One of the hard things about running a website about political betting is that for large parts of each year there is nothing to bet on which will be resolved within a week or so. I am sure that Shadsy, ex-political man at Ladbrokes who is now with Smarkets, feels the same and it is no surprise that we have seen an uptick in activity with his new firm since his arrival.

A recent Smarkets market was on whether LAB would get a poll lead during the remaining part of 2021. That was resolved with the YouGov 2% LAB lead on September 9th. Now Shadsy has another one up with the timing ending on October 12th. These are the market rules:

This market will be settled as a winner if any of the following polling companies publicly report a headline voting intention lead for the Labour party: Opinium, YouGov, Redfield & Wilton, Savanta ComRes, Survation, Deltapoll, Kantar TNS, Ipsos Mori or BMG. The poll must be released between 24 September and 11 October 2021 (inclusive) to qualify. Any tie for the lead will not count, only a clear lead will resolve the market.

With all the media attention that LAB is getting at the moment and the leader’s speech coming up then it might just be possible that we could see a lead within that timeframe. Over the years parties generally getting a polling boost during or in the week after their conference.

I’ve long been of the view that opposition parties do better in the polls when they are in the media spotlight except when that is for negative coverage like on antisemitism during the Corbyn years,

I’ve had a little punt on this market. On balance I think there’s greater than a 33% chance.

Mike Smithson