The projection’s now only 8 seats below the summer peak

Even though Labour’s opinion poll deficit is considerably better than many of the figures that we saw during June-September 2008 the consensus of opinion on the spread betting market is that there’ll be a Conservative majority of 48 seats.

This is based on a Tory mid-point 349 seats and compares with the 353 that the numbers peaked at during the summer. (Every extra seat on the Tory total increases the projected majority by two)

What PB’s “The Money Says Index” is doing is taking the average midpoints of the spreads on the two main markets – where punters buy and sell the seats they think the parties will get at the general election – and extrapolating that into a projection of the overall majority. There will be 650 seats being contested next time so 325 seats is the critical number.

There is a view that the renewed buoyancy of the Tory numbers has been helped not just by the opinion polls but the arrival on the opposition front bench of Ken Clarke.

As has been discussed here before this is a high risk high reward form of betting where the more you are right the more you win but the more you are wrong but the more you lose.