Could we see a better measure of Cameron vs Brown? We are now in the final part of February and the only polls we have seen this month have been the usual Populus survey in the Times and the much misreported Sunday Times YouGov survey eight days ago. What we have not had is a proper voting intention question if Brown was leader – a measure, surely, while will increase in importance in the coming months. The last time this…
Could covering up baldness become an issue these days? Little politcal betting interest in the papers this morning apart from an Observer survey of branch chairs showing Ming Campbell and Chris Huhne running neck and neck. This has 19 branch chairs going for Campbell, 18 for Huhne and 6 for Simon Hughes. Clearly this was a very small sample but it does indicate the closeness of the race and is in line with the one published YouGov survey. Simon Hoggart…
Are £1,000s being spent keeping Huhne up and Ming down? For the second time in eight days there’s been unusual activity on the Lib Dem markets in the immediate aftermath of a TV programme that might have affected punters’ views of the chances of Chris Huhne and Ming Campbell. It happened, as the chart above on the Ming Campbell prices illustrates, in the minutes after last night’s Newsnight programme featuring the critical report on Chris Huhne by investigative journalist, Michael…
What’s he got to report about the Lib Dem favourite? A story running on Guido’s blog suggests that there is a less than flattering report about Chris Huhne on Newsnight on BBC2 this evening. It is said to be by Michael Crick who has built up a reputation for digging up things from the past of politicians. Indeed one of the great jokes is “Q. What are the five most terrifying words in the English language. A. Michael Crick is…
It’s 4/1 that he’ll be out by the end of the year After the weekend shooting incident in Texas in which the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, shot a friend in the face there’s now a market on whether he will hang onto his job. The Irish-based exchange, Tradesports, has two two betting options – that he’ll resign by June 30th or that he will resign by December 31st. The latest prices converted from the binary basis on which the exchange…
Just two week to go before new leader is elected The chopping and changes in the betting chart above show the extraordinary fluctuations there’ve been in the Lib Dem leadership race from the day after Charles Kennedy announced his resignation just six weeks ago. The chart shows the implied probability of success based on the Betfair betting exchange market. In the first phase the money piled on Ming Campbell after a YouGov members poll on the morning of Kennedy’s resignation…
Another case of media sloppiness when reporting a survey On Sunday morning the post-Dunfermline decline in the Gordon Brown betting price on succeeding Tony Blair was stopped and punters began betting on him again. This was prompted by widespread coverage of a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times that seemed to state that Labour would do better under the Chancellor than with Blair. This was the critical section of the report: “On the eve of a speech by Brown on…
Has Tony handed him a poison chalice? With the attention being on the new “soft focus” Gordon Brown’s wider role few people seem to have picked up on a couple of paragraphs in the Observer at the weekend about Labour’s campaign for the May local elections. For with a “a bloodbath of councillors across the country” expected the plan, apparently, is that Gordon Brown should have a role that means that he takes the rap for any failures. According to…