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But punters got Chesham and Amersham totally wrong The chart shows the latest betting on next week’s by-election in Batley & Spen where Labour is pinning its hopes on Jo Cox’s sister to see them home in what could be a tricky contest. This isn’t helped by ex LAB and then Respect MP, George Galloway standing on an anti-Starmer platform. I’m often asked if betting markets are predictive and last Thursday underlined the fact that they can get it terribly…

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What has been quite remarkable is how in the space of a week the whole way we are looking at the next general election has been transformed. Last Tuesday morning nobody really doubted that the Tories would retain C&A with a clear majority and few were ready to voice doubts about BoJo’s ability to lead his party to another majority at the next election. Now after C&A things look very different and experts like John Curtice are talking about the…

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What’s the point of being a vaccination “world beater” if strict controls remain? l

The LDs almost never fail when they start in 2nd place behind the Tory In the aftermath of the Chesham by-election Peter Fleet has issued a series of Tweets expressing his bitterness about the outcome and Lib Dem tactics. Fair enough – I tried to run for parliament once and I know how failure affected me. Fleet would have been less disappointed if he had checked his electoral history before putting himself forward for the by-election. If he had done…

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One of the common themes following the Chesham by-election is that 40% of those in the constituency are graduates – a proportion that is markedly higher than in either Hartlepool (CON GAIN) and Batley & Spen (Election July 1). This was a key part of the Curtice post election analysis which was a big reason why it was vulnerable to the LDs. It was at the 2016 referendum the importance of the university/non university split was highlighted and it is…

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The value by-election bet, surely, is LAB at 26% not CON at 73% With the by-election taking place a week on Thursday any data about what happened in recent elections in the seat is well worth examining and arguably could be a better indicator than the one 500 sample poll that we have seen, The above table has been compiled by David Cowling, the BBC’s former head of political research, who painstakingly went through the detailed results of each council…

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Generally speaking Speakers do not take part in the political debate once they have retired. Generally speaking, as well they are elevated to the House of Lords on their retirement but that didn’t happen with BoJoj who over-ruled this long-standing precedent. At the time just I wrote this was a petty minded move by BoJo that could come back to bite him. Well tonight the Observer is reporting that Bercow is now a LAB member and he’s started going on…

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As PB regulars will know I spent the last five weeks here saying that the odds available on the LDs in the by-election offered great value for money. What I cannot work out was what those on the other side of the bets were thinking when they took the risk of effectively rating the Tory chances of victory as a 95% chance. My first bet on the LDs was at 7/1 when Smarkets first got a market up and I…

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