Could Tony’s leadership close with a dramatic triumph? Two polls by mainstream pollsters suggest that Labour is closing in on the SNP in the final phase of tomorrow’s Scottish election and hold out the prospect of Blair’s premiership ending on an electoral high. As has often been said here – “nobody ever got rich betting against Tony” ICM in the Scotsman found that the SNP is still ahead – by 2 per cent on the constituency vote and 1 per…
Will Ming’s party consolidate its second place position? With the big battle going on in Scotland and the attention on the Labour leadership the Lib Dems have been struggling, even more than usual, to get the attention of the media in the run-up to Thursday. That’s nothing new and is not necessarily a problem because local elections, where you can put a huge amount of resource in to key ward contests, suit their style of campaigning. Unlike Labour, which is…
What will be the Tory vote share on Thursday? There’s no doubt that all the parties will be spinning like mad in the next couple of days to talk up the prospects of their opponents and to dampen down expectations about themselves. We have this silly game every year so that whatever the outcome all the parties can claim that they have done better than expected. Yawn…Yawn. But what performances should we be expecting and what, in particular, will be…
How prices change in the final few days One of the features covered in my book “The Political Punter” is what happens to betting markets in the final few days before an election when the small body of knowledgeable political gamblers is joined by many in the wider betting community. They tend to follow favourites resulting in the prices of the most fancied options getting tighter and others moving out. So according to the book “If the person or party…
How well can the PBC community predict the elections? How many Labour members will be elected to the Scottish Parliament? (50 in 2003) 51-129 seats 46-50 seats 41-45 seats 36-40 seats 31-35 seats 0-30 seats How many Labour members will be elected to the Welsh Assembly? (30 in 2003) 31-60 seats 27-30 seats 24-26 seats 21-23 seats 0-20 seats What will be the net change in Labour’s total of local council seats as a result of Thursday elections?…
YouGov finds 9% support for the party in the Scotland elections An extraordinary poll next Thursday’s Scottish elections by YouGov for the Daily Telegraph shows a big surge for the Greens suggesting that they might provide the biggest sensation in next Thursday’s election – and maybe not just north of the border. In the list vote where people express a preference for a party for the “top-up” seats YouGov found with changes on last week: SNP 31% (-4): LAB 27%…
Could there be a shock west of Offa’s Dyke as well? While all the focus for the May 3rd elections has been on the possibility of an SNP win in Scotland is there a possibility that Labour’s position might not be as secure in Wales as the betting and the limited number of polls have suggested? Certainly, unlike Scotland, the battle for the Welsh Assembly has failed to attract the interest of punters, as the above Betfair prices show, with…
This week he makes his predictions Last week, I explained the background to these local elections. This week, I shall outline my predictions. Scotland is relatively easy to predict. The introduction of PR means that Labour would lose at least 100 council seats, even if their support stayed at its 2003 level. In all likelihood, Labour’s support will be lower than in 2003, and their loss of seats will be around 150. The SNP are likely to gain a similar…