Will this help you with your by election betting?

Will this help you with your by election betting?

How the PB community split at 2.15 am I’m not normally a great fan of instant online quickie polls like the one we did yesterday on people’s forecasts for today’s Glasgow East by-election. Those who take part are self-selecting and the technical savvy could vote more than once. Yet the result that’s come out totally reflects my own view of what will happen today. This is a 50-50 shot even though the betting markets make Labour the 0.31/1 odds-on favourite….

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Where do the Lib Dems go from here?

Where do the Lib Dems go from here?

What happens when the third party works – but doesn’t win? A strongly argued post by the Norfolk Blogger, Nick Starling, has been picked up by several in the blogsphere for the way it powerfully sets out the dilemma facing the Lib Dems. Reflecting on the massive changes in the political scene Nick notes that Cameron has “turned around the fortunes of the Conservative “brand”, removed the tarnish from it and has stopped people feeling embarrassed to be openly Tory….

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The Tories hit 47% with MORI

The Tories hit 47% with MORI

Will this increase the nervousness amongst MPs in the marginals? The pollster which has been operating in the UK for longer than anybody else has just published their Monitor for July 2008 and it shows a move towards the Conservatives and the biggest lead for the party in decades. These are the figures with comparisons on a month ago CON 47% (+2): LAB 27% (-2): LD 15% (-2). These figures, like all MORI surveys are based on those “certain to…

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Will the polls make a defeat even harder for Labour?

Will the polls make a defeat even harder for Labour?

What have the double digit leads done for expectation management? One of the main tasks for party spinners ahead of any election these days is to down-play your chances on the Thursday. For a failure to achieve an outcome that has been widely expected is much much worse than if everybody thinks that the party was going to go down anyway. Given the precarious position of Labour and Mr. Brown nationally the Glasgow East aftermath is going to be much…

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Things to do in Denver when you’re … a blogger

Things to do in Denver when you’re … a blogger

For one week in August, Politicalbetting.com will be reporting from Denver Back in March, I sent in some application forms to the DNC and RNC so that PoliticalBetting.com could be credentialled alongside other media outlets to cover the Nominating Conventions from Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul respectively. The RNC gave us an unequivocal rejection (the Right seems less interested in what Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) called “a Series of Tubes“ than the Left) but the Democrats have made some accommodation for…

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PSO Glasgow poll had no “certainty to vote” question

PSO Glasgow poll had no “certainty to vote” question

Is this why Labour was so far ahead? After my moan this morning about Progressive Scottish Opinion, the pollster that carried out last week’s Scottish Daily Mail Glasgow East poll, the information has been released to me within the past hour and two things stand out:- Although respondents were asked how they voted at the general election this does not appear to have been used to weight the sample. The stated weightings were that it should be “be representative of…

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What price will the SNP move out to?

What price will the SNP move out to?

When is the best time to get your bet on? I have no idea who is going to win the Glasgow East by election on Thursday. The latest poll at the weekend gives it to Labour by a whopping 17% margin but comes from a pollster that is not a British Polling Council member and so far has ignored my written requests for the data and the detail on how the survey was carried out. The failure to provide PB…

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