2013: The year when according to political punters, at least, nothing changed very much
December 2012 compared with December 2013
The chart says it all. There has been almost no change in prices on the Betfair exchange on the outcome of GE2015.
The prices on a CON and LAB majority have edged down a bit with no overall majority moving up a notch.
- The big differences between now than then have been the resilience UKIP in the polls and the fact that the election is now little more than 16 months away.
Labour’s polling lead over the Tories is down a couple of points on a year ago but the gap seems to be remarkably stubborn. Even in the very bad period for Labour in the late summer Miliband’s party continued to see reasonable polling gaps.
There were 3 surveys that had the two parties level-pegging but those moved back sharply in surveys that followed from ICM, Ipsos-MORI and YouGov.
Quite the worst set of numbers for the blues were in Lord Ashcroft’s massive 12.8k sample of the key LAB>CON and LD>CON battlegrounds where the swing to Miliband’s party was considerably larger than in the national polls.
It is very hard to see a pathway to a CON majority.