Smart punters should stick with Tony
July 16th, 2004UPDATE NOON
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Ignore the post by-elections odds changes on Blair and Labour
After Labour losing its parliamentary seat in Leicester South to the Liberal Democrats but holding Birmingham Hodge Hill with a majority in hundreds rather than thousands smart punters should stick with Tony Blair even though the response of the markets has been against him and Labour. The William Hill price on Blair going before the General Election is down to 5/4 and Labour’s odds have lengthened.
We disagree and our calls remain - back Labour in the General Election market and back Tony Blair to be at Number 10 as Labour leader on election day. Nobody ever got rich underestimating Tony Blair.
They said he was doomed when he took the country into the war without UN sanction.
They said he was doomed after the the suicide of David Kelly - the Government’s weapons scientist.
They said he would be doomed after the Hutton Report.
There’ll be naysayers predicting doom after a week that has seen the Butler Report and now the by-election disasters.
For however things might look bleak for Tony Blair, they are far bleaker for Michael Howard. For the Tory by-election victory famine - that has gone on ever since rarified political amosphere of the Falklands War on June 3 1982 - continues and the main opposition party still finds it impossible to get some electoral traction even under its new leader.
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Like Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s Tony Blair finds himself with a split opposition and can look to a substsantial General Election victory even if the Labour vote collapses by 10% and the party gets less than a third of the vote.
In spite of Tory efforts to talk up yesterday they did a little worse in terms of vote share loss than in Brent East last year but they were not squeezed very much. The Lib Dems did so well because so many Labour supporters switched.
Brent East by-election - change in Tory vote -2.1%
Leicester South - change in Tory vote -2.6%
Birmingham Hodge Hill - change in Tory vote -2.6%
If you want to bet on Labour and Blair - now might be the time to do it.
The only market where you shoud not back Blair is the one that he will be Prime Minister longer than Margeret Thatcher. Our concern is a betting one - it is crazy to lock up your money for such a long time.
Picture - easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~jjphoto/blair.jpg
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The Tories really should be panicing. Howard will not go before the next General, but who is likely to take over? Letwin, Davis, Cameron? However one looks at it, they really are screwed…
What do the by-election results do for the General Election date - My view is that it puts it back perhaps to Autumn 2005.
Current Betfair offers are April June 1.4, July - Sept 12.5, Oct-Dec 11.5 - Oct - Dec looks reasonable odds unless Blair goes then Brown would either go straight away or play himself in.
Unless labour believe that as Dr Read said the by-elections were a score draw!!!!!
U
Is there a silver lining for the Tories?
The by-elections show that there is real antagonism between the Lib Dems and Labour, especially over the war, which might reduce anti-Tory tactical voting considerably. If so, then even the same share of the vote for the Conservatives could translate into more seats.
If I were a Tory, which I am not, I think I might be tempted to interpret it another way. There does seem to be a powerful anti-Labour vote (easily understandable). The LibDems have been the beneficiary as they were identified from a long way out as the most credible party to beat Labour. What happens if there is a by-election in one of those seats (which is most of them) where the Tories are clearly favourites - like for example most of the ones they dropped in 1992, 1997 and 2001. Reading East springs to mind. If the Tories couldn\’t win there I think it is probably over for them for a generation… but I think the smart money would be on them.
Or put another way - if there is now an anti-Labour tactical vote the polls could be right for vote share but completely wrong for outcome. Try looking at each seat with most of the decline in the Labour vote going to whoever is most likely to win and you get a hung parliament.
I think Otto is wrong in seeing antagonism between Labour and the Lib Dems over the Iraq war.
Antagonism between the Lib Dems and the Blair leadership, maybe, but seemingly that does not extend to the mass of hitherto Labour voters and a very large proportion of Labour backbenchers too. And then there is a host of other issues where Labour rebels incline more towards the Lib Dem position than to that of their own leadership.
I see no silver lining for the Tories in such a situation.
