politicalbetting.com

Overnight we have the latest Opinium poll for the Observer which includes the regular approval ratings. The chart takes the latest numbers by region and shows the changes since the firm’s May 13th poll when the PM’s “vaccine bounce” was at its peak. Thus in the May poll Johnson had a net positive rating in the Midlands of plus 29%. That is now down to minus 7 which makes a change over the two months of minus 36%. The figures…

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Both Survation and now YouGov showing the same broad picture Over the seventeen years since PB was established, we have had many polling shocks and the general approach when one firm reports what appears to be a shift is to state that we ought to wait to see if other firms find a similar picture. Well following on from Survation in the middle of the week we now have YouGov reporting a 4% CON lead – down from 13% the…

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In any case Burnham was rubbish last time he stood I find it quite remarkable that ex-LAB MP and now Mayor of Gtr Manchester should still be the betting favourite to succeed. Starmer. For a requirement of the job is being an MP and it is not quite clear how Burnham would do that. I suppose a Burnham loyalist could decide to quit as an MP thus creating a by-election which Burnham would have to win. Another route could be…

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One of the more interesting betting markets at the moment is the above from Smarkets on whether there is going to be any reintroduction of COVID restrictions. The PM, of course, said that the lifting of legal enforced rules ended on Monday but punters remain to be convinced. I’m not so sure the betting markets have got this right. A key factor for Johnson is that he will face the Tory conference in the first week of October and it…

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This was deisgned to operate with both the UK and the Irish Republic in the EU As is being widely there is a huge impasse between London and Brussels over the position of Northern Ireland. The real problem is that that the basic premise of the deal that brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998 was that both countries would remain within the EU. I have referred here to an article written a couple of years ago by John McTernan,…

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The Mail’s front page reflects a growing narrative that of itself could trigger panic buying and add to a developing sense of crisis. Pics of empty shelves are becoming an increasing feature of late sparked off not just by the so called pingdemic, but the shortage of drivers and Brexit itself. It reminds me very much of the petrol crisis of 2000 which became the only period in William Hague’s leadership of the Tories when his party led in the…

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If it goes according to Survation If it goes according to YouGov For the projections, I have used Martin Baxter’s longstanding seat calculator. As can be seen the polling and the seat projections are in separate universes and there is no way you can rationalise it except that Survation’s fieldwork was four days later a period that was pretty bad for BoJo. The vaccine success story which BoJo is always eager to remind us has nothing like the potency it…

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Thanks to the excellent Election Maps site for the list of LD targets. It has produced charts like the above for all the parties based on what happened at GE2019. One of the big lessons that the LDs learned from GE2019 was that it is very hard to achieve victory in a seat when they were not runners up there at the previous general election. It is that previous outcome that is so important in setting expectations. Thus right from…

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