By 45% to 41% latest ORB poll finds voters thinking access to free trade more important than immigration pic.twitter.com/XeuLJHe2EX — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 7, 2018
Based on these numbers a bigger majority was almost a certainty Almost whatever Mrs May does in the rest of her career she is going to go down as the PM who called an election when she had a majority and ended up without one. With the benefit of hindsight it looks like a massive mistake. Yet looking at the polling from the 6 weeks before her dramatic decision who could blame her for believing that this was a almost…
This market could get very busy – time to study the rules One thing about being a betting exchange like Betfair is that it has to stand in the middle between those who want to place bets and those who want to lay them. This means that in complex markets, which most political ones are, the rules have to be watertight to ensure that there are no arguments and disputes later. I had a period when I was advising Betfair…
JC’s heady days of last June are becoming a distant memory Back in June, after Corbyn’s LAB got 4 seats closer to the Tory MP total than Gordon Brown’s party seven years earlier, there was a massive euphoria around the Labour leader. He could do no wrong and was reported to have said he expected to be PM by last Christmas. That, of course, didn’t happen and he then revised that to Christmas 2018. Then, in its first poll immediately…
A bellwether for the November midterms What’s getting a lot of coverage in the US media at the moment is a big battle going on in the outskirts of Pittsburgh in a Special Congressional election caused by the resignation of the Republican incumbent over a sex scandal. It is said that millions of dollars has been spent and the Democrats are hoping they can take the district in an area that was natural Trump territory at WH2016. His margin was…
Data/chart via Betdata.io Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet
There’s a new 3,060 sample London poll from Lord Ashcroft in the Evening Standard which points to the blue team facing a struggle in the capital to hold onto to all the council that it runs . Three are highlighted, Wandsworth, Barnet and Westminster, as being ones which could fall. The Tories could also struggle in SW London where it is defending Kingston and Richmond from the LDs. As ever there are lots of well-presented tables in the report and…
Financial Times Last time those without passports were most likely to vote leave At this stage last year the Tories were riding high. The party had just taken Copeland from LAB and all the polls had the Tories in the 40s with LAB in the 20s. In spite of her quite narrow CON majority Mrs. May was assuring the country that there would be no General Election until 2020 as laid down in the Fixed Term Parliament Act. That did…