The week we would rather forget

We said last week that it looked tough and how right we were. We did consider passing and now wish we had. It seems that the barrage of criticism which Gordon Brown is facing has seriously impacted his popularity score.

It was down an astonishing 5.4 points to 56.4, his lowest ever and close to the dire 55.1 which Tony Blair recorded on February 22nd. Not that the Great Leader fared much better. He was down 3.2 at 61.3, reversing much of his recent revival.

Maybe the Iran hostage releases came too late to rescue him. Maybe the farewell boost we thought we had detected was illusory. Whatever the reasons, the Index makes glum reading for the Labour Leaders, and not so good for us either.

We called Brown wrong. We thought Anthony had over adjusted but in fact he hadn’t adjusted enough. The two point stake doubled the error to create a net loss of 7.4, our worst punt by a long way. We didn’t actually recommend a Blair buy but only because the Iran situation was unclear.

Once it appeared to be on the way to resolution, we did advocate a buy. Some who followed this advice may have been able to close out at a profit of up to 1.6 points before the level dropped back. Those who stayed in, like me, will have incurred a further loss in the region of 4.3 points, depending on the level at which you bought in. Commiserations.

Finally, further pain was inflicted on us by Ming, who confounded all expectations by leaping up 2.9 points to an all-time high of 79.7. If anybody can explain to me why, please do so.

We don’t have the full results to work from yet but even on these limited snippets it looks like there could be important implications for other betting markets.

If the attacks on Brown are indeed getting through, does that make a challenge to his accession more likely? And if so, who will stand and when might they declare?

Could the Blair departure date be affected?

Does a Hung Parliament become less likely?

What odds now the SNP becoming the largest Party in the Assembly?

No Brandindex next week, so we have a couple of weeks now to review strategy. There will be no shortage of other betting opportunities in the days ahead though. Are your fingers as badly burned as mine? Try snapping up some of some of that even money available on the SNP, or the 9/2 about Johnson in the Deputy Leader market. It’ll make you feel better.

Peter Smith – (Peter the Punter)