If we all agreed about an outcome there would be no betting
In his regular Saturday morning slot Quincel argued that I was wrong in my assessment of the coming by-election on Thursday in Southend West.
That is great because betting on what is going to happen at say an election would never be possible if there was a general agreement about an outcome. There have to be those ready on either side ready to risk money betting on what they think will happen. Quincel is a very serious punter and I take what he wrote seriously and am very happy that he is now an established PB regular.
Southend West is very unusual because the vacancy has occurred following the murder of the sitting Tory MP and the main opposition parties agreed to follow the precedent established after the Jo Cox killing in 2016 and not put up candidates. This led to LAB holding the seat with 85.8% of the vote.
Where Thursday’s contest differs, I would suggest, is that it is the party of government that is defending and there is far more incentive for voters wanting to “send a message to Westminster” than there was at Batley and Spen. This also comes at a time when the Tory leader and PM has seen a colossal collapse in his personal ratings and at the weekend had his second worse approval numbers ever.
My guess is that there are a number of voters in the seat whose choice will be based on which of the non-Tories standing they think have the best chance of giving the PM a bloody nose. From what I can gather online the UKIP candidate looks the most active and he could pick up a lot of votes even from those opposed to that party’s politics.
My one bet is that the Tory vote share will be less than 50%.