, accompanied by six months of daily headlines about how the Labour Party is filled to brim with evil, warmongering liars? It's a tricky one."

But Labour backbencher Julian Cook said: "It's actually not that difficult to make decisions that are both popular and the right thing to do.

"The thing about the Iraq War was that it was based on a series of murky decisions made in secret. So it would be an idea to make sure the inquiry into it is at least vaguely unmurky and very much not in secret. But no."

Mr Cook added: "As arseings go it's on a par with the election that never was and could even be up there with the absolute, balls-out fuck-up that was the abolition of the 10p rate of income tax.

"I really thought we'd have to wait until after the summer holidays before he got hold of a new thing and reconfigured it into the shape of a pair of big fat hairy buttocks. He's some guy."

Friday 12 June 2009

LDV Man vs Peter Hain - Question Time

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Last night's Question Time gave us a classic confrontation between 'LDV Man' and Peter Hain.

Peter serves us up a classic and shows us why Gordon Brown is scraping the bottom of the barrel by putting him back in the cabinet.

Watch it here

Thursday 11 June 2009

Daily Politics explains Gordon Brown's deceit over budget figures

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Andrew Neil and Robert Chote from the Institute of Fiscal Studies give the best explanation I have heard of Gordon Brown's deceitful budget figures.

Paddy Pantsdown is there at the end to stick the knife in.

Watch it here

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Gordon Brown accused of cover up

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The Telegraph leads with another expenses based story on Shahid Malik.

Now back in the government after being cleared of any wrong doing in a government report.

Despite talking about transparency in politics, Gordon Brown is refusing to release the report.

Mr Brown was accused of "falling at the first hurdle" in his efforts to reform Westminster by refusing to release the full report of an inquiry into Mr Malik's affairs.

As always watch what Brown does not what he says.

Monday 8 June 2009

Gordon Brown now requiring 'pledge of loyalty'

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Can Brown get any more like dictatorial? SKY are reporting that Gordon Brown is now requiring ministers to pledge their loyalty.

Minister for farming and the environment Jane Kennedy told Sky News she had had a "full and frank" conversation with the Prime Minister this morning when he had asked her personally to pledge her loyalty to him.

When she said she was unable to, he asked her to leave.

"In the end, I could have stayed, if I had made that pledge of loyalty," she said.

Sounds like the Hitler Oath?

At least Hitler got elected.


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Another brilliant Daily Mash article.

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Gotta love this.

THIS IS HOW THE NAZIS STARTED, SAYS EVERYONE
THE Nazis started out with just a couple of MPs and six percent of the vote you know, everyone said last night.

As the British National Party achieved its first success in a UK-wide election, amateur historians said they would be amazed if this time next year people like you were not in some sort of camp.

Julian Cook, from Hitchin, said: "Having seen The Great Escape, one can only hope that Nick Griffin will decide not to fight a war of total annihilation on two fronts at the same time."

Bill McKay, from Doncaster, added: "First they'll come for the people who watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but I won't speak up because I watch Top Gear and play golf."

But experts insisted the BNP vote would disappear as soon as everyone could afford to go on holiday to Majorca again.

Professor Tom Logan, of Reading University, said: "Prolonged recessions do have a tendency to expose our inner racist fucknut, but it subsides once you get a new credit card."

As the European election results came in, some of Britain's most famous Jews took the 'precautionary step' of changing their Wikipedia entries.

David Baddiel, the writer and comedian, is now described as being of 'good Prussian stock' with a fondness for rowdy beer halls and a deep loathing of Woody Allen films.

Actress Maureen Lipman has changed her name to 'Lipizzanner' and insists her favourite 'ology' is Aryan racial ideology, while Lionel Blue, the gay rabbi, was last night heading for Southampton wearing a blond wig and carrying a large smoked sausage.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown, the new deputy prime minister, said it was always his plan to reduce the Labour vote to 15% and leave Britain with £1.4 trillion worth of debt and a couple of fascists in the European Parliament.

Daniel Hannan South East acceptance speech 8th June 2009 - Go Now Brown

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Quoting Dr Seuss, Daniel Hannan pleads with Gordon Brown to leave.

How much more clearly do we have to speak before you understand us?

Labour 4th place in the south

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In the South East and South West, the Labour party is now less popular than the Tories, UKIP, Lib Dems and the Greens.

In fact Labour came first in only one region, the North East.

What a wipeout.

Sunday 7 June 2009

Euro poll predictions

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After much thought and predictions - this is my final thought

Tory 24%
Lib Dems 18%
UKIP 16%
Labour 15%
BNP 9%
Greens 8%

The BNP vote will be the end for Brown - at last

Watch Gordon Brown get booed at D-day celebrations

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Our great unelected leader gets booed by our brave veterans. After his Obama beach gaff can things get any worse.

Oh yes - the European election results tonight.

