Is the Prime Minister’s job on the line on Thursday? With just two days to go before voters in Hartlepool go to the polls a leading Guardian commentator has suggested that a victory for the Lib Dems could mark the end for Tony Blair. As part of extensive by-election coverage in the paper today Martin Kettle speculates:- It has been a long time since a party leader’s future hung on the future of a byelection. But it is true of…
Populus – Labour in third place nationally A series of bad national opinion surveys for Labour in the Sunday papers have transformed the betting for Thursday’s by-election in Hartlepool to elect a replacement for Peter Mandelson who has quit Westminster to become a Euro Commissioner. Yesterday morning we were suggesting that the 4/1 then available on the Lib Dems on the betting exchanges was “tempting”. As of the time of posting that price has tightened to 8/5. So yesterday a…
Labour – speaking up for drunks and irresponsible pet owners With the campaign going into its final weekend Labour remain very firm favourites to hold onto the seat vacated by Peter Mandelson. If you want to bet on Labour then the best price is 2/5 from PaddyPower. For the Lib Dems the fluctuating Betfair betting exchange price seems to offer the best value. The betting odds are in spite of Labour following precisely the same type of campaign that saw…
Have the pollsters and the punters got this one right? The betting markets, as we predicted, have closed down their books on the Hartlepool by-election and the only online market still operating, the Betfair betting exchange, has Labour at 1/5 favourites. But is there still a chance for Charles Kennedy’s party. Can the Lib Dems still pull it off in spite of that devastating NOP poll last Tuesday that had Labour 33% ahead? Polling methodology. From what we can gather…
Punters who have been playing the Tony Blair and Party Leader markets will be intrigued by the comments from broadcaster, Melvyn Bragg, about how close the Prime Minster came to stepping down in the late Spring. At one stage in mid-May the price on Gordon Brown being PM at the General Election touched evens and the timing of this seems to coincide with the period that Bragg and others were talking about. What’s said to have changed Tony Blair’s mind…
By-election a test-bed for Labour’s new anti-LD approach A conventional bookmaker, Paddy Power, has now joined the betting exchange, Betfair and opened a market on the Hartlepool by-election to find a replacement for Peter Mandelson.The prices are:- LAB 4/7: LD 5/4: CON 8/1: UKIP 14/1 The Tory price seems a bit mean given you can get 29/1 on Betfair. UKIP are so out of this race following their decision not to have a high-profile candidate that the 14/1 is ridiculously…
1pm UPDATE Six hours after the polls opened in the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-elections the markets are moving a bit away from the Liberal Democrats. There is still very little money going on – just over £10,000 in total at both elections on Betfair – that it seems that supporters of none of the parties have much confidence. Of that total just £904 has been matched in Labour in Leicester and £696 in Birmingham. With so many…
UPDATE NOON Will it be a day of despair for Labour? The Lib Dems go into polling day at the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-election as firm odds-on favourites. At time of posting it was 30/100 in Leicester and 4/5 in Birmingham – the latter price holding in spite of continued tricky coverage for the party over their candidate’s day job in the mobile phone masts industry. At noon the Lib Dem prices in both seats had eased…