In the past, when Tory seats were the target at by-elections, the whole campaigns were about the third-party squeeze. This time there\’s not been much of a squeeze - just a huge number of Labour supporters switching to the Lib Dems or Respect. This follows Labour poor performance in the Euros and the locals. Labour voters are \”on strike\” - the question is how long will this last?
But as I tried to argue Labour can suffer huge drops in support if it is facing two opposition parties and still win a good majority at the General Election.
I take your point, though I am not so sure about the point that in the past \”the whole campaigns were about third party squeeze\”.
Certainly, the message is always important (and was used in the Leicester and Birmingham campaigns too). Labour lost deposits in Newbury and Christchurch were clearly the product of squeezes, but Labour started from very low bases anyway (hadn\’t Newbury been their worst result in the country in the 1992 General Election?). In both seats, Labour squeeze could not (mathematically) have accounted for anywhere near half the overall swing and most of the movement must have been straight switching Tory to Lib Dem. Similarly in Winchester, albeit a different sort of by-election.
In Littleborough and Saddleworth and in Eastleigh there was obviously a squeeze message and it may have had an effect on whether the Lib Dems or Labour won (more in L&S where it was ultimately very close). However, in both cases the Labour vote went up significantly and carried them to second ahead of the defending Tories. The story of these elections was not squeeze but straight switching of Tories to Lib Dem or Labour.
Indeed, those two by-elections seem to me to be good examples of why Labour will be encouraged in one important way by yesterday\’s events (albeit they would rather not lose a seat) and why I agree with you that they are a near-certainty to win the General. They show that, when Blair was opposition leader, even where Labour were fighting from third they picked up bags of votes direct from the Tories. That didn\’t happen at all for Howard yesterday and he even slipped back slightly in the face of a squeeze message that wasn\’t all that strong (sure, the Libs could say look at the local election result - I don\’t blame them at all for doing it and they were obviously right - but the Tories could obviously counter that to some extent using the General Election result).
I draw a rather different message from the by-elections and the Euro polls. Tony Blair seems to be a busted flush. He is now unpopular and untrusted (which is more important–Maggie was never very popular, but she was trusted and respected.)
It seems that there is no bedrock of support for Tony Blair (there certainly is for the Labour party)–nobody knows what he stands for anyway.
Politically, the Lib dems are now to the left of a labour party led by Blair. All this suggests that the Tories should be doing well, but they are not. Why not? I believe that it is because Michael Howard is seen as an unattractive option–not least, by Tories themselves. Hence, any opportunity to vote for someone else; even the Lib dems (reluctantly) or as in the Euro elections, for UKIP (enthusiastically).
Where does that leave the next general election? Closer than it now seems, I reckon. It is still impossible to actually win a general election without the support of the Sun. That is still Blair\’s greatest ally, but even that backing might be flaky.
The \’score draw\’ spin is ludicrous - these seats had MASSIVE Labour majorities at the last GE and the LDs were close to a famous double upset. The turn out was low and it is likely that much of the Labour vote was on strike as Mike suggests but there is deep seated anger at Blair throughout the country (not least among local Labour activists) and I wouldn\’t be backing Blair OR Labour at current odds. Hills have cut \’Blair stays\’ to 4/9 and you\’re welcome to that price as I wouldn\’t touch it with counterfeit.
Continuing with john´s comments about the \”score draw\” spin…….. In these byelections, Labour lost half of its seats to the Lib Dems. This is described by John Reid as \”satisfactory\”. So in the next General Election Labour lose half its seats - some 200 - to the Lib Dems. That would be a satisfactory result? I think it would, and well deserved! is this the official Government target?
In looking towards the future, percentages and swings are all very well, but like some other commentators, I would not put any money on Labour. In the last twelve months, there have been three Parliamentary byelections. The aggregate Lib Dem vote went UP by 12,968, while the Tory vote went DOWN by 7,561 and Labour DOWN by an astonishing 35,073.
To lose one safe Labour seat may look like carelessness, but to lose two out of three (and very nearly all three) looks like a disaster looming for Labour, on a large scale. I would be much surprised if they don´t ditch Blair within three months or sooner.