politicalbetting.com

New polling innovation shows problem for Ming as well

In a major new way of presenting and collating polling information the detailed data from Friday’s ICM September poll in the Guardian, just out, gives a breakdown of what people will do based on how they voted in the 2005 General Election. The news is not good for the Fife neighbours, Gordon Brown and Ming Campbell.

For only three out of five people who voted Labour in 2005 told ICM they would do the same at the next General Election if Brown was leader.

We are able to track this because in what I believe is a first for a pollster we are now able to see how allegiances have switched between the parties since the last election and how different groups respond to questions like how they would vote with different people named as party leaders. This could be a vital resource if Labour’s succession is to be decided by a contest.

In the past we have only been able to make informed guesses about how votes were moving between the parties. Now ICM is giving us firmer information.

It shows on the main voting intention question, for instance, that 77% of Labour voters last time intend to do the same at the next election. A total of 8% of them now say they will vote Tory and 11% would vote Lib Dem with the balance going to “others”

Thus for the Tories the retention factor is 91% with 4% going Lib Dem and 1% to Labour. A total of 74% of the 2005 Lib Dem supporters stay with 14% going Tory and 8% going Labour.

The real shock comes when respondents were asked how they would vote if Cameron/Brown/Campbell are the leaders - for there are significant losses for both Labour and the Lib Dems. These are the main points:-

Clearly in each case you gain a few votes in one direction and you lose a few in the other. However you look at it the figures for Labour and the Lib Dems when Brown and Ming are named as leaders are not encouraging.

This is the first time data has been collated in this way and we need the evidence of a number of polls before we can draw firm conclusions - but the Brown retention element might be seized on by the Blairites who are trying to stop him.

ICM have built up a reputation as a pioneer in the polling business and should be congratulated on this welcome innovation. I am really looking forward to the next ICM poll to see if there changes are consistent. Let’s hope that other pollsters follow suit.

In the Labour leadership betting Brown is 0.48/1.

Mike Smithson

Will Gordon have to wait longer before he can go at Cameron?

Comments in a Radio 4 interview by the Education Secretary and possible leadership challenger, Alan Johnson, that Tony Blair would stay longer than most people were expecting has led to active trading on the departure date and the “length of third term” spread betting markets.

Johnson’s comments indicated a late summer departure which could deprive the new leader of taking over while the Commons is still sitting. It’s known that Gordon Brown has been pressing for the actual transfer date to be during the parliamentary session so that, if elected, he could have five or six weeks to “go at Cameron” before the recess.

If Johnson is calling this right then the new leader would probably have to wait until October 2007 before facing the Tory leader across the chamber at Prime Minister’s Questions.

The market from Cantor Spreadfair on how many weeks Blair’s third term will continue for is now showing a spread of 101-106 weeks which is six weeks longer than yesterday and would take the change-over into June.

Week one began on May 9th 2005 so the buy price starts in June 2007. The bookmaker makes clear that “…if Tony Blair announces his resignation for a date in the future, but carries on as Prime Minister in the interim, then the market will be settled on his actual final day as Prime Minister, not the time of the announcement”.

This is very different from the Betfair betting exchange definition of the market which is “When will Tony Blair officially cease to be leader of the Labour Party?”
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I can see problems of interpretation ahead on this if Blair were to announce, say, in April that he was planning to go at the start of July when a new leader was in place. The party rules seem to indicate that no election is possible until Blair has stepped aside so the operative date would be when that is submitted.

This is one of the reasons why you can still get 5.6/1 on the July-September option.

When Iain Duncan Smith, who incidentally I met today, had to step down in the autumn of 2003 Betfair settled on the basis of his leaving date - not when the vote of no confidence went through.

Mike Smithson

The Blair loyalist moves into the 4th favourite slot

In spite of all the focus on leadership issues in Manchester over the past three days there’ve been only two real moves in the betting on who will succeed Tony Blair.

The second favourite, Alan Johnson has now eased into the third place position at 10/1 with the Home secretary, John Reid, being backed down from 20/1 at the weekend to 8/1 this morning. Meanwhile of the outsiders the Works and Pension Secretary, John Hutton, has started to attract a bit of interest and is now the 39/1 fourth favourite on Betfair having been at 74/1 at the weekend.

Gordon Brown’s price has eased a touch but he is still, at 0.45/1, the rock solid favourite to take the crown. For while he wasn’t helped by the ICM or Frank Luntz focus groups his greatest strength is that, so far at least, no serious challenger has emerged.

Hutton, meanwhile, seems to be popping up everywhere this week as the Blairite loyalist that the media likes to talk to.

Last November the Observer columnist, Will Hutton (no relation) tipped him as a possible “dark horse in the race”. In a Radio 5Live interview he said:“He’s somebody who could actually be a kind of dark horse. With Margaret Thatcher back in 1989 John Major came out of the shadows. If Gordon Brown ever gets challenged successfully it will be by somebody we haven’t expected.”

