Even though Baxter has SNP taking 47 of the 59 Scottish seats his latest projection has LAB just 5 short of a majority

Even though Baxter has SNP taking 47 of the 59 Scottish seats his latest projection has LAB just 5 short of a majority

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Latest from Electoral Calculus http://t.co/yOyYu1w1VO has LAB 5 short of majority pic.twitter.com/3r8BdjnsmU — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 31, 2014 I can’t quite work out how Martin Baxter is handling his monthly predictions given the sharp rise of the SNP. From his latest data, out last night, he appears to have made his usual national computation and then over-ridden the Scottish seat data with his Scotland specific seat calculation. The result, as can be seen, is that in the model the…

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Henry G Manson on Tony Blair’s criticism of Miliband’s election strategy

Henry G Manson on Tony Blair’s criticism of Miliband’s election strategy

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Tony Blair's attack on Miliband's strategy http://t.co/J8QUkmlb4x pic.twitter.com/FFvOdb5FZ9 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 31, 2014 Labour could win a different way in 2015 Tony Blair has not offered Ed Miliband the same courtesy It is a sign of desperation that Blair has intervened publicly with The Economist in this way. His ‘wing’ of the party is a ragged mess. Many closest supporters and former ministers are no longer MPs, a leadership contest that should have been a shoo-in for David…

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How LAB was completely under-rated by the betting markets as polls opened on May 6th 2010

How LAB was completely under-rated by the betting markets as polls opened on May 6th 2010

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It finished CON 306, LAB 258, LD 57 Quite often in political betting a narrative builds up about the infallibility of the betting markets. That somehow because punters are wagering their own hard-earned cash their judgement is better. In the table above are the commons seat prices at 7am on the morning of May 6th 2010 just as voting started in the general election. Those who had had the foresight to “buy” LAB on SportingIndex at 219 seats would have…

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UKIP are betting favourites to win in just five seats at GE2015

UKIP are betting favourites to win in just five seats at GE2015

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The bookies make UKIP the favourite to win in just 5 seats at GE2015. See list pic.twitter.com/lJ3MlN9KRw — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 30, 2014 Given the way that the purples dominated the political narrative for a large part of 2014 it comes as something of a surprise to observe, as Antifrank does on his excellent blog, that UKIP is clear favourite in just five seats, all of them currently held by the Tories. The constituencies are listed in the table…

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The SNP’s been issuing lots of data from its latest Panelbase poll but no GE15 voting intentions. Why?

The SNP’s been issuing lots of data from its latest Panelbase poll but no GE15 voting intentions. Why?

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Wiki table of all published Scottish GE15 voting intentions since June. Greens included pic.twitter.com/7YB6bVtyTr — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 30, 2014 Could it be that the lead over LAB is fading? Above is a table with all the Scottish GE15 voting intention polls that have been published since June and I was hoping this morning that a final survey could be added to the list. Over the last three nights the SNP has been emailing me detailed findings from its…

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Maybe the whole idea of national voting intention polls has had its day

Maybe the whole idea of national voting intention polls has had its day

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The one thing you can say as we enter election year is that there’s no consistent picture I’ve broken the final polls of 2014 into five broad areas for comparison. CON to LAB swing The most important measure and where there’s a huge variation from the Ipsos-MORI 2.65% swing to the TNS-BMRB and Opinium 7.15%. If it was the latter on May 7th then LAB would probably secure an overall majority even if it lost all but a handful of…

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LAB has a better than 36% chance of winning most votes on May 7th

LAB has a better than 36% chance of winning most votes on May 7th

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The Ladbrokes 7/4 is a good value bet Betting, as I always say, is not about making predictions but deciding whether the chances of something happening are better than the odds available. One that falls into that category at the moment is the 7/4 that Ladbrokes have on LAB winning most votes. The Tories are on 1/2. To my mind this is an over-reaction to events in Scotland where the LAB collapse since the IndyRef amounts to only about 1%…

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