Meanwhile, back with Labour & the Tories…
January 8th, 2006
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…the General Election gap is closing
While all the focus has been on the Lib Dem leadership the question of which party will win most seats at the General Election, as reflected by the best betting exchange prices, continues to see the Tories narrowing the gap with Labour.
The current implied probability, based on best prices, has Labour on 53.7% and the Tories at 46.7%. Note that the betting is on which party wins most seats and not on whether they will have an overall majority.
On the Cantor Spreadfair Commons seat market these are the latest spreads: CON 270-273: LAB 288-296: LD 54-56. A week ago today the mid-point indicated a Labour lead of 36. Today that is down to 20.5 seats.
The big driver behind the betting is, of course, the opinion polls and we have not had any surveys since the ICM one for the Guardian in the week before Christmas. This coming week we should see the January Populus poll in the Times. A month ago this had Labour 3 points ahead while all the other pollsters have now been showing Tory leads.
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A key indicator that might be included in the poll is the response to how Labour would be doing if Gordon Brown was leader. In December Populus had the Tories doing 8% better than on the standard voting intention. Will this gap still be there?
Quite what the effect of the Liberal Democrat leadership issue will have on the numbers is hard to tell. Populus carries out its surveys over the weekend and in the last few days the media has been swamped with the Kennedy issue.
If the polls continue to move in the Tory direction then we might see a point where Cameron’s party becomes the betting favourite. We are a little way to go yet.
Mike Smithson
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What percentage share of the vote between Lab/Con/Lib Dems is implied by these seat figures? Given FPTP, it must be quite a healthy lead for the Tories. I have to say that why this can be expected for the forthcoming election is beyond me especially given Brown’s track record as Chancellor (and yes, I admit the UK govt spent its way out of an impending recession). Any data as measured as of today needs to ex out the Cameron honeymoon factor which still prevails. When Cameron’s policy incoherence becomes glaring and his pubescence becomes embarassing, I really can’t see a mid-term Tory lead doing anything but reversing - we saw it with Kinnock, we’ll see it with Cameron. As a result of this and over-bearish expectations for the LibDems in light of the Campbell coronation (whose age will lead to more South MPs vs Tories than North/Mid MPs lost), going long Labour’s lead looks the most sensible strategy by far.
re 1. The betting reflects how punters are prepared to risk their money - nothing more and nothing less. The fact that on this measure Labour has a 6% lead even though almost all the pollsters have Tory leads indicates that the collective decision of individual punters factors in everything you suggest.
You state I really can’t see a mid-term Tory lead doing anything but reversing - we saw it with Kinnock, we’ll see it with Cameron. That’s your view and no doubt the view of punters who are betting on Labour. It is balanced by those taking a different view and are prepared to risk their cash.
Many people have views on political outcomes - only a few back their views up by betting and these charts seek to reflect what they are doing.
O/T: On the previous thread I was asked if Tony Banks wrote a book displaying his wit. No, but our old friend Iain Dale did, and his shop Politicos has it on sale for £1 plus P&P, see
politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=655
It’s from a while ago now, but a lot of his most amusing quotes are in. The best ones, to my mind, are those where he’s expressing a genuine sentiment in an outrageous way, such as (as Sports Minister, asked to comment on alleged maltreatment of football hooligans by police abroad): “Personally I wish they’d truncheoned them to death, but I suppose I can’t say that on the record.”
re Tony Banks. Nearly thirty years ago I was the national executive member for Radio and TV journalists at the NUJ and at the time Tony was an officer with the Association of Broadcasting Staff and we had close dealings. When I stepped down from that role in 1982 Tony spoke at a dinner and said of me “Mike looks at a table of statistics like a potter looks at clay”. It was nice tribute and perhaps a foretaste for PB.C!
3. Nick, why were you surprised (you said you were glad that the comments were positive like you would expected some of them could have not been so positive) that all comments about Banks were positive?
