One of the many good things Smarkets have done is regularly have a market up on opinion poll leads. With eight days left in February I can just about understand these odds but my inclination is to back a Conservative lead this month.

If they follow their usual schedule I’d expect a YouGov poll later on this week and Opinium poll on Saturday, by happenstance they are the pollsters with the smallest Labour leads with leads of 4% and 3% respectively as we can see in the table below (for the purpose of this bet the pollster Techne doesn’t count.) Redfield and Wilton should publish a poll tomorrow and their last poll had a 5% Labour lead.

It only needs a slight sample variation, methodology change*, or a simple outlier (or all of the above) to give the Conservatives a poll lead. I wouldn’t also rule a poll boost for the Conservatives because of further Russian aggression in Ukraine escalating in the coming days. In the past there’s been a boost for the government when wars happen and a desire for national unity, though given the timescales I’d expect if that bounce happens to filter through to the YouGov and Opinium given their fieldwork dates.

So at 8.6 I’d wager some money on a Conservative lead by the end of the month but not a lot. If we see a Conservative poll lead this month then it might keep Boris Johnson in office for the rest of the parliament.

TSE

*Opinium have already had one methodology change this month.