Why is there zilch betting interest in the Scottish and Welsh elections? These are the latest prices from Betfair on this May’s devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. As you can see the betting has hardly caught the imagination of punters with less than £400 having been traded on the Edinburgh Parliament result and a paltry £77 on Cardiff. Just look at the Scottish numbers – both Labour and the SNP are at prices much tighter than evens. That does…
Why don’t voters believe that he’s telling the truth? This single line of data from the Populus poll for February could point to the first big challenge for Brown in the post-Blair world. For if the Yates inquiry does lead to charges then the line-up of opposition attack dogs – from the Tories to the Lib Dems, the SNP and PC – will have no real interest in Blair himself. He’s yesterday’s man and toast. The big target will be…
Introducing the Five P column A couple of weeks ago IG Index introduced a new political spread betting market based upon the results of YouGov’s Political Popularity poll. IG invited punters to bet on the movements, up or down, of selected leading politicians in their ‘Brand Index’ poll. Aaron Bell wrote a piece in response and gave his recommended buys and sells. It was intended to be a regular weekly piece but unfortunately he cannot continue and so you’ve got…
Survey shows the gap down to just 1% with the Chancellor in charge This morning’s Populus survey in the Times shows that all the pundits who were predicting poll doom and gloom for Labour in the polls because of Blair’s position had got it wrong. The shares with changes on January are: CON 36% (-3): LAB 33% (+1): LD 19% (+1). The fieldwork took place during the weekend when the media was full of honours stories. Even better from the…
Would Ming’s party be better off rejecting both suitors? (This is part of an article I wrote for CONtinuityIDS this morning about a hung parliament and what I think might happen if Labour just squeeze ahead on seats even though they are far behind on votes. My starting point was the CON 39%: LAB 33%: LD 22%: OTH 6% in the previous thread producing this Commons outcome – LAB 284: CON 283: LD 54: OTH 29.) My reading of Brown…
It’s rubbish to say the changes hand the advantage over to the Tories This story by Colin Brown in the Independent is typical of some of the coverage that we’ve seen over the weekend on the impact of the boundary changes on the next General Election. Labour goes into the next election still with a massive advantage – it is just that it isn’t quite as big as was before. What’s happened is that there’s now the “official” version of…
The Blurb Who’s going to win the next UK general election? Who’s going to be the next US president? The next president of France? You probably have an opinion, but are you wiling to put money on it? In this unique new book Mike Smithson, the man behind politicalbetting.com, takes a detailed look at the world of political gambling. From the basics of how and where to gamble to the characteristics of the main markets and the forms of betting…
Could Blair’s next interview be “under caution”? The paper goes on to suggest that the Prime Minister could face a third interview. Explaining the events of the past week the papers says “It was the McTernan breakthrough that led to Miss Turner and then Lord Levy being arrested in the past two weeks. In between those arrests Mr Blair was secretly quizzed at No 10. The new developments came after the News of the World revealed that a mole at…