politicalbetting.com

Will Blair stay longer if France votes NO?

With the people of France voting tomorrow in their crucial referendum on the EU Constitution a YouGov poll UK opinion in today’s Daily Telegraph has NO 46%: YES 21%: when asked whether they “approve” the new Constitution.

When the pollster last asked the question in January opinion was split by 45-25% so the margin has increased by five points since then. There is a sharp difference between supporters of the different parties.

But there is support from supporters of all parties for the UK to hold a EU Constitution referendum whatever happens in France tomorrow. YouGov found 42-37% in favour of this going ahead anyway.

But would Tony Blair go forward with a referendum if it looked as though he would be defeated? And if there’s no UK referendum how does that affect his resignation time-table?

Until now the official position of the Government is that the UK referendum will go ahead whatever other countries decide. Whether this will hold in the face of a resounding French rejection is a moot point. It will be recalled that Tony Blair’s agreement in April last year to have a British EU Constitution referendum was highly controversial but played a major part in undermining the Conservatives in the run-up to last June’s Euro elections. By agreeing to the vote Tony Blair took away the main Conservative platform in what was the final national election before the General Election. There’s little doubt that this helped deflect some Conservative support to UKIP.

There’s also been considerable speculation that a succssful UK referendum campaign would provide the opportunity for Tony Blair to stand down because he could go out on a high. But with the polls as they are and the French looking as though they will reject then this could have a big impact on his personal time-table. Is he going to have a referendum which would be seen as him being defeated?

As well as the French referendum betting market this also affects the Blair resignation timing betting.

Mike Smithson

In March I took the opportunity of a job move from the University of Oxford to the University of York to take nearly three months off so I could work almost full time on Politicalbetting.com during the General Election.

That period is now coming to an end as I start in my new role next week. This means that the site will revert to what it was before – something that I do in my spare time. I won’t normally be in a position to monitor the discussions or betting markets during the day-time. An area that users might find frustrating is the spam-trap and it could be that legitimate comments get held up for several hour. My apologies.

Before the General Election I had feared that the all-party nature of the site’s forums might not have stood the tensions of the run-up to polling day. It is quite a tribute to those who have participated that I only had to intervene on about half a dozen occasions and Politicalbetting.com remained a place for civilised discussion on betting and political outcomes.

Mike Smithson

Is this an election for punters to avoid?

With the polls showing that 54-55% of French people say they will vote no in the EU constitutional referendum on Sunday the best price you can get on this outcome is 3/10 on.

There are two main spread-betting markets operating :- IG Index have 47-49% on the proportion voting YES. Confusingly the Spreadfair market is on the proportion voting NO where the latest spread is 52-53.9% .

Any deviation from what the polls are showing might come from the make-up of those saying they want to reject the reforms. From a UK polling perspective the sections of society most opposed are those who would be less likely to vote in an election. It is hard to know whether the same applies in France.

Our guess is that the result will be closer than the polls are showing but we are not betting on it.

The political fall-out across Europe of a French rejection followed four days later by a similar vote in the Netherlands is likely to be enormous. By Thursday morning the constitution might look dead whatever its protagonists say about waiting to see what each of the member states does. The French and the Dutch were amongst the original six members of the EEC and are still very much at the heart of Europe.

In the UK the votes could not come at a more interesting time for the Next Tory leader election because the party has been totally divided by Europe ever since Denmark voted against the Maastricht treaty in 1992. It was the Danish vote almost exactly thirteen years ago that gave heart to the Europhobe wing of the Conservative party and caused all the problems for John Major.

Mike Smithson

Barack Obama - 3rd favourite for the Democratic nomination

Over the past few months there has been growing speculation that Barack Obama, a Senator from Illinois, might be the Democrat contender for the White House. He came to prominence with a major speech at the party Convention in Boston last July and in recent weeks has become third favourite in the betting behind Hilary Clinton and John Edwards. The best price you can get is 8/1.

But a better long-shot bet might be the 50/1 that’s available on him going all the way and becoming George Bush’s successor at the White House. We normally do not like these long-distance bets where the only purpose seems to aid the cash-flow of the bookie. In this case we think it might be worth a small punt.

In a profile in the Independent David Usborne had a good description of the rising expectations that Obama might be the man.

