The gambling lessons of Boris vs Ken
There’s a piece by me on the Guardian’s Comment is Free about the polling and betting on the mayoral election. Mike Smithson
Does Gordon’s future rest on Crewe and Nantwich?
What will the headlines be like three weeks today? It has become one of the great hardy annuals in UK political journalism – the Sunday papers after the May elections when year in year out the main story has been about the future of one party leader or another. And so it is today and above are a couple of the front pages. But is it different this time? Does Labour’s worst local election performance for forty years combined with…
MORI to review phone polling after Mayoral outcome
Why did the phone pollsters over-state Labour? Following last nights results the pollster Ipsos-MORI has announced that it will be carrying out a review of its approach and the phone firms generally asking “why empirically, they appear to have tended to over-estimate the Labour share of the vote”. An issue for the firm, of course, was that its final poll was completed a week before the election and a lot can happen in the final few days. That’s certainly true…
Time to put your winnings on PM Cameron?
Will the mood about Tory prospects now change? One of the most satisfying moments in betting is when you are transferring your profits into your bank account and it was good to see that Betfair settled the London mayoral market so so soon after last night’s results. For this activity is more than about the money but tangible confirmation of your predictive abilities. Anybody can have a view on a political outcome – the gambler backs up his with hard…
Have Kellner and YouGov been vindicated?
The figures are in line with the final poll? With the final result imminent it’s looking as though the final result will be in the region of a 6% margin for Boris Johnson – almost exactly in line with YouGov’s final poll that was reported exclusively here on Monday evening. This will come as a great relief to the online pollster which has found itself a political issue in the campaign. Right from the point that the firm was reporting…
Continuation
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The election thread continued….
Picture: a Jeremy Vine stunt from the BBC’s so-called coverage The story is illustrated with one of the stupid gimmicks that the BBC used overnight to masquerade the fact that their election coverage has been abysmal. What we saw was Jeremy Vine going into a bar in the Wild West and “shooting” at cans which then produced number showings how the Lib Dem did at previous elections. Eh? How the BBC must despise us by substituting this for a proper…