politicalbetting.com

What happens if they never come back?

All the General Election betting markets have been reacting to the by-elections and the Butler report on the assumption that voters will automatically return to Labour. The spread-betting market, extraordinarily, thinks that all this means that Labour is going to get more Commons seats. But what happens if those who stopped supporting the party because of the war just never come back?

The conventional theory is that they’ll return to stop the Tories. But will they do this if Michael Howard’s party is seen as a spent force?

In almost every election since Tony Blair took the UK into the Iraq War Labour has been hammered by the voters. With the lone exception of Ken Livingstone in London the past year has been unmitigated bad news for the party.

The result that has really impressed us is Hodge Hill where the Lib Dems came within a few hundred votes in spite of one of the dirtiest and toughest Labour campaigns for years. The candidate’s day job in the mobile phone mast industry was used repeatedly in stunt after stunt to undermine her. Yet the voters still smashed into Labour.

Can we be certain that Labour’s appalling period is going to come to an end by the time of the General Election? Is it just a wild Lib Dem dream to think there could there have been a permanent shift in British politics?

Or are we just seeing the normal mid-term blues of a party that’s been in power for nearly three-quarters of a decade?

The history books show that wars cause fundemental shifts in British politics - 1918 and 1945 being good examples. Is the conventional view correct that Labour will just return to its normal popularity next May or will things be different?

We don’t know but in almost every arena when Labour is fighting the Lib Dems it’s Charles Kennedy’s anti-war party that comes out on top. In all of this the Tories did not do too badly with vote share drops of 2-3%. They are just irrelevant.

Today the spread markets have moved further to the Lib Dems and we think that the could be real value in the latest BUY price. The Labour change is perverse.

LAB 337-347 (+2) : CON 228-238 (-5) : LIBD 57-62 (+2)

The other good Lib Dem bet is the 10/11 on them winning 61+ seats with Bet365 - a market that they try to hide from us but link in from here.

Picture - http://peacenowar.net/Iraq/News/Photos/London-3.JPG

UPDATE NOON

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.

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

1pm UPDATE

Six hours after the polls opened in the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-elections the markets are moving a bit away from the Liberal Democrats.

There is still very little money going on - just over £10,000 in total at both elections on Betfair - that it seems that supporters of none of the parties have much confidence. Of that total just £904 has been matched in Labour in Leicester and £696 in Birmingham.

With so many party workers of all parties involved in both cities we expect a clear view to develop during the afternoon.

SNP LeadershipAlex Salmond has been backed from 12/1 to 4/1 third favourite to become leader of the SNP with William Hill who make Roseanna Cunningham 2/5 favourite with Nicola Spurgeon 7/2 second favourite.

UPDATE NOON

Will it be a day of despair for Labour?

The Lib Dems go into polling day at the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-election as firm odds-on favourites. At time of posting it was 30/100 in Leicester and 4/5 in Birmingham - the latter price holding in spite of continued tricky coverage for the party over their candidate’s day job in the mobile phone masts industry.

At noon the Lib Dem prices in both seats had eased a little - in Leicester it was 2/5 and in Birmingham 9/10.

On the betting exchanges where you can lay (acting as a bookie yourself by accepting a bet) there have been very few punters ready to take even that risk on the Lib Dems which shows a marked lack of confidence in Labour in both places. We think that the Tories will get at least one second place.

It is our understanding that the Betfair betting exchange markets on the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South by-elections will continue throughout the day until the offical results are actually announced - possibly in the early hours of the morning.

This opens up interesting opportunities for betting for those with good links into the party HQs or those with nerves of steel.

BETTING EXCHANGE POINTS: All unmatched bets were cleared when the polls opened at 7am which is why the prices might look different. When checking a price look at what the “last trade” was rather than what’s being offered.

Unless you are a party official working at one of the election HQs the best place to find out what’s going on is to look at the betting. As the day wears on the officials will start to get an idea of, first, what the turn-out is likely to be and then whether they are getting their votes out compared with the other parties. This information will spill out and punters will bet on it and prices will move. If there is real solid information then the market will jump with a certainty that is easy to spot.

From 7am. Polls open and as electors go through each station their numbers are taken by tellers and these are biked or phoned back to the HQs where they are keyed into a computer.

From 9am. The “knock-up” begins. Lists for the hundreds of party activists start to be generated so they knock on doors to get the non-voters to the polling stations.