….Obama, a lanky man with distractingly long fingers and a narrow face that looks younger than his 43 years, is suddenly one of the brightest and most promising stars in the American political firmament. It really started at the Democrat’s national convention in Boston last summer. The speech he delivered in praise of the party’s presidential candidate, John Kerry, galvanised delegates and captivated reporters. “Political poetry”, gushed one CNN commentator. One line rang in the hall the longest. It was the one about the hope “of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too”. Himself, in other words.If he had any doubt that such a place existed, it was surely eased a few months later. Kerry did not win the White House, but Obama’s victory in Illinois was spectacular. After eight years of relative obscurity toiling in the state legislature, he defeated his Republican opponent in the Senate race by a landslide. With 70 per cent of the votes, he found himself singled out as just about the only good thing that happened to the Democrats in 2004..

Looking at the other possible candidates for the Democrat nomination Hilary Clinton is always going to be a divisive character and clearly is the one to beat. John Edwards is in second place in the betting but his position might have been hurt by being on the losing ticket with John Kerry last November. In this context Barack might stand a chance - just. Worth a tenner surely?

Mike Smithson

Is the Tory leader’s authority slipping away?

Michael Howard’s pleasure at seeing his lifelong love, Liverpool, pull off that sensational victory in the European Cup last night could be tempered by the problems in his party that are the main lead in early editions of the Daily Telegraph. This is suggesting that moves might be afoot to force him out “within weeks” and to have his successor in place by the end of July.

The report quotes an interview with a leading David Davis backer, Derek Conway, on ITV News, that many people in the party were unhappy at the prospect of Mr Howard’s staying on until December. In response to a question whether MPs were considering collecting forcing a vote of confidence Conway said: “We are counselling caution rather than action but groups of people are talking about it.”

According to the paper “worries that he was now a lame duck leader, having announced that he would go by the end of the year, were aggravated by his lacklustre performance against Tony Blair at the first Prime Minister’s question time of the new parliament.”

As we saw with the fall of Mrs Thatcher and the downing of Ian Duncan Smith in 2003 the Conservatives are the most brutal of parties when it comes to ditching a leader.

In the Next Tory leader market an early departure for Michael Howard is most likely to benefit David Davis – although the Shadow Home Secretary has to be careful about not appearing to be the assassin. The prospective candidates most vulnerable in the current environment could be the young turks promoted after the General Election by Michael Howard.

What would be good now is a market on when Michael Howard will go.

PHONEY EMAIL ADDRESSES When you post you are asked for your email address which is not published. This allows me to contact posters directly if there are issues in relation to their comments. In future where I am unable to do this because the email address is not correct then comments might be deleted and the poster will automatically go on the moderation list and there might be a delay before they get published.

Mike Smithson

Will standing aside for Howard assure him the succession?

Could the latest Conservative turmoil over the proposed changes in procedures for choosing the leader be just what David Davis needs to ensure that it is he who takes over from Michael Howard later in the year?

For his supporters, no doubt, will remind colleagues how their man’s forbearance in October and November 2003 spared the party a divisive battle that could have left big scars in the run up to the General Election. For it was his decision not to contest the leadership on the night of the confidence vote on Ian Duncan Smith that led to Michael Howard’s smooth transition.

[This move, incidentally was first revealed on the Betfair betting screens when with an hour to go before the voting closed David Davis’s price on succeeding IDS suddenly jumped from 2/1 to 10/1. Somebody who knew something at 5.30 pm made a nice profit two or three hours before David Davis’s formal statement.]

David Davis continues to be the firm favourite in the Next Tory leader market and so far few other serious challengers have emerged.

Under the proposed changes any Conservative MP who can get the support of 20 of his/her colleagues will go forward to a national convention where representatives from the grass-roots of the party will rate the candidates in order. It would then be for Conservative MPs to make the final decision. The aim is to avoid a situation where a candidate who does not have the support of colleagues in the Commons is foisted on MPs by the membership as a whole.

But isn’t there are danger that under the proposed new system the party at large could have foisted on them a leader who doesn’t command their support?

Assuming Davis will get 20 MPs to support him then it would seem pretty likely that he’ll make the number one spot at the national convention. It’s also likely that the former Conservative Chancellor who has been rebuffed twice for the leadership, Ken Clarke, would receive a pretty low rating at this meeting because of his support for the EU. It then might be quite hard for the party’s MPs to reject the “grass-root” choice particularly after the way Michael Howard’s election worked in 2003.

The 2/1 on David Davis is a fair price.

Mike Smithson