Watch and listen to him here.

The reshuffle task - Gordon Brown faces Lord Sir Alan Sugar in the boardroom

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Gordon Brown faces his final task - the reshuffle. With ministers resigning left, right and centre the task could hardly have been more of a shambles.

Lord Sir Alan Sugar meets with the unelected team leader in the boardroom to hear his delusional summary of the task.

Watch it here

Saturday 6 June 2009

Gordon Brown - we will fight them on Obama Beach

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A little miss-speak, but it made me laugh.

Friday 5 June 2009

Labour cease to exist as a local party


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As the dust settles from last nights humiliation at the local elections it is worth noting that Labour are now firmly in third position and sinking fast.

Last night Labour lost over 3 in every 5 councillors standing

Watch Fraser Nelson nail Gordon Brown at todays press conference

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Fraser Nelson of the Spectator nails Gordon Brown on his dodgy figures for budget cuts after the election.

Here it is

Caroline Flint has quit now

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I'm watching his press conference now and the question and answer session is a total car crash.

FFS Flint has quit

She says that Brown is treating her as female window dressing.

What a car crash.

What sort of reshuffle is this?

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As far as I can make out so far

A Darling stays put
J Straw stays put
P Mandelson stays put
D Miliband stays put
G Brown stays put

J Hutton quits
H Blears quits
J Smith quits
J Purnell quits

A reshuffle means moving people around surely

Thursday 4 June 2009

Adam Boulton SKY News - The lights have gone out in Downing Street

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Watch Adam Boulton SKY News - the lights have gone out in Downing Street

Purnell jumps ship

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shows you what I know

SKY are reporting. Purnell's letter is a blinder.

Labour Cabinet bottlers at 10pm guaranteed

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I know there is a lot of excitement tonight waiting for the clock to strike 10pm, the voting to close and the cabinet resignations to start. But I think this cartoon from the Mirror is spot on.


As the clock strikes 10pm there will be no resignations, there will be no 50 signature letter, there will be nothing but the quietness of the bunch of cowards that this Labour cabinet is.

For crying out loud, how much worse does it have to get?

Time to buy index for May 2009

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In May the index stands at 279 unadjusted(U) and 346 adjusted(A)

This gives a guide that house prices are around 28% over valued and that market sentiment pushes that to 34% over valued. DO NOT BUY

That is not to say that house prices will fall by either, but it gives an idea of the direction.

The last few months have had conflicting data from Nationwide and Halifax with positive and negative months of house price data. Both Halifax and Nationwide have reported growth in the housing market this month.

During the last house price crash there were 26 positive months during the 74 month downturn.

The index has risen this month for several reasons. House prices have risen and mortgage rates for low deposit mortgages have increased. Both of these factors make housing less affordable.

The adjusted index would have been even higher, but with a positive growth month the number of negative factors has reduced.

Although Bank of England rates have fallen, new mortgage deals are being priced at pre-cut levels.

The price to average earnings ratio has also risen slightly this month and is still indicating house prices are 10% above trend on this indicator.

Most buy to let deals have been withdrawn now and those that remain have seen a lowering of the Loan to Value needed. There exists only one 95% LTV first time buyer deal in the market and this requires a charge on the parents house, so a 90% LTV is the best on offer. Credit remains tight.

Lenders are coming up with more ingenious ways to lend the money as demonstrated by Lloyds with their latest offering including a charge on parents savings accounts. A route that is so full of pitfalls it looks like a horror show to me.

The unadjusted index is now down from it's peak of 645 in July 2007

PREDICTION

House prices to continue falling with the Halifax index bottoming at £140,000 in Q4 2009.

In my opinion mortgage lending criteria has tightened more than usual with a larger deposit required than in the past, however lenders are still lending above average multipliers and mortgage rates have again fallen to below the longer term normal level.

The end of irresponsible lending means that lenders will never be returning to the days of lending with no deposit or waiving income checks.

House prices are still suspended about 20% above the level of finance that the banks are willing to give out. Interestingly the £xx billions in extra lending that RBS and Northern Rock have blagged to Gordon Brown is a total farce. The lenders have the money to lend but are applying their new stricter criteria to borrowers. The money will not be lent out any time soon, because many borrowers do not meet the criteria.

Buy to let as one of the key drivers of house prices still does not makes economic sense at current rates. This sector will most likely never return to the heady days of 2007 as the age of irresponsible lending is over.

First time buyers are the main driver of the bottom of the housing market. First time buyers have rightly taken the view that it is best to wait out this drop before entering the market.

Voting completed

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I went to vote this morning and it was like Piccadilly Circus at the vote. The staff said that they have never seen it so busy, so maybe the expected low voter turn out is not going to happen. Or maybe all the old duffers had come out early in the sun!

Sadly there was no Labour presence at the door, just Tory and Lib Dem. I was hoping for a lively chat.

