Thirteen Saturdays ago the money was going on TMay’s Tories getting 400+ seats
Commons spreads from Spreadex sees CON at 400+
CON 402-408
LAB 145-151
LD 21.5-24.5
UKIP 0.25-1.25
SNP 43-46https://t.co/m9B2DFvQv3 …— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 5, 2017
A journalist called me to ask what was the peak position that the Tories reached in the GE2017 campaign.
I dug bag into my historical Tweets and referred him to the one above when Tories were clearing the 400 mark on the spread markets and LAB was struggling to hold onto 150.
That was, of course, after the local and mayoral elections when the the Tories did far better than even the most optimistic party backers were expecting.
The polls carried out over that weekend had the Tories with a lead of about 20%. Survation, the firm that did best on June 8th, recorded a 17% margin in its post local election poll while ICM was at 22%. Was it any wonder that the spread betting levels were what they were.
It struck me that we still don’t know what really happened on June 8th – why most of the pollsters, pundits and participants got it so wrong.
Because the expectation of a big CON victory was so widespread it has been Mr. Corbyn, who has been getting the accolades and goes into the party conference season with little to worry about.