By 6pm. From this information the party workers will start to form pretty clear ideas about how its going. At the central HQs the computers will be producing regular reports and by early evening experienced campaign managers will have a good idea of how they are standing. It might be that workers need to be switched to weaker areas.

10 pm Polls Close. The ballot boxes are taken under police escort to the count. Betting should continue. Party workers do a rough check as they observe the ballot boxes being opened and the counting clerks unfold the papers and put them into batches. All this information will be fed back back and will start to affect the betting exchange markets.

By Midnight. Those in the halls will have a firm idea of the result simply by counting the bundles of votes for each party. This will feed out.

Image http://www.aperfectworld.org/clipart/emotions/frustration.gif

If electors in tomorrow’s two by-election vote in accordance with the latest national opinion polls then Labour will have huge victories in both Birmingham and Leicestereven though the party’s share nationally has dropped by ten per cent since the last General Election.

According to the latest General Election projection produced for each Westminster seat by the City mathematician, Martin Baxter, these would be the results:-

Birmingham Hodge Hill
LAB 50.8%: CON 19.3%: LIB 11.1%: OTH 18.6%

Leicester South
LAB 43.4%: CON 22.3%: LIBD 19.8%: OTH 14.45%

Baxter produces regular “poll of polls” figures and then publishes an election prediction based on a weighted average of the most recent ICM, YouGov, MORI and Populus surveys. He then applies the change in vote shares to each Westminster seat and publishes them on his web-site.

It is important to stress that these are national figures - not local ones and the predicted outcomes are certainly very different from the latest betting prices for Birmingham and Leicester.

It is a measure of how unique Westminster by-elections are that nobody expects results anything like these tomorrow night. Certainly the punters who have made the Lib Dems a heavy odds-on favourite in Leicester are not taking any notice!

WILL TONY BLAIR SURVIVE THE BUTLER REPORT?: Following the publication of the Butler Report, William Hill have made Tony Blair an odds-on shot to survive to lead Labour into the next General Election and offer odds of 8/15 that he will do so - or 11/8 that he will have resigned by then.

Could the Lib Dems win both Westminster seats?

An almost total absence of Labour backers led to last night’s price moves on the by-election betting markets which leave the Lib Dems as heavy odds-on favourites in Leicester and at times touching evens in Birmingham. William Hill closed their market at the stated time with the Lib Dems on 4/11.

If the betting markets are correct then there’s a chance that the party could be heading for two number one positions on Thursday night.

The main focus is now on the Betfair betting exchange where punters try to find other punters who will lay their bets. If you’ve never tried this form of betting then now might be the time to have a go. Normally exchange odds are much more sensitive than those from the normal bookmakers although if there are few backers and layers about prices can go all over the place.

A word of caution on quoted betting exchange prices. They only show what other punters are prepared to offer. So at the moment it looks as though the price on the Lib Dems in Birmingham is 2/5 or 1.4 in Betfair terminology. In fact the last trade was at 9/5 and nobody has bet at anywhere near the 2/5 - it is just that at the time of this post that is all that is available. Also with the exchanges you have to pay 5% commission on your winnings.

The lack of Labour or Conservative interest has meant there’s hardly any liquidity in the Betfair markets although the Lib Dem price did drop below evens at one point for Hodge Hill. At the time of posting the last trade on the party for Leicester South was at 45/80 some way up on the William Hill close.

From a betting perspective the big mystery is the almost total lack of interest for Labour in these markets especially when the party is defending five-figure majorities.

Clearly the activists are far from convinced that they have a chance. The Betfair betting exchange gives precise details of the level of bets and price history to date.

Leicester South - Betfair share of matched bets on each party
LIBD 75%: LAB 22%: CON 3%

Birmingham Hodge Hill - Betfair share of matched bets on each party
LIBD 74%: LAB 17%: CON 7%

The big question is whether you can deduce who will win from what’s happening in the betting markets. For a 4/11 favourite in an election not to win would be a betting sensation yet, as we argued yesterday, the risk-return ratio is not right. We think the Lib Dems will do it but there are too many issues for us to declare them a certainty.

Hodge Hill is harder to read and there is little doubt that prices tightened considerably for a time on the Lib Dems. We do not think that any party is convinced they have victory in the bag there.