politicalbetting.com

After a week in which: the UK entered into an arms alliance with the US and Australia, promptly decried in lurid terms by China and France: energy prices went up with one energy company going bust and the prospect of more to come; food companies warned of shortages of frozen food; and  the PM had a reshuffle to deliver the much promised “Levelling Up” the Sunday Times’s front page had 3 stories:- Gove ordered to sort out leaseholders’ post-Grenfell problems;…

Read More Read More

A quick guide to the parties may be helpful. As the system is modified PR, you get a greater choice of substantial parties than in Britain. The Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian (CSU) allies maintained a solid lead until quite recently, but their Chancellor candidate is seen as far less solid than Mrs Merkel, and in troubled times German voters really like serious gravitas. They’ve found it in the Social Democrat (SPD) Chancellor candidate, Scholz, who is agreeablymoderate and…

Read More Read More

Given the big challenge Johnson will have next time trying to maintain as much as possible the Tory position from GE2019 Ed Davey closed his conference setting out clearly the threat his party poses in the “blue wall” seats like Chesham and Amersham. The focus will be on 10-15 targets which all went Remain, where the party was in second place last time and in almost all cases where the electorate comprise a lot of graduates. He is aiming at…

Read More Read More

But these numbers could mean PM Starmer As conference season begins there’s a new Opinium poll out that has CON back in the lead. This follows the trend of other pollsters that are reporting a little bit of a recovery by the Tories. Johnson’s problem is that at GE2019 his party had an 11.8% GB vote lead over LAB. Theoretically, any gap smaller than that should lead to CON losses so the latest 3% lead with Opinium indicates a 4.4%…

Read More Read More

Having bet on Sunak for next PM in November 2019 at 250/1 Ladbrokes this is a market I follow closely and if it comes up my £20 wager will be my biggest ever political betting win. It will outdo the £4,300 I made on the LDs in the June Chesham & Amersham by-election. Interesting that the big betting winner on this market this week has been Liz Truss who is now clear third favourite to succeed BoJo. The big question…

Read More Read More

Three times in the last 18 months the UK has seen COVID cases rise sharply. Three times the government has imposed national restrictions. Now cases are up again, but in a post-vaccine world the government is very resistant to go down that road. Will they be forced to? Smarkets punters say yes, albeit only narrowly. I suspect no is the better trading bet, but again with much uncertainty. Vaccines have heavily shifted the risk factors. The July 2021 case spike…

Read More Read More

Interesting argument this lunchtime between former PBer, Alastair Meeks and John Rentoul of the Independent. Was Ed Davey right in his FT piece today to rule out any deal that would keep a Tory government in power. The Meeks view is essentially that the way Johnson is current;y running the country is in a manner that is more alien to LD values than it is to LAB ones. Rentoul’s argument is that by ruling out one side Davey could be…

Read More Read More

In spite of their ages, Trump’s 75 and Biden 78, the two men who were their party’s nominees last time continue to head the betting for WH2024. Taking them one by one I reckon Biden has to operate as if it is certain that he’ll seek re-election unless he could appear a lame duck. Clearly everything depends on his health but if it holds he looks as though he will go for a second term. I’m not so certain about…

Read More Read More