Two more polls show increases in the Labour deficit A week ago Gord returned from his holiday and went on the publicity offensive with a series of set-piece interviews and high profile announcements. For days there was hardly a TV bulletin without him featuring. This wasn’t a re-launch, we were assured, but it had all the makings of one. Brown was trying to get the initiative back and to build on the improvements in Labour polling fortunes that we had…
Making this work effectively For some time now Mike has reserved a small corner of Politicalbetting.com for recorded wagers. The idea is that if two posters can agree terms between themselves, they can actually have their bet formalized to the extent that it is recorded here for posterity and for others to view and comment on. The advantages are fairly obvious. The record makes it clear what the terms are and we can all share in the fun of applauding…
But why is this against the trend of other recent surveys? A new poll by Ipsos-MORI for the Sun today goes completely against the run of other recent surveys and reports that Cameron’s Tories now have a 10% lead. The following are the shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster before Christmas – CON 42(nc): LAB 32(-3): LD 15(+1) After a period when Populus, YouGov and ICM have all reported Labour deficits of within 5% today’s survey…
The Far Right in the Midlands Last night, Labour held a seat which the Conservatives had expected to gain, at Ibstock and Heather, on North West Leicestershire District Council. The Conservatives had won two out of three seats in May 2007, in what had formerly been a very safe Labour ward. What seems to have prevented them winning the third seat was a very strong performance from the BNP, who contested the seat for the first time, and won second…
Is the new leadership turning the party around? I’ve long argued that the battle for the next election is about the centre ground and, in particular whether Labour can recover many of the votes that switched to the Lib Dems in 2005 and how far Cameron’s Tories can go in attracting and retaining supporters of Clegg’s party. Reproduced above is from the full dataset of this month’s Populus poll and shows how support split based on what respondents said they…
How the prices changed wildly during the New Hampshire count This is a chart that appeared on the Betfair site on Wednesday morning and shows the violent changes in the betting price on Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire as the news came in. The most stunning part is the sudden surge in her price to 250/1 as some early reports suggested that the polls were right and that the former First Lady was about to come in second. This records…
Will the honeymoon bets come to the aid of the NH losers? Quite a few regulars took a battering in the betting on the New Hampshire primary and I note that Peter the Punter reported losses of £1300 – ouch!. This has prompted me to look over outstanding bets and I discovered one that was very popular amongst PBers in late June and early July at the start of the Prime Minister’s extraordinary media honeymoon. For it was not only…
A look at the Forecaster of the Year numbers The above table shows the leading predictions for the “what will happen in 2008?” section – there were 106 entries altogether. Other key findings: Jacqui Smith is only predicted to remain as Home Secretary for an average 253 days, while Darling’s average predicted tenure at No 11 is 287 days. The average high/low poll figures for the parties are Labour 37/28, the Conservatives 44/35, and the Lib Dems 22/14, while the…