Maybe I'll pop up to Burgess Hill this afternoon to find a polling station with some red.

Halifax data out for May 2009 - reporting a rise!


Halifax report this as a surprise bounce and expect a continuation of monthly rises and falls.

During the last housing market crash between 1989 and 1995, there were 24 +ve months and 48-ve months.

They report house prices rose 2.6% or £4075 for the month or down 16.3% annually, but they calculate this using this quarter against the quarter a year ago.

The true yearly drop is actually a drop of 13.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. House prices peaked in August 2007 at £199,612 against £158565 for May 2009. A drop of £41047 or a fall of 20.5%.

The last 12 months has seen the biggest falls ever from the Halifax. The previous biggest 12 month fall was in October 1992 of -8.5%

House prices have fallen 20.5% from the peak in August 2007 21 months ago. It took from May 1989 to July 1995 for house price to fall 13.21% that is 74 months and the bottom of the last housing slump.

This housing crash is now almost twice the scale of the 89-95 housing crash and we are probably just over half way through the duration now.

The last time house prices were at this level was June 2004.

I agree with Halifax's assessment that we are entering a phase of volatile house price data before settling at the end of this year and entering a subdued growth period.

Crown prediction is still house prices to continue falling with the Halifax index bottoming at £140,000 in Q4 2009. A fall of 30% or £59,600 from the peak in August 2007. That would be house prices returning to levels last seen in Q4 2003.

2 excellent cartoons today


Brookes from the Times

Matt from the Telegraph

Wednesday 3 June 2009

The countdown continues

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Gordon Brown now has 1 year and 3 hours until polls close on the last day an election can be held.

I'm not so sure he can hang on for the next 3 hours let alone another year.

Once Brown has gone my job is done and I can get back to my life.

Gordon Brown has a visitor in the bunker

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Warning strong language
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It's exactly what I would like to say to him

No No Lynch him not pinch him


Picture from the Times

Tuesday 2 June 2009

LABOUR PLOT TO DITCH THE POUND FOR EUROS

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The Express is reporting that secret plans are being drawn up in Government departments for the introduction of the Euro.

Looks like Brown's last move as PM will be to sign us up for the Euro with no referendum.

Can we have a say this time?

A pi$$ poor show from the 'government ' today

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This is turning into a shambles today.

Jaquie Smith resigns but the government can't confirm it.

Tom Watson leaves the Government

Darling got his figures wrong on his expenses repayment (let's not mention his budget)

Gordon Brown nicked the Queens D-day invite

So many other Labour members standing down I have lost track.

Jaqui Smith leaves cabinet

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That's more like it.

Home Secretary is the first big name to go.

Chaytor and Hewitt fall

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David Chaytor and Patricia Hewitt are the latest MPs to fall. But not until the General Election, when they can collect their end of parliament pay off.

It should be noted that Pat is not standing down because of the expenses scandal, but because she has not got a hope of winning Leicester West.

The Lords slate Brown's regulation

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At last.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee have reported back and come up with the conclusion that Gordon Brown's financial regulation has failed.

No sh!t Sherlock.

A choice exerpt from the HOL report -

It recommended taking the responsibility for supervising the banking system as a whole away from the FSA and giving it to the Bank of England.

That would be the exact opposite of what our unelected leader did all those years ago that led to the financial crisis in this country.

Whilst the banks bankrupted the country, extended their lending multiples and waived the need for income verification on mortgages, the FSA spent valuable resources chasing me around to make sure I was adhering to their new initiative - Treating Customers Fairly.

I've got news for this government quango - unlike the FSA I operate in a competitive environment. If I don't treat my customers fairly they use someone else and I go bust.

The FSA needs to concentrate on more pressing matters like making sure the banks are not allowing the population to sink further beneath a tide of debt. Or better still the FSA should be abolished and replaced with a regulator that knows what it is doing.

Monday 1 June 2009

Hoon the flipping rat

No matter how much money he pays back he is still a flipping rat.

See it in action here. I have one and it is the bomb.

The Sun has a great cartoon today

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The Sun has a great cartoon here today.

The end is nigh.

Is this the worst Labour poll ever?

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Tory 40% down 1%
Lib Dems 18% up 4%
Labour 18% down 10%

Details at political betting

The dominoes are falling


Dominoes fallen so far
Gordon Brown becomes unelected leader of the country
Gordon Brown bottles winnable election
Labour Cabinet disconnected with party members
Labour Cabinet tainted with scandal
Gordon Brown does not discipline scandal hit cabinet
Gordon Brown ignores wishes of country for a General election

Dominoes yet to fall
Cabinet members hounded out of office by media
Ed Balls appointed chancellor
Labour party in open revolt
Gordon Brown will not step down and limps on
General Election sees Labour just ahead of Lib Dems in seat share and behind on vote share
Labour civil war
Lib Dems become official opposition