But why are the pollsters being less transparent? In what we think is Martin Baxter’s first prediction for the next General Election a big increase in Labour seats is projected from the calculation which involves applying the average swing in the latest polls to what happened on May 5th and applying them on a uniform national basis in each seat. The Baxter calculator is one of the great tools for those who try to forecast and bet on elections but…
What happens if the new leader makes no difference? Although the poll moves away from the Tories have not been as great as after previous General Elections there’ve been few crumbs of comfort in the few surveys that have been carried out. We have hardly mentioned the post-May 5th polls on the site because this close to the election the question of what respondents might do in four years time is not very relevant. Also the Olympic 2012 decision and…
Can a bald leader beat one with hair? If you aspire to the leadership of your party and are a bit thin on top one of the most depressing political facts is that in modern times a party led by a bald man has never beaten a party led by someone with hair in a UK general election. The only time the country has had bald man at Number 10 was between 1940 and 1955 when first it was Churchill,…
Have people really forgotten how they voted already In their latest poll ICM had Labour with a 7% lead compared with the 3% that real voters gave the party in the election seven weeks earlier. Fine you might conclude – the ructions over the leadership are clearly causing problems. However from the detailed data from the survey, now out, it’s possible to draw a different conclusion. More people said they would vote Tory now than told the interviewers that they…
Does Cormack’s victory have implications for Cheadle? The victory by Patrick Cormack in the delayed South Staffordshire election with an increased majority is very much in line with our first call on the contest on May 24th when we urged users to get on SkyBet’s Labour vote share market which was then offering evens at 30% or less. Fortunately Skybet’s withdrawal from the market at the weekend meant that anybody tempted by my forecast that UKIP would eat into the…
Could the anti-EU party produce a sensational result tomorrow? There are increasingly bullish comments coming out of the UKIP web discussion forum about how well their campaign is going in the delayed South Staffordshire election which takes place tomorrow. If this long report by a senior party official on UKIP’s website is to be believed then tomorrow’s ballot in South Staffordshire is not the foregone conclusion for Conservatives that it might appear. In fact the contest is being set up…
Will UKIP eat into the Tory’s vote share? With just three days to go before the delayed South Staffordshire election it looks as though UKIP might do considerably better than if this election had taken place on May 5th when the rest of the UK was electing a Government. That consideration won’t apply on Thursday and it’s possible that we’ll see a big vote for UKIP which got 28% there in the Euro Elections. This could mean that there’s great…
SkyBet stops taking money on Labour getting less than 30% Nearly a month ago we urged site users to make money on the postponed South Staffordshire election by betting that Labour would get less than 30% on June 23rd. At the time SkyBet were offering evens on this outcome which we felt was great value for money. Since then the price has tightened and tightened and reached 4/7 a week ago when Skybet suspended all betting on the party shares…