Can Blair appeal to the liberal and illiberal at the same time?

Can Blair appeal to the liberal and illiberal at the same time?

In his attempt to pull off an unprecedented and spectacular third General Election victory Tony Blair is making crime/law & order/ and immigration the centre pieces of Labour’s policy portfolio. These were the main items in the Queen’s Speech last month and they are the centre part of his New Year’s message, just published. Before the 1997 Election Blair had the brilliant “Tough on Crime – Tough on the Causes of Crime” rhetoric to underpin his appeal to both the…

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Combine Blunkett & Blair – a possible arbitrage

Combine Blunkett & Blair – a possible arbitrage

One of the great pleasures of political gambling is when you find situations where whatever happens you end up a winner. With the news in the Sun today that David Blunkett will return to the Cabinet if Tony Blair wins the election then an interesting situation opens up. The current best price on Blunkett returning during 2005 is 4/1 which, given the Sun’s status as almost the “official mouthpiece of New Labour” for such things, makes that the best bet…

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Punters unimpressed by early election talk

Punters unimpressed by early election talk

The recent speculation that Tony Blair is thinking of a snap election in the first quarter of the year has had no impact on the betting markets. The price on the election being in the April-June period of 2005 has barely moved from the 1/6 to 1/5 region and you can still get 15/2 on the poll being before March 31st. In a good analysis of the election date options the Independent columnist and former Tory MP, Michael Brown observes…

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The poll that “missed” two out of five Tories

The poll that “missed” two out of five Tories

Have the polls really got better? Whenever we’ve criticised polling accuracy apologists for the industry have rushed to their defence saying that techniques have improved and things have got better since 2001 when the average overstatement of the Labour lead was 6.6%. But in a recent example since then, at the Scottish Parliament Elections last year, the overstatement by the conventional pollsters of the LAB-CON margin was two percentage points bigger than the national polls at the 1992 General Election,…

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Have the Lib Dems set themselves an impossible target?

Have the Lib Dems set themselves an impossible target?

Charles Kennedy’s Catch-22 At their conference in Bournemouth in September the Lib Dems made great play of the fact that their goal was to replace the Tories as the party of opposition and they are still repeating the line, even today, which looks set to become a big plank of their General Election campaign. Given the current dynamic of the Tories remaining static and the big switch being between Labour and the LDs then the party is likely to end…

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“The Website of Choice for Real Political Anoraks”

“The Website of Choice for Real Political Anoraks”

Telegraph commentator says LDs might be a good buy We don’t know whether Tony Blair is a regular on the site yet but a feature in the Daily Telegraph today by George Trefgarne states that “For real political anoraks, the website of choice is politicalbetting.com.” Whether the thousands of users who come onto the site each day share that view of themselves we do not know but there is little doubt that a huge amount of detailed knowledge about what…

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A Christmas present on David Blunkett

A Christmas present on David Blunkett

Victor Chandler offer 5/1 on Blunkett returning in 2005 A great price of 5/1 is available on David Blunkett returning to the Cabinet during 2005. The 5/1 from VC compares with just 7/4 on the same punt from Bet365 and we do not think it will stay at that level. It ‘s not often that two bookmakers offer such differing prices on the same market and, in our view, it is Chandlers which have got it marked wrongly. Get on…

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Happy Christmas from Politicalbetting

Happy Christmas from Politicalbetting

Mike Smithson & Robert Smithson Thanks to all our users and forum contributors for all you have done in the past nine months. The discussions are great and we’ve managed to create a community of activists and others interested in politics from almost the full gambit of UK parties where these matters can be discussed and debated in a calm non-confrontational manner. It all bodes well for the General Election campaign. Good betting.