How will the betting markets look after the budget Just seven weeks to go to a May 5th election and the contest has started to attract the attention of serious punters. One high roller on Monday “sold” Labour at £1,000 a seat at 350 seats – IG Index’s biggest General Election bet so far. If Tony Blair’s party does as well as last time then this punter could lose (400-350) * £1000 = £50,000. On the other hand if Labour…
Crosby campaign consolidates the Tory right flank An extraordinary aspect from the detailed data of today’s NOP survey in the Independent is that support for UKIP has all but disappeared. According to Anthony Wells at UK Pollingreport the pollster found just one person – specifically a woman between the ages of 35-44 living in the London region – who said she was voting for the party that secured more than 16% of the vote in last year’s Euro Elections. Ever…
Will Boris and Blunkett be punished for the Spectator affairs? Two new seat markets just out feature the two front benchers – David Blunkett and Boris Johnson – who resigned their positions in the wake of huge press coverage about their private lives. Interestingly both resignations were linked to the right-wing magazine, the Spectator. Boris is of course the editor and David Blunkett had an affair with the journal’s publisher. For Henley Skybet are offering 2/7 on Johnson’s majority increasing…
Did Tony Blair call it wrongly on the terror bill? The first poll since last week’s parliamentary battle on the terror laws shows a big move to the Tories. NOP’s monthly poll for the Independent has with changes from their poll a month LAB 39(-3): CON 34% (+4): LD 19%(+1). The survey was carried out between Friday and Sunday, so would have been mainly in the aftermath of the Parliamentary battle. Last week the view was that Tory and Lib…
Will the Cardinal’s backing help the Tories? According to the Times this morning the Catholic Church has made “a dramatic entry into the election campaign by backing Michael Howard’s stance on abortion and withdrawing its traditional support for Labour.” The report says that the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, ensured that abortion would play a greater part in the coming election than any other by praising the Tory leader’s call for a cut in the legal abortion limit from…
Has it all been set up so Gordon can come to the rescue? Anybody thinking of backing Labour on the Commons spread markets should do it before the budget while prices are at their current levels. Because the perception is that Labour’s campaign is going poorly there’s been a steady decline in the party’s price which is now 9-10 seats down on the end of January. The current spread prices are totally out of kilter with what the opinion polls…
But good news for Charles Kennedy Women voters have turned against Tony Blair according to an ICM poll for tomorrow’s News of the World. The main points:- Fewer than one in 10, (9%), say he should fulfil his pledge to serve a full third term as Prime Minister if re-elected. A quarter say he should go before the poll, expected on May 5. Almost one in three, (29%), say he should quit immediately. While 62% of women see Mr Blair…
Will the Budget change the market sentiment about Labour? The terror bill and the confident start to the Tory election campaign has caused punters on the spread markets to move away slightly from Labour resulting in a drop of about eight seats. Now Gordon Brown’s pre-election budget is coming up and we expect that the market might turn. Already the Chancellor has had a £2.1bn boost from the way expenditure on roads is calculated which should free up more money…