The effort to find someone acceptable to fill the “Anybody but Brown” position was boosted by Peter Mandelson’s comments yesterday. His suggestion in a BBC interview that Gordon Brown “never fully reconciled” himself to Tony Blair becoming Labour leader twelve years ago is hardly going to help the Chancellor. Such words, from the Great Schemer, were clearly deliberate and, perhaps, indicate an effort to stop Brown getting it.

A lot now depends on Tony Blair who can control the timing and many other things that could help a challenger. His influence has been boosted by yesterday’s speech and it’s an open question as to whether he will throw his weight behind a challenger to Brown. Certainly the reported comments from Cherie Blair indicate that he might.

If Hutton starts being given more prominent roles then he might be worth a bob or two.

Mike Smithson

Could he have greater influence over the succession?

Surely the big political impact of Tony Blair’s extraordinary farewell speech this afternoon is that he, and nobody else, will decide on the precise date when the removal vans will arrive at Number 10?

The “tour de force” and the amazing reception he was given by delegates in Manchester put him in a unique position for the coming months. It’s going to be hard for anybody, particularly Gordon, to put any pressure at all on about the departure date. Blair is there for as long as we wants until next year’s Labour conference.

My guess is that the coverage of today will give the party a small but significant boost in the polls and this will reinforce Tony’s position. We might even see Labour back into the lead in the October Populus survey for the Times which is due out next week.

Blair’s conciliatory approach to being ousted in the way he was will win him friends and give him an influence on both party and national events that he has not enjoyed since the invasion of Iraq. His standing will increase.

A telling moment this afternoon was the reception he got when he laid into David Cameron. This was probably the most effective attack on the young Tory leader since his election last December and might indicate that there’s trouble ahead for the Tories. As ConservatveHome describes it this afternoon “Blair is our deadliest opponent.”

Quite who Tony wants to succeed him nobody knows but it is hard to imagine him not having a huge influence. Maybe that’s good for Gordon maybe it’s not.

In the betting PaddyPower has just introduced a market on the actual month of the departure. The prices are Sept 25/1: Oct 14/1: Nov 18/1: Dec 11/1: Jan 11/1: Feb 9/1: Mar 7/1: Apr 6/1: May 11/8: Jun 3/1: July 10/1: Aug 25/1 September 2007 and beyond 10/1.

I quite like the 10/1 on September 2007 and beyond - just in case he decide to bow out just ahead of a new leader being installed at next year’s conference.

The spread market from Cantor Spreadfair on how many weeks Blair’s third term will continue for is now showing a spread of 95 - 100 weeks. Week one began on May 9th 2005 so the buy price starts in the second week of April 2007.

Mike Smithson

How damaging were Cherie’s alleged remarks?

After watching and re-watching the vast amount of material coming out of Manchester I’ve come to the conclusion that the real problem with Gordon is that he cannot “do” sincerity.

The world “knows” that he was behind the “rolling resignation” plan to oust Tony earlier in the month that it is stretching credulity to it absolute limits for him to be going on the platform talking about the “great privilege” of working for all that time with the Prime Minister.

You cannot but help thinking that if it was such a privilege then why has he gone to such lengths to force Blair out?

For much of the time, of course, politics is about organised hypocrisy that a key quality in a leader is to be able to deliver the “sincerity” thing. You’ve got to be able to say things that at least sound plausible and that is where Gordon falls down badly.

The reason that Cherie Blair’s alleged remarks carry so much force and dominate the headlines this morning is that they ring true.

If there is widespread disbelief over what he says on this matter then surely that is going to spill over to other areas? That’s been a theme of much of the recent opinion polling and last night’s Frank Luntz focus group on Newsnight.

Where does this leave Labour leadership punters? Is there an alternative to Gordon at price that make an investment attractive. This is where it starts to get hard. For although John Reid came out of the Luntz session well he has a huge amount of baggage that will be crawled over if he does decide to put his hat into the ring when the time comes.

The Brown biographer, Tom Bower, had a long feature on Reid’s background in the Guardian at the weekend and, clearly, the Home Secretary could be very vulnerable in a leadership campaign.

Apart from that there appears to be nobody else. As the Luntz film suggested voters like Alan Johnson’s life-story but he has yet to find out how to inspire. A critical factor is his voice doesn’t sound right - it is not easy on the ear. I think any Johnson challenge is now dead.

Meanwhile today it is Tony’s turn on the platform and one thing’s for sure - he will at least sound sincere.

Latest leadership betting is here.

Mike Smithson

Gamblers not convinced so the Chancellor’s odds move out

The chart shows the changes during the past six hours in the Gordon Brown price for the Labour leadership.

Mike Smithson