Could now be the moment to sell Labour? Over the past six months I’ve been trying to make money on the general election spread markets by buying and selling the number of Labour seats. The art is to try to anticipate the polls because they drive punter sentiment. And what drives the polls, of course, is the media and we have just gone through almost two months when Labour has been almost the only story in town. Once the novelty…
Whose statement came over better? The strangest part of the latest terror crisis is that there’s no Tony Blair. We’ve got so used to the ex-PM’s approach that to watch a crisis evolve without Blair’s trembling voice is something that we are simply not used to. Just contrast the short piece to camera that Gordon did after his Downing Street meetings with Blair’s performances on similar occasions. As well as the presentational differences between the two men there was no…
Can Leigh force his party off the middle-ground? This is Edward Leigh – the anti-abortion, anti contraception, anti-genetic research and anti-gay rights campaigner who is calling for his party to shift the policy focus away from the centre ground back to traditional “Tory values”. Perhaps he ought to read this piece by the usually well-informed writer, who also uses the term “Mole” in the First Post. Earlier in the week he wrote on the Davies defection: “..What is becoming increasingly…
Is July a good by election month for the LDs? One of the big bets of the Gordon Brown era has been that “Labour losing a by election” might be the first to happen from a range of options listed by William Hill. Given that almost all the other items in the market – “Raith Rovers winning promotion”, “A full UK withdrawal from Iraq”, “Gordon and Sarah having another child” etc – seem far more remote the 10/1 that was…
Gordon gets his predicted bounce at last There are reports of two polls for tomorrow’s papers showing Labour leads with the ICM survey for the Guardian having a the party at 39% against the Tories on 35%. I’ll report more as soon as there is news. UPDATE 2130: The actual shares in the polls are changes on the previous poll from the pollster are: ICM (in the Guardian) CON 35% (-2): LAB 39% (+7): LD 18% (-3) YouGov (in the…
Do Local Elections Point to Parliamentary Results? Very often, the answer to this question is No. Good sets of local election results for the Conservatives in 2000 and 2004 were followed by big defeats in general elections the following year. More specifically, seats where a party has a big lead in local elections one year, may produce an equally big lead for another party at Parliamentary level. To take one example, the Liberal Democrats have been a strong force in…
New spread market: How many weeks to go? Spread-betting works best when it is linked to a specific numerical outcome such as “how many seats will Labour get?” or “how many states will the Democrats take in the 2008 White House Race?”. You look at the prices and decide whether the total will be lower, in which case you sell, or higher in which case you buy. You choose how much you want to bet and that becomes your stake…
Site seen as being of “potential historical importance” Politicalbetting has been chosen by the British Library as one of very few blogs that will form part of the UK National Web Archive. A number of institutions are involved and the British Library is handling “sites of research value reflecting national culture and events of historical importance. These could include web pages focusing on key events in national life, museum web pages, e-theses, selected blogs to support research material and web-based…