While normally Politicalbetting is devoted to serious topics – gambling, politics, that kind of thing – I thought regular readers should know that today is Mike Smithson’s birthday. So, please all join with me in wishing him the happiest of birthdays. Thanks, Robert
Could the 2005 switchers go back to Labour? With Ming Campbell waking up this morning to the poorest reviews of his short Lib Dem leadership a question the party has not really faced up to is the possible big loss of support when Tony Blair finally goes. For the person the party can most thank for what they achieved at the General Election and maintaining their support in most surveys ever since has been the Prime Minister. Yet judging by…
Is this the man to take on Brown? Although I think that the balance of probability still lies with Gordon Brown to take over from Tony Blair I’m sufficiently uncertain to consider other choices. Certainly at current prices the non-Brown options look very attractive. I’ve just placed my first serious bet on the contest – on the new Education Secretary, Alan Johnson who can be had from a bookmaker at 18/1. The Betfair price is much tighter which is often…
Populus and YouGov fail to shift the markets The trend against Labour shown in yesterday’s Populus Poll is reinforced this morning in a new YouGov poll for this morning’s Daily Telegraph. The Betfair betting exchange price, meanwhile, has seen the Labour price tighten and the Tory price ease. The shares with comparisons on the last YouGov poll are CON 37%(+2): LAB 31%(-1): LD 17% (-1). YouGov is still reporting a high share – 6% – for the BNP. Although other…
Is this the Achilles heel of the Chancellor’s leadership ambitions? FACT: Since December 6th 2005, the date of Cameron’s election, there has not been a single poll where the Chancellor was doing better than his party when the question of “Who would you vote for if Gordon Brown was Labour leader?” was asked. Similarly I cannot find a single poll in three years before Cameron became Tory leader where the Chancellor was doing worse than his party when the same…
Bad news for Blair – even worse for Brown As predicted here first thing this morning the May Populus survey for tomorrow’s Times has some pretty sensational figures showing one of the biggest turnarounds ever from a pollster that weights samples by declared past vote. The figures are with changes on April: CON 38 (+4): LAB 30 (-6): LD 20(-1). This is the biggest Tory lead ever recorded by the pollster. What is spectacular about this survey is that it…
Will tomorrow’s survey have bad news for Blair? If the Populus monthly poll for the Times is following its normal schedule then the May survey should be out tomorrow. The interviews will have been taking place over the weekend while all the speculation and talk of a Labour civil war was dominating the air waves. Often surveys that take place in such a heated atmosphere produce extraordinary results and the Times has a reputation for running its polls big. So…
Making sense of Thursday night It is now possible to make sense of Thursday’s local election results. The projected vote shares for the three main parties, according to Rallings and Thrasher in the Sunday Times, were CON 39%, LAB 26%, LD 25%. This analysis covers more wards than that carried out for the BBC on election night, and produces a much more plausible figure for minor parties and independents (10%, as opposed to the BBC’s perennial 6-7%). It can therefore…