Will Tony, Peter and Michael hang on to their jobs? While the focus has been on by-elections and their implications for the General Election there continues to be lots of activity on the people markets – particularly on those involving Tony Blair. Given the confident way he dealt with the Butler report and the by-election aftermath we think that the odds on Blair to be Prime Minister Before End of Next General Election at 8/15 are pretty generous. We can’t…
Or is the “Love Affair” over? With the latest spread prices showing, not surprisingly, a further move to the Lib Dems at the expense of the Conservatives the big question for those trying to “call” the next General Election is whether and how much Labour can recover from poll ratings that the party has not seen in a generation. Is this just the normal dip of a party in power, as argued here by the head of Populus, Andrew Cooper,…
John Kerry and John Edwards – looking to maximise their appeal After Day Two of the Boston Convention the Kerry-Edwards ticket for the Democratic nomination is just nosing ahead ahead of Bush in the betting markets as the expected Boston bounce takes effect. The Betfair betting exchange has, at time of posting, Kerry at 20/21 against 1/1 for Bush. With most UK bookmakers the Kerry price has tightened to 5/6, the same as Bush. In the US the Iowa Electronic…
Andrew Cooper, head of Populus, posted this comment last night about his latest 30-28-28 poll. We thought it should be given a wider platform. Don’t look at the micro-movements – concentrate on the big picture. The next election result is not going to be 30-28-28; if the election had happened over the weekend when we polled the result wouldn’t have been 30-28-28. People are by and large aware of the context in which they’re being asked. The most telling number…
Populus poll means – “Lib Dems four seats off being official opposition: Labour losing majority” Apart from a marking down of the Lib Dems the betting markets have hardly reacted to yesterday’s sensational Populus poll in the News of the World which when translated into seats means that Labour would not have an overall majority in the House of Commons and the Lib Dems would be just four seats short of being the official opposition. The figures with changes on…
If we all thought the same there’d be no political betting! Yesterday’s SELL CALL on Labour at 346 seats in the spread markets has created a good debate and opened up a split between those who think that in spite of their current performance Labour are going to do just fine in the General Election and those who think they’ll have a struggle. Nobody, though, has been bold enough to put the argument that the Tories will end up winners!…
scotlibdems After our Lib Dem BUY CALL – now SELL LABOUR Five weeks ago we advised that backing Charles Kennedy’s Lib Dems for 58 seats or more on the spread markets was a good value bet. Those who took the advice could now get out at a profit of four times their unit stake. But don’t – even with the buy price rising last night to 66 we believe that this is still value for money. Now another big opportunity…
Populus sets out its case Opinion polls are critical tools for political gamblers and in recent weeks we’ve made a number of observations about their accuracy. In particular we have looked at what happened at the Euro Elections last month when surveys by YouGov, in the Telegraph, and Populus, in the Times, could be compared with real results. Two days before the Euro vote we noted that YouGov was putting its reputation on the line with its very high figure…