politicalbetting.com

When are grads of other universities going to get a look in?

The first stop on the David Davis campaign trail was to his old university - Warwick - a move designed to make the point that he was not part of the Tory Oxford “mafia” which has been dominating leadership battles for decades.

A month ago when Cameron seemed out of the race it looked as though the Tory showdown would be between Clarke of Cambridge and Davis. Then I was commenting that “…the one almost sure thing that you can predict about the next General Election is that Oxford University’s stranglehold on UK politics will be broken… For the first time since Stanley Baldwin in 1935 an election looks set to be won by someone who was educated at a University other than Oxford. The only exceptions in the past 70 years, Churchill and Major, were not graduates.”

For it’s not just Tory Oxonians who have dominated - the same has happened with Labour as well. The University has had an amazing run of success starting with Attlee winning in 1945 & 1951; Eden in 1955; Macmillan in 1959; Wilson in 1964, 1966, and twice in 1974; Heath in 1970; Thatcher in 1979, 1983, 1987 and Blair , of course, won in 1997, 2001 and 2005. This comes to 15 out of 17 General Elections since the war.

Gordon Brown, who showed his enormous interest in Oxford during the Laura Spence affair, might note that you have got to go a very long way back to find a general election when an Oxonian was beaten in a General Election by someone who went to another university.

Whenever, like Hague-Blair in 2001, Oxford leaders have gone down in a General Election it has been to another Oxonian.

Tory leadership battles have also been dominated by the University. The only time when an Oxford contender has been beaten by somebody who wasn’t was in 2001 when Michael Ancram came bottom in the first MP ballot and Ian Duncan Smith (Perugia) went on to victory.

So the emergence of Cameron means that British politics is reverting to type and a big question at the 2009/10 General Election might be whether Gordon Brown can break this.

Leadership Betting
Best betting exchange prices; Cameron 0.15/1: Davis 6.2/1
Best bookmaker prices; Cameron 1/10: Davis 11/2:
IG’s Binary spread-market. Cameron 82-90: Davis 10-18

Mike Smithson

Could NuLab be forced into playing a different tune?

A key part of the success of Tony Blair’s New Labour has been the way it has occupied traditional Tory policy positions thus forcing the official opposition to the right. Time and time again the Tories have found themselves with little to say on an issue because Labour has adopted their position. This might be about to change.

For the current debate over Labour’s education reform programme is giving a glimpse of how a Cameron-led Tory party plans to deal with Tony Blair and gives a good pointer as to how UK politics could evolve in the next few years. Rather than the full frontal attacks that have characterised the Hague, IDS and Howard leaderships the Cameron plan is to agree with ministers where it is to the Tory advantage.

As Steve Richards points out in the Independent this morning Cameron is “the first Tory to see the advantage of backing Blair when he’s at odds with his party”.

Richards notes that Mr Cameron welcomed the Government’s proposals and his only concern was whether Tony Blair’s cabinet and party would let him carry through the reforms. “He made it clear that if Mr Blair was blocked by those old Labour dinosaurs, John Prescott and Gordon Brown, it would fall on the Conservative party to carry out the task.”

The article goes on: “There are important differences between the Government and Mr Cameron’s approach, but the aspirant Conservative leader has seized the broader political initiative. He is the first senior Tory to recognise that it is to the Conservatives’ advantage to support Mr Blair when he is at odds with his party and most of those on the centre left. .Mr Cameron’s strategic positioning has several consequences, all of them potentially fatal for the government if it is misguided enough to give him the political space. Most dangerously it places the battle for the centre ground firmly on the right of the political spectrum. In effect Mr Cameron is stating: Conservatives approve of a market in schools. As true believers we can do it better..If Mr Cameron is allowed to pop up too often with a message of support for the Government there will be only one loser. It will not be Mr Cameron.”

These are very early days but it does raise questions about what up until now has been the brilliant Blair approach of isolating the Tories by occupying their policy ground.

But Blair has always been the supreme strategist and watching him deal with a new Tory approach is going to be fascinating.

Leadership Betting
Best betting exchange prices; Cameron 0.16/1: Davis 6/1
Best bookmaker prices; Cameron 1/10: Davis 11/2:
IG’s Binary spread-market. Cameron 82-90: Davis 10-18

Mike Smithson

Can Cameron get more than 80% of the membership vote?

With Cameron looking an odds-on certainty to succeed Michael Howard there’s a new market on the share of the vote that he’ll get in the membership ballot.

Given that the current best conventional bookie price on him winning is 1/10 why not try a different bet where the returns could be higher. You can get an attractive price with Paddy Power’s “what will Cameron’s vote share be” punt.

The prices are: Cameron share of 0-65% 2-1: 66-80% evens: more than 80% 5/2.

In this market everything depends on how much weight you give to the YouGov polls of party members which have been appearing at regular intervals. The last had Cameron beating Davis by 72-22%.

