But there are less risky bets The new betting markets are coming thick and fast and the latest on the scene is whether or not there will be a hung parliament. The prices are 7/2 against there being one and 1/6 on there not. To win a “yes” bet here Labour would have to get 323 seats or less. We are not particularly impressed by the price and there are other less risky ways of having a punt on Labour…
Is Fortress Labour vulnerable? All the talk on the site is how can the Tories and Lib Dems make inroads into the the scores of seats that they have to take in order to make an impact at the coming election. But there’s hardly any attention paid to how Labour is going about holding onto the exceptional and disproportionate gains that it chalked up in 1997 and 2001. In both elections it will be recalled Labour’s seat tally was well…
It’s 11/4 against 60% or more As the election day gets closer – whether it’s May 5 or not – the bookies are opening new markets and you can now bet on turnout. This is the market from Skybet. 0 – 55% 11/8 60 +% 11/4 55 – 60% 11/8 In 2001 just 21.87 m out of the total electorate of 37m bothered to go to the polls producing a turnout percentage of just over 59%. Is that going to…
Is 5/1 against it NOT being May 5th now a good bet? The current price on the Betfair “Will it be May 5th” market is 5/1 against that not being the day. Could the Royal Wedding impact on the time-table and force Tony Blair to move the election back or bring it forward? I am grateful to Anthony Wells for advising that the election timetable is fixed in stone. The polling day is automatically exactly 17 days after the dissolution…
Will the General Election end the YouGov controversy? With the Tories claiming that the pollsters have a systemic bias to Labour there’s going to be much more focus on the battle that has been dividing the polling world – the one between the internet pollster, YouGov and the firms that carry out conventional surveys. A flavour of the ferocity of the argument can be seen in the comments from Andrew Copper, boss of Populus, in these exchanges here from UK…
Politicalbetting user Daniel Hamilton has set up a new site providing a discussion forum platform on every single one of the 646 seats that will be contested at the General Election. Lots of familiar names from our discussion forums are contributing to the site which looks like it will be an excellent resource for the coming campaign. We had been planning something like this ourselves but our main conern in recent weeks has been to ensure that Politicalbetting’s infrastructure is…
bbc Can Lynton Crosby really grapple with the Labour spin machine? After more than a decade of almost total dominance of the media could the New Labour machine, now joined again by Alistair Campbell, be finally meeting its match. Is the Tory party getting its PR and campaigning act together? In the past week or so we’ve seen moves by Michael Howard’s party that would have been unheard at previous elections. There’s the concerted attack on Campbell’s return to centre…
bbc Take the interviewer away and Blair’s party drops 7% Starkingly contrasting figures to the telephone-based Populus Poll have just been published on the YouGov website. They are from the Mail on Sunday survey on immigration which also collected party share information which is what is now available. The figures are with comparisons to today’s Populus poll: CON 33 (+1), LAB 34 (-7), LD 23 (+5). It is important to note that the field-work took place a day ahead of…