Betfair odds against the Tories winning most seats How the Tory price tightened The above chart shows how punters on the £1m Betfair “who will win most seats” markets have reacted to the events of the past two weeks when the Tory immigration plans started to have an impact at the polls only to be followed by the Margaret Dixon affair. The price reached an all-time peak of more than 10/1 two weeks ago last Monday only to move to…
It’s a three-way split amongst the 18-24 year olds A poll of 18-24 year-olds by YouGov in the Telegraph shows that Labour is failing to make an impact amongst young voters – which in the past has been one of the party’s strongest areas of support. The split was LAB 31: CON 31: LD 30 and is in sharp contrast to a similar survey before the 1997 Election which recorded about half in this age group supporting Labour. But turnout…
This is the front page of today’s Sunday Express. Their web-site does not seem to have a link to the body of the story but it appears that a “secret” internal survey is suggesting that the Tories are in the lead. Quite what the substance of the story is or why the survey’s contents have been leaked to a paper not usually friendly to the party is not clear? The next “proper” poll should be the March survey by Populus…
How will Michael Howard do in Folkestone? Apart from the main “who will be the overall winner” market the most popular bet this week with site users, based on the number of click-throughs to online bookmakers, is how well will the Tory leader, seen here at St Martins Primary School, do in his own constituency? Skybet have created an imaginative market on whether Howard will do better or worse in percentage terms than he did in Folkestone at the 2001…
But the punters are sticking with the Lib Dems Based on recent media coverage you would be forgiven for thinking that Britiain had returned to two-party politics. For with political noise levels rising to almost deafening proportions the Lib Dems are finding it hard getting themselves noticed as Labour and the Tories slog it out in an increasingly bitter fight. With their opinion roll ratings down sharply and their leader being criticised for missing a key vote on the anti-terror…
A report by Celia Hall, Telegraph Medical Editor, says GPs look set to desert Labour at the next general election, according to a poll just published. When more than 1,000 GPs were asked about their voting intentions, only one in 10 said they intended to vote Labour, compared with nearly a third who voted for the Government in 2001. These are the figures compared with a similar survey in 2001: LAB 11 (-19): CON 30 (+4): LD 29 (+3): OTH…
There is money to be made on a turnout of 60% or more With the coming campaign looking as though it is going to be a bitter fight between Labour and Michael Howard we expect that the turnout will be substantially higher than the 59% recorded in 2001. That was a record low because almost from the start it looked like what in boxing they would deem a mismatch. William Hague’s Tories never seemed like credible challenger, the result appeared…
Who is winning the spin wars? As Labour found out with the tale of Jennifer’s Ear during the 1992 election campaign, or the case of Rose Addis, championed by, the then Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, two years ago, raising specific NHS cases like Margaret Dixon is a high risk strategy. Usually such moves rebound on the party putting forward the case and the extraordinary thing about this week’s events is that the Tory spin machine has had the confidence…