politicalbetting.com

One of the interesting bets currently available is on the likelihood of a Conservative overall majority at the next election.  The markets were pricing this at 36% on 19 November, down from evens in July.  The general consensus is that an election is highly unlikely for eighteen months at least.  Long-term readers of this site may recall me arguing that you can’t predict the result of an election from mid-term opinion polls or leader ratings.  Nevertheless, the decline in the…

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This must be the the worst finding for the Tories in years because it really reflects a huge change in public opinion. In the poll from Opinium Labour has a 2% lead but Starmer has a big gap on approval and is in positive territory. Mike Smithson

The chart illustrates what has been a quite remarkable recovery since Starmer became leader on April 4th last year. He’s taken his party from a polling deficit of 26% to being just ahead in several current polls. A lot of this, of course, has been about the detoxification of the party from the disastrous leadership of his predecessor who led Labour at GE2019 to its worst result since 1933. Corbyn undermined so much and the polling at the last election…

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It’s “fill your boots time” What is it with Mayoral Elections? My favourite bet of 2021 was laying Brian Rose for Mayor of London at single figure odds, despite his literal 0-1% chance of victory. Now 2022 looms and another inexplicable mispricing has appeared on the Mayoral ballots in May. Is this a trend? South Yorkshire is a very Labour area. It comprises 4 areas, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield. You may recognise those 4 areas as all having Labour-majority…

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The polling has a different picture The former head of political research at the BBC, David Cowling, has issued his latest polling table showing the results of all the surveys on how Scottish voters think another independence referendum would go. The last such vote was in 2014 when it was rejected by a margin of about 10%. As can be seen from the polling table there has been some movement from that point and there have been a couple of…

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The awfulness of the tragedy in the Channel inevitably gets a lot of coverage this morning and one of the issues is that there appears to be no obvious solution. The idea that British troops or other forces should patrol French beaches doesn’t seem feasible. The French government is hardly going to allow armed forces from a foreign power to enter its territory. The real tragedy is that the people involved are so desperate that they are prepared to take…

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Given what has happened in British politics over the last few weeks I find it remarkable that back in August one of the best bets that I was recommending was that LAB would get a polling lead of some sort by the end of the year. Then such a possibility seemed so remote but how things have changed. When I made that bet with Smarkets I was talking about the possibility of an outlier. Now with the latest Kantar 3%…

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Given how voting polls have changed in recent weeks I thought it might be worthwhile looking at what those who voted for BJ’s party at the last election are thinking now. The chart is based on the latest poll from Opinium and shows the current voting intentions of GE2019 CON voters. Just 7% have moved to LAB but the biggest other segment is “Don’t Know”. By contrast, 73% of 2019 LAB voters say they will stick with their party with…

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