Does the budget offer the chance of making a few quid? Tomorrow is budget day which has in recent years developed into a great political betting occasion. For some reason the bookies put a lot of interesting markets and smart punters can sometimes do very well. I like the markets on the words and phrases that Darling might say. the reason – well you can can do a quick computer scan on previous Darling speeches and find out whether he…
The above charts are from an interesting presentation I was at this morning by Ipsos-MORI which has been carrying out political polls in the UK for longer than any other firm and has a wealth of historical data. The two charts above seek to track the net approval ratings of Brown and Cameron and to put them in a historical context. The top one shows, month by month, how Brown compares with John Major while the bottom one has Cameron…
CONSERVATIVES 41% (-1) LABOUR 28% (-4) LIB DEMS 22% (+8) Are Labour voters shifting towards Clegg over Smeargate? Further to the update on the previous thread, the Ipsos MORI Political Monitor for April gives the Conservatives a 13-point lead over Labour, but it is the closing of the gap between Labour and the Lib Dems (from 18-points to just 6) that is the dramatic headline of this poll. Nick Clegg hasn’t had the best of months if you listen to…
Does the union have too much influence over the party? Somebody calling themselves “TrueLabour” posted this on LabourHome yesterday:- “If the Conservative party had a single donor called UnitePLC that provided 40% of its donations, provided the CEO of the Conservative party, had its Head of PR setup websites for the Conservatives, hired people like Derek McPoison to run smear campaigns, unfairly influenced the process whereby many of its UnitePLC employees become Conservative MPs through donations and Uniteplc block votes…
CON 40 (-3) LAB 30 (+4) LD 19 (-2) Brown’s party is back in the 30s After the two terrible polls at the weekend Labour strategists must have been fearing the worst from the Guardian’s ICM survey – the longest polling series in the UK. Well those projecting a big collapse got it wrong. The poll points to a Tory lead of just 10 points which is barely enough to produce an overall majority. This is seriously good news for…
Just listen to Nick Robinson on his return from holiday Yesterday I suggested that the West Yorkshire seat of Morley & Outwood might be good for a speculative punt because this had the makings of being the sensation of election night – a bit like Michael Portillo’s defeat at the 1997 general election. This, of course, is the new seat that Ed Balls will be fighting and on the face of it there is a pretty solid Labour majority. But…
Sporting Index Spread Markets The market average: CON majority of 62 Today Politicalbetting’s projection for the general election based on what’s going on in the betting markets takes on a new dimension with the inclusion for the first time of Betfair’s new election line betting market. This was launched last week and involves punters entering into bets at evens on whether the parties will get more or less than the stated numbers. The great thing about this new type of…
BBC News …but will it be a two-thirds majority? As Alistair Darling rises in the Commons for the Budget speech, thousands of miles away voters will be casting their ballots in South Africa’s fourth national election since the end of apartheid, with provincial elections also taking place on the same day. For the first time since that historic 1994 election, the ANC, on paper at least, finds itself facing a serious challenge – but as with football, it’s what happens…