It’s a two thread morning on PBC

With such a lot of developments affecting political betting markets going on both in the UK and across the Channel there are two threads this morning. Gordon Brown is on the previous one.

The above table, adapted from Wikipedia, shows the results of four telephone surveys that were taken last night after the first round results were known.

Interestingly the two pollsters that most under-estimated Royal ahead of yesterday’s election are showing the lowest shares, now, for the Socialist candidate. In its final poll before yesterday Ipsos recorded a 23.5 share for Royal against the 26% that she looks like finishing on. Ifop’s final Royal share was 22.5%.

However with all four firms putting Sarkozy ahead it’s hard to predict anything other than a victory for the centre-right candidate in the run-off – but it might be quite close.

Mike Smithson