Candidate	Membership	MPs/MEPs	Trade Unions	Electoral College
David Miliband	34.9	38.87	26.08	33.28
Ed Miliband	30.8	27.94	39.5	32.75
Diane Abbott	20.4	6.07	15.23	13.90
Andy Burnham	9	13.77	12.87	11.88
Ed Balls	4.9	13.36	6.32	8.19

But are the brothers really neck and neck?

There’ve been sharpish moves to EdM overnight on Betfair following a projected result published on the Left Foot Forward, the blog edited by Will Straw.

On Monday EdM was trading in the 3.75 – 3.8 range. This morning at 0430 it had tightened to 3.25 – 3.3. At the same time the DM price has eased.

The article sets out in detail how it has worked out its figures in the hope, no doubt, of provoking a debate that could produce other insights.

To my mind the weakest part of the model is its reliance on a self-selecting LabourList “poll” for the members section.

There is also the question of the extent to which union votes will be influenced by the endorsements of their executives – a big factor in the 2007 deputy race. Here we will will surely see a higher turnout which might mean that the unions’ recommendations matter less.

This is going to be down to the lower preferences and it’s the order in which supporters of Balls/Burnham/Knight rate Ed and Dave that will decide this election.

Today I’m having a smallish operation but should be fit again by the end of the afternoon.

By then I hope we’ll have the detailed data from the Michael Ashcroft funded Populus poll on the impact that AV might have on an election outcome. All we’ve got so far is the data that he’s selected and there are a number of unanswered questions. For instance it’s not clear whether the samples are past vote weighted or not. As it stands the numbers are not good for the Lib Dems.

All private polling is made public for a reason and we’ve seen time and time again that it’s wise to wait for the full data.

Mike Smithson