Who’ll still be there on general election day?
July 27th, 2007
Betfair revive their leader line-up market
One of the great betting markets during the last parliament was Betfair’s leader line-up when you had to predict which of those who had been heading their parties two and a half years earlier would still be there on election day.
So the options then were Blair, IDS and Kennedy; Blair and IDS; Blair and Kennedy; only Blair; only IDS; only Kennedy and none of them. This became a great place to punt as each of the leaders came at one stage or another came under pressure. IDS, of course, was ousted in October 2003.
During the period it operated I had more than 600 separate trades backing and laying on each of the options and came out with a reasonable profit.
Now we’ve got the 2007 version of the market which has just been put up by the betting exchange. The options are with the latest prices:-
All three 0.4/1
Gord and Dave 1.92/1
Gord and Ming 1.7/1
Dave and Ming 9.5/1
Only Gord 9/2
Only Dave 9.5/1
Only Ming 20/1
None of them 9.5/1
There’s very little been put on so far and less than £150 has been traded. But if, say, the pressure does build on Cameron during the summer you could see this being the place where you could bet on him not being there or on him surviving. The same could happen with Ming although and clearly, at the moment, the odds on options including Gordon will remain fairly tight.
Like all these new Betfair markets it only gets interesting when punters start betting and there is some liquidity.
The general principle to follow is that party leaders are usually much more resilient than the headlines might suggest and the time to get the best price is when one of them is attracting a lot of flak
Provided nothing untoward happens to any of them the all three option will remain the strong favourite.
Today on the site. I’m tied up for almost all the day at a family wedding and will endeavour to publish Sean Fear’s Friday slot when I get a moment.
Mike Smithson
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The stockmarket has its biggest crash in years, and we have a morning of irrelevant headlines. The crash was biggest in London. Wake up journalists!
This is going to affect the pensions of everyone in the country, and was easily the biggest news story of the day. Strange that something so important was ignored by the press.
Mike what is all this constant ramping about in some sort of attempt to unseat Cameron? I haven’t come across any sort of mood for change in the party whatsoever.
Are you sure you weren’t guilty as charged when The Times accused you of trying to open up a betting market on this???
Seriously though, this is getting silly - how many pointless “Cameron’s going” stories do you want to write? I know the Lib Dems are feeling a little green around the gills from the electoral pressure they are under, but you’re beginning to make statements that only Roger would agree with! That must surely be an indicator that you’re wrong…!!! (Sorry Rog!)
Cameron, Brown and probably Ming will all lead their respective parties come the General Election in the Spring, barring ill health and unforeseen circumstances (Ming’s elevation to the Lords for example…)
All three of them
when are we going to see 9 smiling Gordons? only one away from Roger’s prediction!
4 - The Telegraph has a poll with Labour 9 points ahead of the Tories today I believe… or so I heard on the beeb this morning.
The reversal in the polls has been dramatic to say the least, giving me a small glow of smug self-satisfaction - not particularly at the figures, but that I said for a year or so that Labour’s problem was almost entirely Blair. I argued for ages that it was not Labour that were disliked, but the old PM himself. It does put into perspective the performance of Campbell that he made so little progress when he was obviously up against a PM so weak that he made Cammy look like a good prospect.
As an aside though, it must be of some satisfaction for Brown, that Cameron merely on sight of the ‘clunking fist’ has rolled onto the canvass, preferring it seems to just accept a good shoeing rather than actually trade any blows.
Out of interest, does Mike have to make the picture bigger if the lead goes over 10 points?
There’s a new thread “URGENT Take Ladbroke’s 8/1 on a 2007 election”
re 6. Paul - of course the picture will have to be changed if the lead goes above 10 percent although I might have to reduce the size of the faces.
Mike Smithson
2 - Ben - you are absolutely right!
Some good advice from Frank Field to Cameron:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/27/do2703.xml
Could that be his price?
Morning all. Like it here so decided to come back
9% lead is not good for Cameron at all, although with the kicking he’s received from Brown-supporting Tory papers it’s not particularly surprising. Methinks Coulsdon will need to work overtime right now.
Incidentally, I found by accident another bad poll for the Tories last night. Check the date:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/08/ntory08.xml
To me, this is Cameron’s biggest problem - he’s having to lead a party still by and large stuck with this mindset. Though I suppose some will claim that back then they were following real Conservative policies with a real Conservative leader…..
I said it on Sunday and it’s even more apt today - Cameron will want an early election not just to try and topple Brown but to put a far more hungry breed of MP who “gets” what he’s doing.
Coulsdon = Coulson
Sorry, it’s early (for me)
I’m sure they will all be there on election day, but come the following morning it will be carnage. Cameron will become the 5th consective Party Leader to announce his resignation as leader after failing to win an election (leading to open warfare in the Conservatives and perhaps a split along Lab / SDP lines of the 1980’s) whilst Menzies will announce that as he is now 66, he feels that that is a good time to stand down as Lib Dem leader and if they have any sense (and provided he can hold his seat) they’d elect the Lib Dem MP for Sheffield, Hallam as their leader (the only problem is I can’t remember his name!)
6 & 8 - Paul and Mike
Surely the solution is to put up one picture of Roger, on the basis that one Roger = 10 Gordons. If the lead goes over ten you simply add one Gordon for each percentage point until 20%, when you have two Rogers, and so on.
By the way, it is about time PB introduced its own Honours system for outstanding achievements. You could start by giving the Order of Exellence to our friend Roger and encourage others by offering similar accolades.
Who knows, one day you could even sell them.