politicalbetting.com

Your chance to put your questions

Politicalbetting has invited both the contenders in the Lib Dem leadership battle, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne to take part in online hustings where users of the site can put their questions and discuss the issues with the contenders.

The first, with Chris Huhne, will take place at 11am this Sunday morning and will last for about an hour and a half. A special thread will be opened shortly before this time. The format will be similar to the online discussion we had with the founder of Mori, Sir Robert Worcester, a few weeks ago.

Although arrangements for Chris Huhne have been finalised I am still waiting for confirmation from the Nick Clegg camp with whom I have already had discussions.

When nominations closed today there were, as expected, just the two runners - both ex-Westminster school-boys who went onto Oxbridge and became MEPs. Both have only been in the house for two and a half years.

Mike Smithson

What are the implications of the collapse of the anti-EU party?

On June 10th 2004 in the last European elections, UKIP received 2.7 million votes and gained twelve seats in the European Parliament. Their national vote share of just under 17% put them in third place ahead of the Lib Dems and all the talk was of the party doing terrible damage to Michael Howard Conservatives in the ensuing general election.

When that vote came, just eleven months later, the party received a paltry 618,000 votes which amounted to less than 2.4% of the national vote. It did not win any Westminster seats although it’s argued that the performances of their candidates in key marginals cost the Tories a clutch of seats.

Earlier in 2007 the party was making the headlines again when two former Conservative Lords defected. Lords Pearson and Willoughby de Broke said they felt Cameron’s Conservative Party was not producing policy to support their beliefs.

Today, Julian Glover in the Guardian reports that in the latest poll published this morning UKIP did not register at all. Not a single respondent said the party would be their choice.

UKIP, like other smaller parties, is suffering from the increasing polarisation of big party politics. The question is whether this will have an impact on the number of seats changing hands and if so how should punters factor this in? For the UKIP element does not figure in the standard seat predictors except in so far as a part of the decline in support might mean switching to other parties.

We saw in the ICM marginals poll on the weekend that Gord called off the election that the Tories were doing well in the key seats. In that survey five people said they would vote UKIP.

All this is why in my commons seat spread betting I’m now assuming that the Tories will do a little better than the Baxter and Wells seat predictors suggest. When you have £100 a seat positions the odd five gains or losses either way can make a big difference.

Meanwhile on the Betfair general election “most seats” market the Tories have moved into the favourite slot once again.

Mike Smithson

But the Tories take the hit for the LD surge

After predicting on yesterday’s ComRes thread that the ICM October poll for the Guardian would report a 5% Tory lead I feel a bit of satisfaction that that indeed is what has come about. These are the shares with changes on the last survey from the pollster tkaen in the immediate aftermath of the Tory conference CON 40% (-3): LAB 35% (-1): LD 18% (+4)

Also last week I was predicting that the extra media attention from Ming’s departure and the leadership race would give the Lib Dems a 3-4% boost - which has happened too.

ICM has consistently been the pollster which has given the Lib Dems the highest shares and I’m convinced that the 14% of three weeks ago played a part in the leadership changes.

There’s something for everybody here:-

I’m hoping that the detail of the poll might have useful information about the Lib Dem race.

Mike Smithson

Is there a political risk in taking unilateral action?

According to the First Post online magazine tonight Gordon Brown is planning to take unilateral steps to stop the Tory multi-millionaire, Lord Ashcroft from pouring money into marginal seats between elections. At the same time there will be no constraints on the amount the trade unions can give to Labour - something that the Tories offered in exchange for agreeing to the marginal seats proposal.

This looks set to be a major row with the Tories claiming that Labour is trying to fix the election spending rules in its favour and not do anything in return.

There’s a huge danger in Labour being seen to act partially in this way and the move could provide the Tories with another stick to beat the government with.

It could be that the downside of the row is greater than the benefit of restricting Tory spending in the marginals.

Mike Smithson

It’s not just been LDs moving to the Tories?

Whenever a new poll comes out now the standard explanation from Labour observers is to observe that much of the change that has seen the Tories move above a 40% share in six consecutive surveys has been the result of Lib Dems switching. Once a replacement for Ming is in place, it is argued, then the Tories will decline.

We saw that overnight with the Independent’s ComRes survey that had with changes on mid September - CON 41%(+7): LAB 33%(-4): LD 16%(+1)

Yet looking at the detailed data the biggest move to the Tories has not been from the leaderless Lib Dems but from Labour.

One in eight of those who said they had voted for Tony Blair’s party in May 2005 now say they are supporting the Tories. This is about the same proportion as the LD>CON switchers but, of course, there are far fewer of them.

Hopefully we will have the October ICM survey for the Guardian tomorrow and it will be interesting to compare. Both pollsters follow similar methodologies and, indeed, ComRes often uses ICM to carry out its fieldwork.

Another detail from this latest poll also suggests there has been second big trend as well - support for “others” has been showing a marked decline.

In the latest ComRes poll, like last week’s survey from Ipsos-Mori, the total for “others” is down at 6% which is just about the lowest share since the 2005 general election and is even more remarkable given the progress that the SNP is making in Scotland.

Thus just a month ago ComRes had a balance of 14% for “others” while Ipsos-Mori had this at 10%.

Part of this seems to have been caused by a decline in recorded support for UKIP and BNP which looks as though it has gone to the Tories.

Mike Smithson

..and a boost for the Lib Dems

According to Ben Brogan of the Daily Mail tomorrow’s ComRes poll in the Independent will give the Tories an 8% lead.

The shares, with changes on last month, are reported to be CON 41% (+7): LAB 33% (-3): LD 16% (nc)

ComRes operates like Populus and ICM and weights by both past vote and certainty to vote. Its past vote formula has been less favourable to Labour than the other two.

These figures will come as a mighty relief to the Lib Dems - especially as the first surveys after the dispatch of Ming still had them at 11%.

The real significance in the main party battle is even with the Lib Dem share holding up it is Labour that is taking the hit.

On the spread markets I’ve just sold Labour at £40 a seat at 296 seats and have bought the Tories at £25 a seat at 273.4 seats.

Mike Smithson