Who’ll win the general election handicap?
Can anybody spot the value bet?
Over the weekend the ever resourceful Shadsy at Ladbrokes introduced his general election vote share handicap.
Essentially there are three runners – the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems – and you have to work out who’ll come out top applying the handicaps as set out. So the Tories start at scratch, Labour at +15 percentage points of the GB vote share with the Lib Dems on +22 points.
So if the result was precisely CON 43%: LAB 28%: LD 21% then there would be a three-way dead heat.
I’ve been playing about with these numbers and based on current polling it’s hard to find the winner. Looking at the latest polls it goes:-
YELLOW with YouGov’s C40-L27-LD19 and the PB/Angus Reid C40-L23-LD20
BLUE from ICM’s C44-L27-LD18 and the MORI C43-L26-LD19.
RED with ComRes’s C40-L28-LD19 and the Populus C40-L30-LD18
So the six regular monthly pollsters split 2:2:2. A well thought out market but no obvious bet.