Could covering up baldness become an issue these days? Little politcal betting interest in the papers this morning apart from an Observer survey of branch chairs showing Ming Campbell and Chris Huhne running neck and neck. This has 19 branch chairs going for Campbell, 18 for Huhne and 6 for Simon Hughes. Clearly this was a very small sample but it does indicate the closeness of the race and is in line with the one published YouGov survey. Simon Hoggart…
Another case of media sloppiness when reporting a survey On Sunday morning the post-Dunfermline decline in the Gordon Brown betting price on succeeding Tony Blair was stopped and punters began betting on him again. This was prompted by widespread coverage of a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times that seemed to state that Labour would do better under the Chancellor than with Blair. This was the critical section of the report: “On the eve of a speech by Brown on…
Was the Chancellor the big loser? The next Labour leader betting markets could be interesting over the next few days as politicians and punters digest the sensational by-election loss to the Lib Dems of the seat where Gordon Brown lives. Over the past three weeks there has been a sharp move back to Gordon in the betting on who will replace Tony Blair – his price tightening from 0.53/1 to 0.42/1. This has been driven by the new view at…
Could there be a sensation in the Dunfermline and West Fife where voting closed at 10pm and the count is now going on? The prices are changing by the second. Mike Smithson
The above chart shows how punters on the Betfair market changed their view of the two front runners while and immediately after the Lib Dem Question Time debate was taking place. The numbers are the implied probability of success based on the betting prices. What is starting is how the Huhne price tightened sharply in the minutes after the programme. Mike Smithson
Second YouGov poll on Lib Dem members now released I have just received this from Peter Kellner – boss of YouGov. The attached data has just been released, from our latest poll of Lib Dem members. Huhne: 38%: Campbell 34%: Hughes 27% The run-off figures, eliminating Hughes are:Huhne 52%: Campbell 48%. According to the accompanying spreadsheet the survey took place from February 7-9 and the client was John Stevens. The number of members in the sample was 401. This is…
Will even a modest performance be spun as a “victory”? With hundreds of activists from the four main parties heading to Dunfermline this weekend ahead of Thursday’s Westminster by-election there can be no doubt, surely, that Labour is going to hang on. The party got 20,111 last May to the Lib Dems’ 8,549, the SNP’s 8,026 and just 4,376 votes for the Tories. This contest has got a “Labour with a substantially reduced majority on a low turnout” written all…
In the article on the Guardian ICM poll on Tuesday I made certain comments in relation to getting data from the pollster ICM about a poll in the News of the World earlier in the month. I said that I had requested the full data-set which had not been forthcoming. It now transpires that the email address I used to contact Nick Sparrow of the firm was incorrect and did not get delivered. I also made the statement “ICM is…