Welcome to the first party since Disqus!! The regular PB get-togethers at the Dirty Dicks pub, just opposite Liverpool Street station in London, have been attracting more and more posters and lurkers. It’s a great chance to put faces to names and to chew over the issues of the day. Our pre-Christmas party is this Thursday starting at about 6.30pm. Fat Steve (why he calls himself that I don’t know) has arranged yet again that an area at the on…
Betfair Politics Has the red team got the wrong candidate? The chart shows the trend in Betfair prices in next May’s battle for the mayor of London in which Ken will be trying to win his old job back. I write “trend” which in this case means no real movement. Apart from a little drop for Boris six weeks ago from which he quickly recovered the figures have remained remarkably consistent. Punters rate this as a 65-35 battle. Given how…
Could her intervention be decisive? For those who love to follow and bet on the White House race it’s been an eventful and absorbing weekend with a lot of money being wagered. The table above from the Intrade website says it all – from being given a greater than 70% chance by the punters on the betting market only a few days ago the ex-Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, has seen his price edge down to its current 57.4%. At the…
YouGov on two massive infrastructure plans With the decision on HS2 – the high speed rail link to the midlands and the north – said to be imminent there’s some supporting YouGov polling on the project in the Sunday Times. As can be seen from the chart backing for the railway is running at 2 to one. Looking at the detailed data support seems to be pretty consistent across the party divides. What could be explosive is the route if…
But is this down to the methodology change? In what is only its second national voting intention survey Survation, for the Daily Star Sunday, is reporting a share for UKIP which is markedly higher than the other pollsters. Unlike its first poll this one was carried out online. In its first poll earlier in the month Survation used the telephone and found just 4% saying they would vote UKIP – so a massive difference between that and these latest numbers….
Betfair Politics The 4/7 betting favourite continues to defy the polls We are less than six weeks away from the point where real voters in real elections in the US start to vote to choose the Republican nominee for next November’s presidential election. For once those first results in the January 3rd 2012 Iowa caucus start to come in then the whole process will come alive and, if previous elections are anything to go by, change the whole dynamic. Very…
Will the Autumn Statement feature another U-turn? One of the early announcements the government made after coming to office was that in future the state pension would rise in line with whichever was the highest of the inflation rate, the increase in earnings, or 2.5% – the so-called Triple Lock. At the moment, it’s the inflation measure that’s highest and even using CPI, rather than RPI, that still lands the government with a hefty 5.2% increase. It’s a lot of…
Click to play Henry G Manson looks to next week’s strike In the 5 months since the last round of industrial action in June Ed Miliband has had ample opportunity to develop a stance of the forthcoming strikes over pensions. There was plenty of choice. This was a chance for Labour to develop an alternative policy or to defend the past reforms from a Labour government that made public sector pensions more affordable. The Labour leader could have tackled some…