Progress Yes – but where’s the next 5% going to come from? On Thursday David Cameron completed his first 100 days as Conservative leader and it’s perhaps a good moment to look at how he’s doing and whether his party is any nearer to power. The above chart illustrates the implied probability of which party will win most seats at the next General Election based on best prices on the betting exchanges. It shows a very significant move to the…
But leading Tory donors are not happy When David Cameron was first elected Tory leader just two and a half months ago he raised a few eyebrows both within and outside his party when he appeared to make the environment and global warming his first priority. For this has just not been perceived as a Tory issue. It was Margaret Thatcher, after all, who was attributed with the comment in 1986 that “any man who finds himself on a bus…
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…
Brown’s price tightens after “hatred bill” defeats Whenever Tony Blair seems to be having a bad time of it punters flock to bet on Gordon Brown as his successor. For the main consideration in this market is not whether the Chancellor will make it to Number 10 but how quickly it will happen. Punters like to bet on something knowing it’s going to be resolved within a reasonable time-scale because the last thing they want is to lock their stake…
But why are men still unconvinced? One of the main reasons why Tony Blair came to power in 1997 and was returned in 2001 and 2005 was his success with the female vote. From a situation where women were traditionally more Conservative than men the political gender balance was completely changed. But might that all be going back? For from the latest detailed polling data there are signs that the Tory recovery is coming from a huge change in female…
The Daily Telegraph is not happy It was this site in May 2005 that first talked of the Tories having a “clause 4 moment”. Then we used it in the context of choosing Ken Clarke which we thought would have “symbolic importance” because of the long Tory history of splits over the EU. The way that the new Tory leader has decided to make the NHS the subject of his first major policy pronouncement reflects his desire to make this…
Brown succession worries cause Balls price to ease One market we have not looked at for some time is “who will succeed Gordon Brown as Chancellor?” In one of those quirks that sometimes happen on betting markets the close Tory colleague of David Cameron, George Osborne is now 5/1. For Osborne to be Brown’s successor Tony Blair has to continue right up to the General Election, the Tories have to win, and David Cameron has to decide to leave Osborne…
Did you cash in on Cameron? The Times leads this morning with the headline “The Great Gamble” but it’s not about betting but whether the Tory choice of David Cameron is going to work. For me “The Great Gamble” consisted of the scores of betting contracts I entered into on the contest since May. With Guido expressing concern about one of the markets that I called wrongly can I reassure those concerned about my financial welfare that Cameron’s victory left…