I always thought I would cover stories about Peter Mandelson because that is de rigueur for him but I never thought I wonder end up covering the stories that have emerged, I am not surprised the police have been asked to investigate, nor did I think his underpants would become so prominent. This reflects poorly on Sir Keir Starmer but David Cameron survived Andy Coulson but the real question is what on earth happens with the vetting in the Foreign…
The Betfair market looks very pleasing for anybody who backed the Greens at 6/1 yet I think there could be some value in backing Labour. I suspect the infamous, statistically irrelevant, Find Out Now poll has allowed Labour to frame the narrative as a two horse race between themselves and Reform, if the by-election is framed as stopping Reform then Labour could profit, particularly the views of the Reform candidate on those he considers British. TSE
The fallout from that Find Out Now poll is a bit of a mess, over a decade ago a pollster told ‘you’re only as good as your last poll’, on that basis it’s not good for Find Out Now, but for them there’s a few elections coming up for them to recover as I cannot recall ever a pollster saying their poll isn’t statistically signficant. One positive from this is that it shows why the British Polling Council and their…
A quick reminder about the 2026 PB Predictions Competition. To enter you simply need to post your answers to the following 12 questions onto the site before the end of January with the hashtag #competition somewhere in the post to help the scorer (me) find your entry. Or, you can private message me @Benpointer with your entry answers. Questions are weighted equally with 20 points for a correct or a closest answer and 10 points for a near miss,…
Every week it seems another bank is announcing another round of branch closures but this polling shows why as a majority of Brits visit less a branch less than once a year. With cash being less prevalent it makes sense branch footfall has collapsed Becoming cashless also has many indirect benefits, the decline of cash has many benefits for example it has saved the lives of many children as this article shows ‘Decline of cash credited for drop in NHS…
Nineteen yeatr since they first took power the SNP are on course to retain power at Holyrood in May despite losing a third of their voters since 2021. I’m not sure there’s any value in the Holyrood betting markets, I suspect the biggest impact from this election might be the pressure that Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer will experience after these results. TSE
Very rarely do you see pollsters criticise other pollsters, there’s almost an omerta on this subject, so I find it interesting that Luke Tryl of MoreInCommon, James Johnson of JL Partners, and Martin Boon formerly of ICM and DeltaPoll have criticised this Find Out Now poll. A poll like this not only risks the credibilty of Find Out Now but of the wider polling industry, even if it turns out to be right it will be down to sheer happenstance…
There has been plenty of movement on Betfair following this poll but The Telegraph report that is based on a sample of just 143 which I think is ludicrously low. The margin of error on this poll is 8% if the sample size correctly recorded. TSE