The big judgement you have to make is whether the six week campaign is going to strengthen further the Cameron position or if Davis is going to eat into the total. This is a hard call but in the absence of any other evidence the 66-80% price of evens looks like a good bet.

With ballots due to be mailed from the end of next week it is reckoned that a large proportion of votes will be cast in the first period so campaigning activity towards the end might not have much of an impact on the outcome.

Mike Smithson

Tory race helps push the site’s comments’ total into six figures

At some point in the next 24 hours somebody is going to post a comment on the site which will be the 100,000th since PB.C came into being in March 2004.

As of time of this article the total number stood at 99,679 so we are almost at the point where the total is in six figures. More than 92,000 of the postings have been made since the start of the year - 52,000 of them in the period since polls closed in the UK General Election at 10pm on May 5th.

These are big figures and reflect the way that PB.C has become the site of choice for people of all party allegiances who want to read about and discuss political betting and political outcomes.

There’s little doubt that we’ve been helped by the enormous interest in the Tory leadership race which provided a focus in what could have been a quiet time after the May 5th General Election.

Meanwhile in a TV interview reported in the Guardian the close Davis aide, Derek Conway, accused David Cameron of “sucking up to the press” and thinking that “he was born to rule“. The BBC was attacked for “taking leave of its senses in its support” for Mr Cameron and newspapers were being “servile” towards him. Conway also attacked Michael Howard for dirty tricks against Davis.

Whether this will help Davis it is hard to see. The betting has remained pretty constant with the best bookie Cameron price of 1/10 and 0.17/1 available on the betting exchanges. You can get 11/2 against David Davis.

Labour leadership. As reported yesterday the Observer had a big story about a big rise in interest on David Miliband for the Labour leadership. We noted that on Betfair the total amount matched on Miliband since the market was established six months ago was £203. In spite of all the coverage not one extra penny has been matched on him on Betfair within the past 24 hours.

Politicalbetting particularly welcomes contributions from people who have not posted before.

Mike Smithson

Brown’s price eases from 0.23/1 to o.4/1

As the chart shows the implied probability of Gordon Brown succeeding Tony Blair, based on the best betting price, has moved sharply since the high-spot of the Chancellor’s speech at the Brighton conference just a month ago.

Although this is a very light market with little liquidity it is clear that there the near certainty that last month’s 0.23/1 Brown price suggested has been affected by what has been going on in the Tory party and the prospect of a Cameron leadership.

The Observer’s chief political correspondent, Ned Temko, is reporting this morning that “…David Cameron’s emergence as favourite to win the Tory leadership raised fresh questions about Labour’s succession battle yesterday, with members of Tony Blair’s circle suggesting that Gordon Brown could have a tough time beating a much younger and more media-friendly foe.”

Temko goes on to note that the William Hill price against David Miliband as next Labour leader has been cut from 50/1 to 25/1. We think it is dangerous to attach too much significance to such a movement.

In very light markets it can be distorting to focus on the price from one bookmaker and you get a better picture if, as we do, you look at the best price that is available from a range of bookmakers and betting exchanges over a period.

The Betfair betting exchange has seen just £22,555 worth of matched bets in this market, more than 90% on Brown, of which a total of only £203 has been on Miliband. And although there has been a move to Miliband he is still not at the high point of 5/1 against being leader that he reached on that market in early June. That information would, perhaps, have taken the edge off the Temko report.

With many parts of the media now following PB.C in attaching importance to betting price changes it is important that it is done properly.

Mike Smithson

But Cameron 15% ahead amongst “floating voters”

In spite of all the Tory publicity of recent weeks Labour is still on target for a comfortable fourth General Election victory according to ICM in the Guardian this morning - a view backed by the betting markets where Labour is the 0.63/1 favourite.

In the coming weeks we expect more polls like this and we might see surveys showing the Tories ahead on General Election voting intention. The issue will be whether this can be sustained.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the developments in the Tory party have happened very quickly and we will get a clearer view of their impact in a week or so. Just fifteen days ago David Davis was still the favourite. Only three weeks ago the Cameron price on IG’s Binary bet market was 5-9.

Best betting exchange prices; Cameron 0.17/1: Davis 5.4
Best bookmaker prices; Cameron 1/10: Davis 11/2:
IG’s Binary spread-market. Cameron 82-90: Davis 10-18

ROUND 2 PREDICTION COMPETITION.
Paul Maggs reports. Following the second MPs’ vote and the elimination of Liam Fox, there is a three-way tie between Gary Barford (post 1), Clarke Ken (10), and Alex Williams (35), all of whom were just 4 votes out overall. The next best predictions were from Alasdair (57) with 5 and James M (23) with 6.

Adding together the results for rounds 1 and 2, the best combined score is Round 1 winner Stephen Thomas with 14, followed by Tabman and Ben with 16, and James M and Andrew M with 18.

Mike Smithson