Anybody who has just read Ben Brogan’s report that Sir Ian Blair might walk should call William Hill about a market that was launched two hours earlier. This is the email I got from the firm “William Hill are offering odds of 6/4 that Sir Ian Blair will cease to be Metropolitan Police Commissioner on or before December 31, 2007 – and 1/ 2 that he will still be in the job on that date. ‘Controversy is raging over whether…
Who’ll come out best in the first test of White House hopefuls? Just four years ago the person that everybody was talking about for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 White House race was the ex-governor of Vermont, Howard Dean. He had built up a hugely effective fundraising machine which surpassed, even, the sums raised by Bill Clinton in his campaigns. In the run up to the first electoral test, the Iowa caucus, he was well ahead in the national…
David Herdson reviews a new Betfair betting market One of the most popular political betting markets over the last couple of years was who would follow Tony Blair as Labour leader, which given Blair’s announcement that it would be during this parliament meant that person would also become the next Prime Minister. Because of the dominant position Gordon Brown held as Blair’s heir apparent, there were two key questions to that market: how likely was it that it would /…
Would Blackpool have been different if a poll had not been suppressed? November 1st, the day Labour was planning for the general election, is probably a good moment to reflect on the amazing events of the past six weeks. And one element that nobody’s really focussed on is the impact of Observer decision not to publish on September 29th an Ipsos-Mori poll showing the Tories 13% behind. For if it had been the splash lead rather than what did appear…
Your chance to put your questions Politicalbetting has invited both the contenders in the Lib Dem leadership battle, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne to take part in online hustings where users of the site can put their questions and discuss the issues with the contenders. The first, with Chris Huhne, will take place at 11am this Sunday morning and will last for about an hour and a half. A special thread will be opened shortly before this time. The format…
What are the implications of the collapse of the anti-EU party? On June 10th 2004 in the last European elections, UKIP received 2.7 million votes and gained twelve seats in the European Parliament. Their national vote share of just under 17% put them in third place ahead of the Lib Dems and all the talk was of the party doing terrible damage to Michael Howard Conservatives in the ensuing general election. When that vote came, just eleven months later, the…
But the Tories take the hit for the LD surge After predicting on yesterday’s ComRes thread that the ICM October poll for the Guardian would report a 5% Tory lead I feel a bit of satisfaction that that indeed is what has come about. These are the shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster tkaen in the immediate aftermath of the Tory conference CON 40% (-3): LAB 35% (-1): LD 18% (+4) Also last week I was…
Is there a political risk in taking unilateral action? According to the First Post online magazine tonight Gordon Brown is planning to take unilateral steps to stop the Tory multi-millionaire, Lord Ashcroft from pouring money into marginal seats between elections. At the same time there will be no constraints on the amount the trade unions can give to Labour – something that the Tories offered in exchange for agreeing to the marginal seats proposal. This looks set to be a…