Break the piggy bank to bet on Labour at 4/7

Following tonight’s poll on the Hartlepool by-election on Channel 4 it almost worth breaking the piggy bank to get money on.

The latest Hartlepool prices are here. Given the scale of the poll we cannot see the Labour odds staying at 4/7 for very long. We notice that William Hill’s market is not appearing on the odds search engine -they’ve probably withdrawn it until a review tomorrow morning. You can still get 2/5 on Betfair – but that won’t last.

The poll figures were: L53%: LD 20%: C 13%: UKIP 9%

The problem for Labour with surveys like this is that people see the result as a foregone conclusion and don’t bother to turn out. If the other parties do better than the stated levels then they can present it as being ahead of expectations.

The poll has similarities with the final week ICM survey in the 2000 London Mayoral race. It had Ken Livingstone on 51% over Steve Norris’s 17% for the first round. That 34% lead became an actual 11.9% and there was a lot of money to be made with one of the spread companies on whether Ken would get above 50% or not.

We think that the winning margin in Hartlepool will be much smaller than 33% but it’s now hard to call anything other than a Labour victory.