Ladbrokes have a market up on whether Labour’s share of the vote will rise or fall at the next general election.

My initial reaction was to back ‘fall’ because of the appalling personal polling figures that Jeremy Corbyn has, but to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there’s quite a few known unknowns about the next general election that might have an impact on this bet, they are, inter alia,

1. We don’t know who will be leading the Conservative Party (whomever it is they won’t have the electoral appeal of David Cameron)
2. We don’t know for certain that Corbyn will be leading Labour
3. The impact of the EU referendum (could we see UKIP do what the SNP did after losing a referendum?)
4. A potential Labour recovery in Scotland because history suggests that all political parties experience a downturn and the SNP are no different (though I’m not expecting it before 2020 but who knows?)

The other issue is despite Corbyn’s dire polling, Labour increased their share of the vote in the Oldham West and Royton by-election, which made me wonder if in 2020 we’d see what we saw in England in May, Labour piling up votes in their safe seats and the Conservatives getting the votes in the marginals seats where it matters the most.

This is probably a market I’m going to sit out, but PBers might take a different view and see some value in this market.

Will Labour's share of the vote rise or fall at the 2020 general election?

— TSE (@TSEofPB) December 13, 2015

 

TSE