The 5/6 on Cameron being “the winner” looks good Quick off the mark Irish bookmakers PaddyPower has just opened a market on who in an independent poll will be judged the “winner” of the first TV debate of the general election campaign. I assume that all bets are void if the debate does not take place and you’ll get your stake back. I can see potential problems in settling the market if, for instance, separate pollsters rate it differently. This…
Sky News What’ll be the impact on the campaign? Things seem to be moving over a TV debate between the three main leaders during the general election campaign. There are reports that David Frost could be the chairman while Sky News has launched its own campaign. Is it going to happen? The challenge is that this could play such a vital role in the campaign that Cameron, Clegg and Brown (assuming it is he) have to be ultra-cautious. This would…
How dangerous is this September for Mr. Brown? The holidays are over, the party conferences are only a week or so away, and now we get the latest Lockerbie stories linking, in however a tenuous way, the prime minister. Mr. Brown hung on in the aftermath of the June 4th election disaster when Labour lost all of its remaining county councils, its national vote drop in the EU election dropping to just over 15% and what appeared to be a…
BBC News General Election betting: Ladbrokes William Hill Victor Chandler PaddyPower Mike Smithson
Article Updated 1855 Ipsos-Mori But remember what happened on May 1 1997? The above chart from MORI shows the changing to responses since 1997 to its economic optimism question which has been asked in the same manner for several decades. As can be seen there’s been a sharp rise in recent months and now the numbers are showing a net positive. Twelve years ago, just after the election, the trend continued and it touched +28 points – last month it…
A new electoral dynamic or an error? One of the frustrations of yesterday’s public holiday in most of the UK was that the Ipsos-MORI offices were not open and we have yet to see the detail and the analysis of the August political monitor which featured in Sunday’s Observer. For there was an intriguing line in Gaby Hinsliff’s report that went against all the received opinion on voting behaviour – that Labour do better with higher turnouts. Her comment that…
Why I’m not risking any cash at the moment? Over the past four months I have studiously avoided the spread betting markets on the number of seats each of the parties will get at the next election – something that’s felt very strange because for years this has been my main betting arena. My Labour sell and Lib Dem buy contracts have been closed down at reasonable profits as I have waited to see how things look in for the…
CON 42 (nc) LAB 26 (-2) LD 18 (nc) So all the August polls are in the same territory Whether or not there’s a big effort at the Daily Telegraph to get us to buy printed copies of their paper I do not know but their August YouGov poll is now out and is not online. The figures are as above with the changes on the Sunday Times YouGov poll – the last from the pollster – in mid-August. Then…