Betfair revive their leader line-up market One of the great betting markets during the last parliament was Betfair’s leader line-up when you had to predict which of those who had been heading their parties two and a half years earlier would still be there on election day. So the options then were Blair, IDS and Kennedy; Blair and IDS; Blair and Kennedy; only Blair; only IDS; only Kennedy and none of them. This became a great place to punt as…
Can Gordon risk his poll leads falling off? Whenever the subject of an early election, perhaps as soon as October, is mentioned people dismiss the idea because of Gordon’s character. The man, they argue, is not a risk taker and why should he chance everything on an early poll. Fine. But is waiting the risky strategy? As we’ve seen with Cameron and the Tories the opinion polls can move very fast and the longer an election is delayed the greater…
Should the Guardian’s pollster have followed the Mori approach? Reproduced above is the detailed finding from the Guardian’s ICM poll that was played big by the paper yesterday and which has sent shock waves throughout the Tory party. It also has been covered extensively in other parts of the media and was the main reason why William Hill opened its “next Tory leader” market. Yet looking at the options that were put respondents were not offered the chance in both…
Can Brown really take much comfort from this? With all the focus over the past five or six days being on the Tory failure in last Thursday’s by elections to make any progress there has been almost no scrutiny of the Labour numbers. Reproduced above are the main party performances in the four by elections that Labour has had to defend since the general election. While not wanting to sound like William Rees-Mogg the votes from Sedgefield last Thursday were…
Can Dave withstand the pressure? With the polls continuing to go against him William Hill has opened a market on the next Tory leader. At the weekend I suggested that Cameron should pre-empt such a move by putting his job on the line in a “back me or sack me” move. These are the prices W Hague 9/4 D Davis 5/1 G Osborne 10/1 A Lansley 10/1 L Fox 12/1 A Duncan 12/1 N Herbert 14/1 T Villiers 16/1 P…
The money goes on the Brown bounce being sustained Even though today’s ICM poll in the Guardian, reported in the previous thread, shows a one point drop in Labour’s lead the sentiment on the betting markets is moving towards Labour being returned with an overall majority for an unprecedented fourth term. On the Cantor Spreadfair commons seat market this morning prices are CON 252-255.7: LAB 307.2-310.4: LD 48.1-54 seats. So the mid-point in the Labour spread is nearly 309 seats…
But no by election bounce for Gordon The July ICM survey for the Guardian is just out and shows a one point decline in the Labour lead. The figures compared with the last ICM poll a week and a half ago are CON 32% (-1): LAB 38% (-2): LD 20% (+1) The survey took place from the Friday after the by elections and finished on Sunday evening. So the headlines were mostly dominated by Labour’s success and the progress that…
And ICM looks like another 6-7% Labour lead With the flooding story continuing to dominate the news the Guardian has postponed publication of its ICM survey for July which was carried out over the weekend in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s by elections. So we don’t know the precise figures but Michael Crick on Newsnight last night suggested it was in the same region as the last ICM poll a week and a half ago which had Labour 7% ahead….