politicalbetting.com

Could Labour’s “hand-over” not be the foregone conclusion that it appeared?

The chart shows the changing price on Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership over the past seven days. Three things have influenced the markets; the ICM poll a week ago showing how Brown’s Labour 13% behind; the Communicate Research poll yesterday; and the move by Clarke and Milburn to open up a debate within the party.

The danger for Brown backers is that media pressure combined with concern over poll ratings might cause a serious alternative to Brown to come forward.

Everybody says that Brown has widespread support within the parliamentary party - but then the same thing was being said in favour of David Davis during the Tory leadership race in 2005. People might only be declaring they are for him because he look like the potential winner. As soon as that appears to be less of a certainty then support could fall away.

Mike Smithson

Will the “Britishness” thing help or hinder Brown’s leadership bid?

Watching Gordon Brown launch the latest stage of his of his Britishness agenda on the bulletins last night I could not help but thinking that he is making precisely the same mistakes that Michael Howard made in the run up to the 2005 General Election.

Then it will be recalled that the Tory leader stepped up the rhetoric and dog whistles against groups like immigrants and travellers in an effort to shore up his right flank. At least Howard had some obvious voter targets in mind when he moved onto this territory.

For surely Brown has worked out that the battle-ground at the next general election will be the centre-ground where appearing to be “beastly” to immigrants is likely to turn off voters rather than win support.

For I have observed before here that there are two big groups in the electorate that Labour needs to appeal to if it wants to hold onto power - those Tories who moved over to Blair in 1997 and the Labour supporters who switched to the Lib Dems in 2005.

Whatever you might think of Cameron the new Tory leadership has figured that out and it doesn’t take too much of a reading of the polls to work out that it is amongst these groups that the party is making the most electoral progress. For Brown now to be talking tough on immigrants seems designed to help the Tories to take the centre ground. It is just plain dumb.

And Gordon has not sewn up the Labour leadership completely yet. According to the Guardian this morning “Detailed assessments have been made suggesting between 60 and 90 MPs are committed to Mr Brown, and as many as 60 are opposed to him. This leaves about 200 in the centre willing to look at another candidate if the polls continue to suggest Mr Brown cannot defeat Mr Cameron.“

Each day the Brown price in the betting markets seems to ease out a little further. It’s now at 0.28/1. So in just nine days the return on a winning £100 Brown bet has moved from £19 to £28.

Unless there’s a significant turnaround in Labour’s position in the polls during March you can see a panic starting to set in and the notion of finding a leader other than Gordon might just get some traction. Labour feels it owes Brown the leadership - but not at any electoral cost.

Mike Smithson

OK, we stuffed up. Apparently the House of Commons won’t allow commercial ventures in
its hallowed halls - and so launching a book on gambling is right out! So we have decamped to the National Liberal Club. Liberals, it seems, are a lot less fussy.

We’ve had to put the date back a day, so please revisit your diaries. I will email separately all those who had already booked a place.

The time is changed slightly but the extension should help. Since the NLC is huge, there will be no limit on numbers but again it will be extremely helpful if those planning to come email me at the earliest possible moment.

The publishers, Harriman House, are still sharing the event with us and we need to give them names and numbers. The charge is now reduced to £10, which will include drinks and nibbles. Any balance left over will go behind the bar at whichever pub we decamp to after the event, probably St Stephens Tavern, but we can decide nearer the time.

Please send cheques direct to me at my home address which will be on the email I return to you by way of acknowledging your booking.

Apologies to everybody who may have been inconvenienced by the unexpected change. It’s been a nuisance but just as well we checked the regulations in time. Apart from the more obvious inconveniences, Guido would never have stopped laughing.

See you all there, I hope.

Peter Smith

Are IG On The Run?

When IG sportingly created a Politicians’ Popularity market, it doubtless expected to make a little profit from its collaboration with YouGov. The trading is understandably light and one suspects that most of the punting is coming from PB regulars. If so, one has to wonder if IG is making any money at all. This is the fifth week of competition and our fourth success. The other week was a draw.

Last week’s main recommendation to buy Alan Johnson was right in principle but unless you caught the early price, you will have made a small loss. The two more tentative suggestions to sell Benn and Blair scored big time and the profit for the week was 3.4 points (£34 to a £10 stake).

This week I am recommending a further sell of Benn at 90.3. No news is bad news for the Deputy Leader candidate and he has been little seen of late. Hague is also a sell at 95.3 for much the same reason. The man is virtually invisible. It follows that Cameron at 90.0 is a buy, as he hogs the camera in, mostly, favorable circumstances.

All three bets are to a 1 point stake. Let’s hope the success continues….or maybe not. We don’t want IG to give up, do we? Toodle pip

Peter the Punter

Tory lead up to 11% with Communicate Research

Reproduced above is a snap-shot of the top of the page when you put the latest poll numbers into Martin Baxter’s seat calculator on his excellent Political Calculus site which many MPs in marginal seats are said to be visiting a lot at the moment.

For the February poll in the Independent from Communicate Research reports a big swing to the Tories. These are the figures compared with the January survey CON 40% (+6): LAB 29% (nc): LD 17% (-4).

Unlike the other phone pollsters the firm does not seek to ensure a politically balanced sample by asking how people voted last time and then weighting accordingly and this has in recent months has had CR showing the least favourable Tory figures. This is why today’s survey is such a shock.

Overall in the survey CR found many more respondents who answered “Labour” to the question “Generally speaking do you consider yourself….?“. What’s behind the latest move is a sharp reduction in the proportion of declared Labour voters saying they would be certain to vote.

The detail shows only 45% of the Labour group saying they would be absolutely certain, compared with 65% for the Tories and 53% for the Lib Dems.

The political question is whether the continued bad polling news for Labour will have an impact on the leadership. Will it cause further pressure on Blair to go early and will it help or hinder Gordon Brown?

I have long been of the view that the only thing that can stop the Chancellor’s succession is very poor polling news for his party and him personally. This latest survey will only add to the jitters and might cause more questions over whether Brown is the man to lead the fight back against Cameron.

The Gordon price in the Labour leadership betting is 0.27/1.

Mike Smithson

Examining the details from last week’s ICM and YouGov polls

We have had to wait nearly a week for this but these are the details from the poll that has been the talk of Westminster and which has promoted a big change in the Brown price in the Labour leadership betting market.

The ICM full data is from the survey last Tuesday that showed Labour 13% behind if Gordon Brown is named as leader against Cameron’s Tories and Ming’s Lib Dems.

The above is a snap-shot and shows how voting preferences changed compared with the main figures when the named leader question was asked.

For me the big question is whether people are switching to the Tories because Brown is named or whether this is simply the Tories being helped when their party is linked with the name of their leader. My guess is that is is mostly the latter.

The same story is repeated in the detail from YouGov’s poll on Friday when its forced choice question was put.

Again Gordon Brown is failing to secure the support of a significant proportion of declared Labour voters.

Mike Smithson