How important is being the first leader to see him? By all accounts Brown Central is placing a lot on the relationship between their man and President Obama. The news that the race to have first phone conversation with between a European leader and Obama was won by Brown was highlighted over the weekend. Next comes the question of which of the big three – Sarkozy, Merkel or Brown – gets the first meeting. There have been reports that Brown…
Surely the methodologies are untested with a Tory surge? Ladbrokes has got further into general election mode today with the launch of its seat markets – the first of which, for the Tories is featured above. We’ll be doing later threads on Labour and the Lib Dems. Successful betting here, I suggest, requires an understanding of the polls and familiarity with the various seat projectors which convert projected vote shares into the number of seats actually won. But how challenging…
Which of these headlines is the most damaging? What a dreadful set of front pages for Gordon Brown to digest this morning. Not only is there the follow-up to the “cash for laws” allegations but there’s more awful polling news and and in the background the drip by drip news of jobs going up and down the country and in every sector. The release by the Times of the tape recording of the “interview” with one of the “cash for…
CONSERVATIVES 44% (+6) LABOUR 32% (-1) LIB DEMS 16% (-3) But the LDs see a drop to 16% The long-awaited Guardian ICM poll for January is just out and has the Tories up six points to 44%. The move is in line with all the other surveys that we have seen in the past three weeks and is further evidence that Brown Bounce II has come to a dead stop. Labour will be pleased that their drop was just one…
Is it time to re-visit the Hill’s market? It’s almost hard to credit the total change that we’ve seen in UK politics in the past few weeks but less than a month ago many PBers, including me got bets on at 7/4 on the market from William Hill Politics that Brown would be the first of the main party leaders to be out. Then the favourite was Nick Clegg with David Cameron the long-shot. Now prices have shifted a fair…
Will the LAB/LD switchers will stick with Cameron? One of the great features about the pollsters that past vote weight is that you are able to look at the detailed tables and see the cross-party dynamics. Interestingly the broad figures that we get each month from the ComRes, ICM and Populus are in the same ball park and you can get a generalised view of what’s been going on. Reproduced above is an extract from the full tables highlighting how…
Now there’s “Cash for Laws” and Labour.. Who can forgot how the ongoing revelations about “cash for questions” totally undermined the final period of the last Tory government and added considerably to the image of “sleaze” which has taken a long time to shake off. Well the most striking feature from a quick look at tomorrow’s front pages is the Sunday Times which looks as though it has found a Labour equivalent. Could this do the same for Mr. Brown’s…
PB’s “The Money Says Index”: CON Maj 56 seats Even though we have not had any news polls since the MORI survey on Monday the mood on the spread betting markets has continued to be away from Labour and onto the Tories. This morning’s changes bring the spreads to this – with changes on three days ago CON 350-356 (+4): LAB 226-232 (-4): LD 42-45 (nc). On the Monday before last, a few minutes before the January Populus poll came…