Markets look set to move further to Labour Further evidence of improving Labour fortunes comes in today’s ICM poll in the Guardian which has:- LAB 38: CON 30: LD 22: UKIP 2 The story is online. The margin is one per cent less than an ICM poll last month which had Labour on 39% to the Tories on 30%. The Guardian in its myopic style never seems to recognise polls which it did not commission, even from ICM, and tells…
What are the General Election mathematics? With the prolonged fox-hunting debate now down to the final day the question for general election punters and predictors is which party will benefit? Will the number of votes gained by Labour from those opposed to hunting exceed those gained by the Tories from the pro-hunting lobby. And would these people have voted for their parties anyway? This is not an easy call and the two factions might balance each other out. When we…
Regular users will notice that we’ve changed the design of the site. Thanks to my son Robert and his partner, Lucille, for the work they’ve done. The new masthead features pictures of the US President, the possible challengers for next time, the three main UK party leaders and politicians we think might play a future leadership role. For Labour Gordon Brown is obvious but, a bit with a tongue in our cheeks we’ve chosen Boris Johnson for the Tories and…
Has the Indy swapped its polling winner for a polling loser? A new poll in the Independent today by NOP gives Labour a 9% lead. The shares are:- CON 30: LAB 39: LD 20. Allowing for turnout, however, the Strathclyde University elections expert, John Curtice, says the lead drops by 4% amongst those certain to vote. [UPDATE] We have now been told that the poll was weighted by stated past vote. NOP have only just returned to conducting national UK…
Can “below the radar” campaigning give Michael Howard a chance? A good piece by Brian Wheeler on BBC News online on Lynton Crosby – the Australian Campaigning guru who has been hired by the Tories to run the coming election campaign. It notes:- The 48-year-old has been described as a “master of the dark political arts” and “the Australian Karl Rove,” a reference to George Bush’s legendary campaign adviser. In 2002, Australian newspaper The Age described Mr Crosby as “one…
But you can get TWICE the price on US focused markets With London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic games being presented to the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland gamblers on either side of the Atlantic are taking a completely different view of its chances. In London the price is down to 3/1 but in markets serving the US you can get more than 6/1. It’s the same story the other way round with New York. In the UK you…
Can Blair take a lead from George Bush? No doubt re-assured by George Bush’s re-election in the US Tony Blair was reported in the Independent at the weekend to have decided to face the Iraq issue head on in the coming campaign. Tony Blair has decided to confront opponents of the Iraq war head on by placing the “war on terror” at the heart of Labour’s campaign in the coming general election. The Prime Minister has privately admitted that attempts…
The week’s 10 most popular political betting markets As a new feature we plan to list every weekend the top ten political betting markets based on “click-throughs” from the site. We are doing this for two reasons:- The weekly table is interesting in itself By recording the price of the favourite in each market we will build up a good archive showing how prices move. We’ve created a special category so that users can quickly link to each weekly Top…