politicalbetting.com

Is the Bush-Cheney ticket a certainty?

Since the Republican Convention in New York at the end of August the betting markets have followed the polls and Bush is a red hot favourite. It’s hard to call anything other than Bush.

But it’s worth looking back at what happened last time to check which pollsters were most accurate. These were the final polls.

The final result was Gore 500,000 votes ahead. But after the pro-longed legal battle Bush won Florida, came top in the “electoral college” and took the White House. Only Zogby and CBS got the vote shares right.

A useful tool is this site which has an excellent interactive map showing the latest polls in each state and a running total. What is interesting is that you can select your pollster and, beating in mind Zogby’s success last time, the picture for the Democratic ticket does not look as bad as some are painting it.

It’s a brave punter, though, who goes with Kerry even at the current odds but it might start to move and it does look less certain for the President if you just follow the Zogby national and state polls.

If you think that this election is over there’s now a market on who will by the Republican candidate in 2008. This is a long time to lock up your money, many things could happen in the meantime, and the prices don’t look very generous.

Populus - Labour in third place nationally

A series of bad national opinion surveys for Labour in the Sunday papers have transformed the betting for Thursday’s by-election in Hartlepool to elect a replacement for Peter Mandelson who has quit Westminster to become a Euro Commissioner.

Yesterday morning we were suggesting that the 4/1 then available on the Lib Dems on the betting exchanges was “tempting”. As of the time of posting that price has tightened to 8/5. So yesterday a winning bet would have produced a return of £200 - now that’s down to £80. The Labour price, meanwhile, has gone from about 1/5 to 2/5. NOTE: On the exchanges we quote the last price that has been matched - not the prices that are being offered.

Two of of this morning’s polls have the Tories in the lead and one of them has Labour in third place for the first time in twenty years.

CON 32%: LIBD 29%: LAB 28% Populus - News of the World
CON 33%: LAB 32%: LIBD 25% Mori - Observer

A third poll by a pollster new to us, Communicate Research, is in the Indy on Sunday. Interviewing took place the day before and the day of Kennedy’s speech and so was earlier than the other two. The shares were:-

CON 30%, LAB 32%, LD 27%

The Lib Dems usually enjoy a poll boost after their conference and in the September YouGov and ICM polls a few days ago, before Bournemouth could have its full impact, Labour was on 36% in each with the Tories on 34% and 32% and the Lib Dems at 21% and 22%.

UK politics at the moment is characterised by the Tories remaining static and a block of 6-7% that’s very volatile and oscillates between the LDs and Labour. This group will decide the election.

An indication of the scale of the challenge facing the opposition parties is that if the country voted according to the Populus Poll Labour would be third in terms of vote share but, according to the swing calculators, top on seats. site produces the following breakdown:-

LAB 276: CON 259: LIB 80 seats

But beware claculations like this or the one in today’s Observer. They assume a uniform national swing and could be upset by an unwind of some of the tactical voting that helped Tony Blair to his landlsides in 1997 and 2001. Shrewd gamblers who understand this are going ot make a lot of money at the General Election.

The General Election markets on which party gets most seats remain unchanged with Labour 1/4 favourite. We expect this to be eased in the coming days.

We also expect moves against Labour on the spread betting markets where the current prices are:-

LAB 342-350 seats: CON 212-220: LIBD 67-71

We have been saying for months that Labour is over-priced and the Lib Dems under-priced.

Labour nervousness - not much Lib Dem confidence

There’s currently almost no support for Labour at the heavy odds-on prices on the Betfair exchange and prices are easing. At the same time there’s been a slight hardening in the Lib Dem price. The LDs are now at about 100/30 down from between 9/2 and 4/1.

Labour has moved out from 1/5 to about 1/4. What’s very telling is that currently there’s nobody offering to bet on Labour at anything less than 2/5.

Our reading is that after Saturday’s campaigning there’s a mood of nervousness in the Labour camp but that is not matched by a big change in confidence levels amongst LD backers.

This has all resulted in very little betting and not much liquidity in the market. Over the past couple of days Labour had been pushed to 1/6 when backers were obviously feeling more bullish.

Image http://www.aperfectworld.org/clipart/cartoons/promise.gif

Labour - speaking up for drunks and irresponsible pet owners

With the campaign going into its final weekend Labour remain very firm favourites to hold onto the seat vacated by Peter Mandelson. If you want to bet on Labour then the best price is 2/5 from PaddyPower. For the Lib Dems the fluctuating Betfair betting exchange price seems to offer the best value.

The betting odds are in spite of Labour following precisely the same type of campaign that saw a 28% collapse in Birmingham Hodge Hill and brought them to within a few hundred votes of losing the seat.

The aim has been to find a chink in the LD candidate and focus everything on that. In Birmingham it was the candidate’s job in the mobile phone industry - in Hartlepool it’s some unwise comments made on her campaign blog.

In it she described canvassing in one part of Hartlepool where everybody was “drunk, flanked by an angry dog or undressed.” They’ve even gone to the extent of arranging a poster van featuring the remark to be driven round the streets , they’ve started a “pride in Harlepool petition” and have organised a photo-call.

