How do you square Dunfermline with the national polls? According to the latest round of surveys from all the main pollsters Labour is performing at or above what it got at the May 2005 General Election. Yet on Thursday its support collapsed and we saw such a massive swing to the Liberal Democrats – which has been recording drops of upto 10 points on last year. From what I can gather Dunfermline was the first occasion in modern times when…
Did the Cameron “flip-flop” attack bring Iraq into the campaign? Just 19 hours before polls opened in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election Tony Blair produced a leaflet at Prime Minister’s Questions to reinforce his attacks on David Cameron for flip-flopping. It had been delivered to the seat’s most famous resident, Gordon Brown, and Blair quoted comments from it on the Tory policy on Iraq. This completely undermined David Cameron and there was general agreement that the Prime Minister’s performance…
Was the Chancellor the big loser? The next Labour leader betting markets could be interesting over the next few days as politicians and punters digest the sensational by-election loss to the Lib Dems of the seat where Gordon Brown lives. Over the past three weeks there has been a sharp move back to Gordon in the betting on who will replace Tony Blair – his price tightening from 0.53/1 to 0.42/1. This has been driven by the new view at…
Could there be a sensation in the Dunfermline and West Fife where voting closed at 10pm and the count is now going on? The prices are changing by the second. Mike Smithson
The above chart shows how punters on the Betfair market changed their view of the two front runners while and immediately after the Lib Dem Question Time debate was taking place. The numbers are the implied probability of success based on the betting prices. What is starting is how the Huhne price tightened sharply in the minutes after the programme. Mike Smithson
Is Chris Huhne right to start dancing in the streets? After an extraordinary day on the Lib Dem leadership markets and the busiest forty-eight hours since PB.C started the big question is how much can we rely on YouGov – the internet pollster? After the firm’s final poll before the December announcement on David Cameron’s election I raised my doubts about the YouGov approach. What worried me was that the same group of people, in that case Tory members, was…
Second YouGov poll on Lib Dem members now released I have just received this from Peter Kellner – boss of YouGov. The attached data has just been released, from our latest poll of Lib Dem members. Huhne: 38%: Campbell 34%: Hughes 27% The run-off figures, eliminating Hughes are:Huhne 52%: Campbell 48%. According to the accompanying spreadsheet the survey took place from February 7-9 and the client was John Stevens. The number of members in the sample was 401. This is…
Labour 0.07/1 to hold the seat in Gordon’s back yard If there is going to be a shock in today’s by-election in Dunfermline and West Fife then the first indications should be seen on the betting exchange markets. For if there is just a sniff that something might be happening around the campaign HQs of the main parties then information will seep out and punters will try to cash in. All unmatched betting exchange bets are cancelled at 7am so…