Spread markets open on the 2009 race Although it’s less than a week since the last one the first spread betting market on the next General Election has now been opened an early prices indicate that Labour will be returned with a majority of about 20. The opening spreads from Spreadfair are LAB 325-335: CON 226-232: LD 54-60 . The best prices on the conventional markets are LAB 4/7: CON 7/4: LD 80/1. From a pure financial perspective the spreads…
ICM’s raw data had Labour nearly 20% ahead An extraordinary insight into the challenge that pollsters have in finding representative samples is revealed in the detailed data for the final surveys which is just being made available. We all know now that in terms of the popular vote in Great Britain Labour beat the Conservatives by 36.2% to 33.2% – or about eleven Labour voters for each ten Conservative ones. But base data for the final surveys ICM and Populus…
Book it in your diary – the next General Election will be on June 11 2009 If the next General Election is held in four years time then it will be the first time that the vote to determine the next House of Commons will coincide with the cycle of five-yearly Euro elections. If Prime Minister Brown/Straw/Hain/Clark/follows the pattern of his/her predecessor then the next General Election looks like being held on June 11 2009 – the Euro date that…
Our 11/4 tip was right but were our reasons wrong? What turned out to be one of our most profitable tips at the election was to go for turnout at 60% or more when the price was 11/4. We argued in February that the Iraq war had politicised more groups and the fact that it would appear to be a much tighter race would drive more people to the polls than the 59% of four years ago. Although the 61%…
Why did the polls converge? In the big debate over internet and telephone polling many were hoping the May 5 would resolve the issue once and for all. And in the days leading upto to polling day it did look as though the two competing methodologies were presenting a very different picture of the actual vote with, at one stage, one telephone pollster reporting a 14% Labour lead. But lo and behold along comes May 5 and the forecasts all…
How did our contestants do? Several hundred site users took part in our two competitions for the honours of being the site’s top forecasters of the 2005 General Election. Surprisingly entrants in the New Year prediction contest proved to be better at getting nearest to the eventual result than those who took part in our final week competition last Monday. New Year contestants’averages: Labour majority 63, Labour GB vote lead 3.4% Final week contestants’ averages: Labour majority 75: Labour GB…
Howard ends up as winner on votes in England For more than a year we’ve been suggesting that a consolation prize for Michael Howard at the 2005 General Election might be that his party “wins” England. In terms of English seats this was always going to be challenging but in terms of votes there is a different picture. Although the all-UK vote split was LAB 35.2: CON 32.3: LD 22 the Tories have exceeded the Labour’s English vote total by…
Labour loses one in seven votes and wins easily The final week of the Labour campaign was dominated by the claim that if one in ten of its voters did not vote for the party on Thursday then there would be a Tory government. Well the results are almost all in and Labour has lost considerably more than one in ten of its 2001 vote share. The final figures show a Labour vote share loss of one one in seven…