…. ….

….but we love it really

This is my last posting before my wife Jacky and I travel to our holiday cottage near Biarritz in South-West France and for the next two and a half weeks Philip Grant (Book Value) will be Politicalbetting’s guest editor.

September looks like being an interesting month for political gamblers. There’s the German General Election which might not be as easy for Angela Merkel as seemed probable two or three months ago.

Then there’ll be the party conference season opening with the Lib Dems in Blackpool – the first gathering of the party since the General Election. Will Charles Kennedy sail through that or could the mood amongst delegates be that they a new leader to fight the next General Election?

The Labour conference might produce further clues about when Tony Blair will be stepping aside. We’ve been saying since the General Election that this will happen later rather than sooner and the betting markets have moved in that direction.

Finally the Tories will first decide how they will elect Michael Howard’s replacement and then there will be the contest itself. David Davis looks very strong but how will he compare when faced with the intense scrutiny of the party conference?

Meanwhile a success with ICM. After our complaint to the British Polling Council ICM have now released the full data set of their July Guardian poll and we can see the numbers they are using to weight their samples. There’s plenty there for me to get my teeth into when I return.

Over to Philip.

Mike Smithson

Animations courtesy of http://www.horton-szar.net/clipart/