Has a woman ever failed when she has got so close? Before the weekend the publishers of my book now called “The Political Punter – How to make money by betting on politics”, emailed to suggest that I write an additional chapter with my calls on the 2007 French Presidential election, the 2008 White House race and the next UK General Election. No pressure there then! For by the time of the French election at the end of April and…
Is now the time to bet on a hung parliament? A new YouGov poll for today’s Sunday Times shows a small movement from the Tories to Labour and that the “others” total remains constant. These are today’s shares with comparisons on the last YouGov poll at the end of January: CON 37% (-1): LAB 32% (+1): LD 18% (nc): OTH 13% (nc). Putting these numbers into the seat calculators produces a CON 277: LAB 294: LD 47: OTH 32 seat…
Is the smoking dope admission going hurt or aid the Tories? These are some of the early front pages. What’s the impact going to be? The most positive feature for Cameron is that after weeks and weeks of hardly getting any coverage the Tories are back on the front pages. He has never denied taking drugs so the “hypocrite” charge will be hard to stick. Looking at the way Barack Obama dealt with his youthful indiscretions there really is a…
Will Gordon forgive the Environment Secretary’s QT gaffe? These two screen shots show the expression on David Miliband’s face within a few seconds of his gaffe about Gordon Brown during BBC’s Question Time on Thursday. For as we have noted before the still photograph is often much more revealing than a moving image. By going through the recording frame by frame it’s apparent that the youthful Environment Secretary realised immediately the implications of what he had said. For he had…
Why is the Telegraph’s favourite party doing so badly? In last night’s by-elections, UKIP won the sort of votes which normally go to joke candidates. In Croydon LBC, Bensham Manor, they took 40 votes, 1.5% of the total, which was down from 305 in 2006. In Nuneaton BC, Bede, they won 8. They can at least take consolation from the fact that they beat the candidate for the Official Monster Raving Looney Party in Croydon. But their 8 votes in…
Is this a way of for Gordon to distinguish himself from the Blair era? According to the Independent this morning there is a big campaign going on at Westminster to block BSkyB (Chairman R. Murdoch) from gaining effective control over ITV. More than 60 MPs have signed up to a motion calling on the Government to use its special powers to prevent such a move taking place. They want it referred to the Competition Commission. The MPs fear that with…
Who’s betting against Gordon? Conventional wisdom has it that Gordon Brown will become Labour leader and Prime Minister sometime this year. So why aren’t the markets showing the same confidence in him? His odds on the Betfair exchange have been 0.20/1 plus or minus a few hundredths for over two months now after dropping dramatically in October last year. Although we don’t know exactly when the succession will be, we do know that we’re getting closer to it and so…
Is this how gains-losses board will look on May 4th? I’ve already started trying to find betting opportunities for one contest that takes place on May 3rd – the race for the mayor of Bedford where I live. Hopefully local bookies will once again be quoting prices because it looks like an interesting battle of big personalities. Last time the boss of a local newspaper group won as an independent on a very low turnout in a standalone election. The…