I think in the end he was a figure everyone loved (or maybe “love to hate” for his opponents).
5 - aside from the foxhunting thing, probably because he was apt to be extremely offensive. The comment Nick cites, is just an example - change the statement to “asked to comment on the mistreatment of alleged (on the arguable basis of little other than they were English and being attacked by police) football hooligans by police abroad” and you see why it caused a lot of anger. I can’t be sure, but i think the comments were partly motivated by a belief that it would do damage to his and the Government’s precious World Cup bid, which was believed by some to be a serious motivating influence on aspects of British foreign policy for a couple of years (eg. Zimbabwe).
There’s a poll in the Mail on Sunday today, apparently, on Cameron.
6. uhm, I always thougth he was a figure everyone “loved to hate” (which is usually a compliment).
7. Apparently he wins over women and young in that poll. I saw something on Sky yesterday night.
8 - from an outside perspective, he is the epitomy of the sort of person who you would expect to be pretty popular among his political colleagues, and those closely involved in the political process - a man with strong and deeply held views, who nevertheless doesn’t let those views cloud his personal relationships with his political opponents.
9.Alex, yes, that’s what I thought.
Alex 6. The BPIX poll is covered in a new article I’ve just published.
Tony Blair talking absolute nonsense about the NHS on the BBC.
On Patient Choice:
“If the hospital next door has a waiting list of 6 months and one 5 miles down the road has one of 1 month why shouldn’t a patient be able to choose the latter?”
Aside from the fact that 1) they have always been able to and 2) waiting list figures are wrong anyway, it sounds really convincing.
12. Re NHS. “Nanny Patty” is in the Indy criticizing Cameron for using his child when talking about the NHS.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article337251.ece
1. Anyone whose read a few of my posts will know I like historical precedents (as opposed to perceived parallels, though parallels are much more fun as they are easier to argue about). I believe there are always two cyles operating in opinion poll trends, and these are then overlaid by day-to-day events. It’s important not to confuse the cycles.
On the one hand, there is the intra-election cycle, lasting about 3-7 years which you identify - a government is relatively popular at an election, becomes less popular in the middle and recovers ground towards the end. There is also a much longer cycle - the old fashioned ’swing of the pendulum’, which occurs mainly as the government becomes stale, the opposition works out its faults and overcomes them and the electorate get in the mood for a change. Since the Great Reform Act in 1832, once a government with a majority has lost seats at a general election compared with the previous one, it has gone on losing seats at subsequent elections until out of office.
I don’t want to sound like a psephological David Schwarz - politics (and financial markets for that matter) aren’t that deterministic, but the general rules have held close enough to true for long enough to bear discussion.
A mid term Tory lead will almost certainly decline as we head towards polls in 2009/10, as every opposition lead has for decades, but the longer cycle will have its effect. Of course, given where the market is, you could still buy on Labour and make money even if they lose seats, but probably not much. By contrast, even a small Conservative workable majority will produce a better return. Such a result is far from improbable and probably worth the greater returns it offers.
Was the current sample as big as the December one?
Tony Banks did write a book displaying his wit - ‘Out of Order’, co-authored with Jo-Ann Goodwin. I bought it twelve years ago, so I’m not entirely sure if it’s still in print. It’s a very amusing guide to getting on in politics (including genuinely useful advice such as, if you’re in a selection meeting, a longer speech means fewer questions from the floor). He also includes the ‘May God’s curse light upon you all’ letter by the 18th century MP Anthony Henley to some constituents protesting about the Excise duty.
3 & 16 Many thanks to Nick and Richard above for details of books about/by Tony Banks - I’ll check these out on Amazon,Ebay,etc.
PP
17. look at there too:
http://www.politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=655
14- At the moment due to constituency imbalances the Tories need a much higher percentage of the national vote and tend to be disadvantaged by FPTP. However, the boundary commission will report by April 2007 (probably will report by Dec 2006). This could significantly alter the bidding if it created more Tory seats.