politicalbetting.com

By some margin forecasting this year’s council seat gains and losses in 143 local authorities should be avoided at all costs.  With that caveat in mind, let’s have a go. We would normally base our assumptions of the likely outcome on the pattern shown in hundreds of council by-elections.  But these have been suspended in England for over a year – so no data!  Instead, we are using national polling figures for this exercise. Before we start some points of…

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 Harold Wilson said in 1964, “The Labour party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.” By 2015 the focus was rather on what was moral about a crusade: which in many ways epitomises Labour’s problems all too neatly. In a recent thread, it was suggested that Labour needed some policies to attract attention and get voters motivated once again. My response was a Workers Charter. I suggested the following policies. Guaranteed minimum hours in every contract of employment. A…

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Picture: 1964 general election odds. There shouldn’t be any value bets, in theory. Every bet we place isn’t just a forecast about an election or other event. We are also making a statement; that the forecast made by the collective wisdom of every previous punter is wrong and that we have noticed before other smart gamblers can put the price right. In principle, every value bet is an opportunity someone else should already have taken. In practice, the market clearly…

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