This is a high risk stategy especially in view of what happened in Hodge Hill. It appeals to activists but does it appeal to voters who might wonder why issues like the NHS, eduaction, law and order and Iraq are not being high-lighted? The Birmingham outcome indicates that electors don’t like this approach.

Lord Chris Rennard, above, who is masterminding the LD campaign has built up a formidable reputation by finding the issues that resonate with electors in by-elections. Watch for the way he might turn this round on Labour - could he develop this line?

While the LDs have been trying to ensure the future of the local hospital all Labour wants to do is defend excessive drinking and irresponsible pet ownership.

Whether Labour have got it right we will know in the early hours of next Friday morning. Will it fire up stay-at-home Labour supporters to turn-out? We think it’s going to re-bound because it looks so trivial and focuses attention on the LDs.

Although we stick with our Labour call do not underestimate Chris Rennard. The 4/1 Betfair price looks tempting for someone who fancies a punt at reasonable odds.

A good guide to the outcome will be the way people are betting. If the hundreds of Lib Dem activists who will be flooding into the town this weekend from all over the UK get a sniff that a victory is possible then the price will come right down. This was a good guide at Brent East, Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill and we expect it to be the same in Hartlepool. You can see an interesting chart on price movements by clicking on the party names in the betting exchange screen.

Whatever Hartlepool will be an internet first - a by-election where a blog becomes centre stage. For good coverage of the by-election check out the excellent Guacamoleville site.

The tactical vote unwind - Labour style

With the Lib Dems stating that “replacing the Tory party as the opposition” is their current objective a remarkable piece of Labour campaigning has been reported by a correspondent on the site.

Villan sent us this message: “I live in a Tory-held Con/LibDem marginal. I was interested to get a Labour leaflet through the door the other day urging the “estimated 20-40% of Labour supporters who voted tactically for the LibDems in 2001″ (sic) not to do so again.

(paraphrased) “The LibDems can’t win here. They say they are the only ones who can beat the Tories here but in actual fact they never do, so vote for who you really want”.

If this is more than just a single constituency initiative then it reveals extraordinary thinking by the Labour hierarchy.

For it implies that Tony Blair’s party would much prefer the Conservatives to hold onto seats than to allow the Lib Dems to get a foot-hold.

But the boot could be on the other foot. If the LDs who switched in their hundreds of thousands in 1997 and 2001 to help Labour defeat Tories took the same advice about “voting for who you really want” then Labour’s in serious trouble. But there is certainly an air of panic apparent in the Labour camp.

The Indpendent has a report about Labour private polling painting that shows that about 7 per cent of the electorate who were natural Labour supporters will not bother to vote at the next general election because they feel neglected by Mr Blair. They are angry that foreign affairs have dominated his second term as Prime Minister.
Many of these key voters switched to Labour in 1997 and are middle-class people who did not oppose the Iraq war. Labour sources say they are a much bigger group than the professional AB1 voters who opposed the Iraq conflict and are now likely to support anti-war parties such as the Liberal Democrats.

The dynamics of real three party politics and the aftermath of the Iraq War are making the coming election very hard to call. The spread betting markets are back in business. Our calls are still SELL LABOUR - BUY LIB DEM. The prices are:-
LAB 340-348: CON 212-220: LIBD 67-71

Who’s going to make the longest conference speech?

Another new political betting market - the fourth in two days - on which speech by the leaders of the three main parties is going to last the longest. The prices are Michael Howard 5/4: Tony Blair 6/4: Charles Kennedy 2/1. Unlike the latest William Hill bets this market, from PaddyPower, is online.

Acording to the BBC Kennedy’s speech today lasted for an hour so that’s the one to beat. The question is whether Blair or Howard will last longer.

This is a crazy market which is hard to call and a lot depends on how long the orchestrated bouts of “spontanenous” applause by loyal activists located at the front of the hall go on for.

Given that Blair is probably in most trouble with his party and that the Labour organisation leads by a mile when it comes to stage management our money would be on the Prime Minister.

But Michael Howard, at his first conference as leader, could go on for longer but he does tend to be more economical with words and we think that Tony Blair will beat him.

Whatever all the speeches will feel as though they’ve gone on for far too long.

SPREAD BETTING UPDATE
SportingIndex have resumed their spread market on Commons seats at the General Election and they still have not recognised that there will be a smaller Parliament next time. The latest prices are:-
LAB 340-348: CON 212-220: LIBD 67-71
Taking the mid-points this assumes that the three main parties will take 629 seats in the next House of Commons leaving just 17 seats for all the Northern Ireland parties, the SNP and PC , UKIP and any independent. By our reckoning they are 8-9 seats over.

The IG price mid-points assume that the three main parties will take 624 seats. Their prices are:-
LAB 340-348: CON 2o8-216: LIBD 66-70: UKIP 1.2-2

As we explained on Tuesday boundary changes in Scotland will see 13 less MPs from north of the border after the election. It’s estimated that Labour will lose 10 seats.