Do the SNP justify their odds-on status? A week ago I suggested here that the 7/4 Labour price that was then available was a good value bet and was where my money was going. My reading at the time was that this was a 50-50 chance so odds greater than evens represented value. Well we’ve moved on a week, we’ve had a so-called “Glenrothes poll”, and I’ve had chance to consult the person I most trust to read Scottish politics….
Who’s going to win the Glenrothes betting war? There are more betting opportunities on next Thursday’s Glenrothes by election and this one, from PB’s spread-betting sponsor, Sporting Index, allows you to have a punt on which party will end up third. Thus if you bought the Tories at 3 points and they did make it to third then you would win twice your stake unit. If they lost you would lose three times the amount. Sounds complicated? Well the firm…
Three months ago the endlessly irritating PH100 panel of so-called “experts and insiders” on the PoliticsHome PH100 produced their prediction for the Glasgow East by election. They got it wildly wrong while a PB online poll got it precisely right. Now the PH100 is back again in the prediction business and their projection for next week’s Glenrothes by election appears above. The panel clearly are not gamblers and their projection has had zero affect on the by election betting. For…
Should you be taking the 7/4 on a Labour hold? On the face of it the mathematics are on the SNP’s side in the Glenrothes by election which takes place a week on Thursday. Just three months ago the party took the Labour stronghold of Glasgow East with a 22.5% swing and on top that it holds the seat in Holyrood. So the 14.3% Glenrothes swing target is much lower in comparison which is probably the reason that ever since…
What are the dangers of renegotiating the deal? After all the benefit that Brown and Labour has got out of the bail-out deal this morning’s Guardian front page could make uncomfortable reading and create a potentially tricky problem. The challenge is that Lloyds TSB is lobbying for less stringent terms being imposed on it in return for the injection of tax-payer cash and in the current context that looks like a hard political sell. Under the arrangement that was hammered…
Should you be taking the 100/30 against Labour at Glenrothes? By any normal standards Labour should be on target to hold on to the safe seat of Glenrothes in the by election on November 6th. This is the constituency that adjoins Gordon’s in Fife, the candidate is the head of Brown’s old school, and we have seen a big resurgence for the party in the national opinion polls. In the 2005 general election Labour romped home with 51.9% of the…
Remember what happened here in the run up to the 1979 election? With suggestions going the rounds that that Geoff Hoon might replace Peter Mandelson as Britain’s EU commissioner in Brussels should we be preparing ourselves for a by election in his constituency at Ashfield in Nottinghamshire some time next year? The 2005 result is reproduced above and certainly with current polling and by election performances the Tories would fancy their chances. In fact a failure to win here would…
Why Labour should always assume the worst from the polls This is Deborah Mattinson – Labour’s polling advisor who was part of conference session at the weekend on the polls trying to make the case that Cameron has “..yet to seal the deal”. I don’t know about that but the lesson from polling history is that Labour’s default position should be that the most accurate poll is the one with the party in the least favourable position – what I…