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Month: May 2016

Jeremy: You are right about austerity but you have a long way to go to win over voters

Jeremy: You are right about austerity but you have a long way to go to win over voters

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Don Brind with some comradely advice One Twitter user was apparently disappointed when she followed tag #LabEcon2016. She was looking for Labradors but what she got was Labour’s State of the economy conference. The organisers were delighted that the event, hosted by shadow treasurer John McDonnell and closed by party leader Jeremy Corbyn was trending second on Twitter after the Cup Final. The large and enthusiastic gathering heard Corbyn’s signature line “austerity is a political choice not a necessity” endorsed…

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Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

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This should make comparison easier The election is a month today and postal votes to overseas addresses are starting to be mailed out. To coincide I’m switching my regular polling table to election mode stripping out the don’t knows and just give the figures of those who had a voting intention. Where a pollster has not provided this information I have set my spreadsheet so it calculates this itself. Showing net numbers is, after all, how general election polls a…

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The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

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The Alastair Meeks Decision Tree You can access the descison tree here The EU referendum polling is all over the shop, with a stark divide between the phone polls, which show a clear Remain lead, and the online polls, which show it neck and neck with Leave perhaps fractionally ahead.  How on earth are we supposed to cater for this in our betting? Here’s how.  We only need to assess two things: what the current state of public opinion is…

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Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

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What if the phone polls are wrong? Earlier on this year I spoke to someone who works in the polling industry, they ruefully observed that the 2015 general election opinion polls accurately predicted the Tory victory, so long as you ignored the headline voting intention figures and focussed on the supplementaries, and I’m starting to wonder if we might be seeing a similar situation with this EU referendum, where whatever the headline voting intention figure is, the supplementaries are generally…

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The next recession

The next recession

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Trying to predict the next recession has the danger making you sound like The Ancient Mariner but William Hill have a market up if the UK is going to have recession by the end of 2017 if you want to bet on the timing of it. I’m not an economist, so this piece should be viewed in that spirit. Most of the economic mood music seems to indicate backing a recession occurring before the end of 2017 might be the best…

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CON voters, it appears, are now more inclined to Dave’s EURef position than Boris’s

CON voters, it appears, are now more inclined to Dave’s EURef position than Boris’s

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My article for tomorrow's Observer on the #EURef polling https://t.co/yfXfgCuYiW — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 New Opinium online poll has IN lead getting widerIN: 44% (+2)OUT: 40% (-1) — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 CON voters split #EURef pollsICM phone 49-39 INICM online 45-44 INYouGov 44-44Ipsos MORI 60-34 INComRes 48-46 INOpinium 48-41 IN — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 If it stays this way it could be decisive The general view until this last week has…

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For millions the referendum will be over next weekend. Postal voting starts next Saturday

For millions the referendum will be over next weekend. Postal voting starts next Saturday

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The postal ballots go out next week Anything upto a quarter of the votes cast in the referendum will be by post and the time-table stipulated by the Electoral Commission states that ballot packs to postal voters should start to go out on Monday. Initially those who currently live overseas will be mailed but the plan is that UK-based postal voters will start getting their ballots by the weekend. Given that we know from past elections that most postal voters…

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Trump remains the value bet for the Presidency

Trump remains the value bet for the Presidency

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It’s time to take the prospect of him winning outright seriously No-one has got rich betting against Donald Trump this election campaign and now is unlikely to be the time to start. He’s currently best-priced at 5/2 with Ladbrokes, which in a two-horse race implies a serious weakness on his part. In many ways, he is a seriously weak candidate. He’s never held any public office before, never mind elected public office. He has very little active support from within…

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