2008 - the opening General Election prices
January 2nd, 2008
Have the betting markets got it about right?
On the first working day of the year I thought it might be useful, as a point of reference to record the latest UK general election betting prices. These seem to suggest that punters believe that the Conservatives will be the top party but will be someway short of an overall majority.
We last recorded the prices like this as a matter of record on June 27th 2007 - the day that Brown took up his position as Prime Minister. Then the mid-point spreadbetting prices on the number of seats the parties would get were CON 275: LAB 284: LD 51 seats.
So since then Labour has dropped nine seats on the spread markets, the Tories have gone up twenty and the Lib Dems are down two and a half. At its peak, during the Labour conference in September, the mid-point Labour spread moved to 329 seats.
These numbers are very much driven by the polls. At the start of December I sold Tory seats at the 306 level - so it has declined a bit since then.
The next major scheduled poll should be the January survey by Populus for the Times which I expect to be out next Tuesday.
Mike Smithson
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I’ve been thinking about the likely date of the next General Election. Current odds with Paddy Power are 6/1 2008; 8/11 2009 and 11/8 2010.
We will all start speculating furiously again if the polls indicate a possible advantage for Brown in going early. But Brown and his team are going to have to be extremely careful on this one. If there is even a hint that he is thinking of going early then election fever will start to mount again and he could be forced this time into calling an election before he wants to. He can’t be seen to back away twice. I wonder if he may even decide to rule out a 2009 election as we progress through this year?
O/T already
To answer PtP’s request from the last thread, I won’t become Chris(from Madrid) for the next two months, but I happen to have a couple of friends well informed of political matters in Spain…
Thus, I’ll do what I can to provide updates.
However, the campaign won’t really start before February. Two debates are planned between Zapatero and Rajoy at the end of February and the beginning of March.
This week, the big event was the public gathering organized last Sunday in Madrid by the Catholic Church to protest against Zapatero’s family policies. Hundreds of thousands turned up and it signals the beginning of a probably very nasty campaign. (ministers have already answered that the Church “still opposes civil rights”)
OT- from last thread- Cameron’s proposal for fining poor performing hospitals is stupid. Cut staff, worse results.
Why are our politicians today such vacuous dimwits simply looking for something that grabs the headlines?
Worse still who feeds them with such trite?
Can we have someone today somewhere who actually stands for something?
Re Tyson at 3. Nice to see someone other than Maggie Thatcher Fan calling for her return!
These figures suggest about a 5% swing to the Tories with the LibDems on about 18% (assuming average LD incumbency.) However, they appear to ignore the Nationalists’ performance. Consequently, such an electoral outcome is most unlikely.
I think the Tories are overestimated a good bit in those spreads. Reversing the Lab and Con figures would make more sense to me.
The Tories are simply not doing well enough (at the moment) in either polls or real elections to justify largest-party status, in my view…
However, I’ll change that view if they are consistently ahead of Labour by about 12% throughout 2008.
Do agree that the proposals are daft though. They’d be fine if hospitals were independent of the state, and there was real competition between them. That is a long way from the current situation
1. StJohn - if you’re thinking of betting on an Election in 2008, Betfair still has Jan-June at 20, and Jul-Dec at 26 (only for small sums of money though).
I actually think it is more likely than is suggested by the odds - Brown has said it won’t be 2008, but *events* could force his hand, and if May is a complete disaster, he might step down later in the year, citing ill-health etc.
Tyson the government is claiming that Cameron is stealing their policies which are, they claim, tougher and even more costly to the hospitals.
Tussle of the terminators?
Odds at odds with each other.
Paddy Power has a market on Iowa, which seems out of line with Betfair.
Paddy Power have Hillary at 7-4, while Betfair have 2.04, with 2.2 if you want to lay (6-5).
Paddy Power also have Mitt Romney at 5-2, while Betfair have 2.18, with 2.4 (7-5) if you want to lay.
Not too much money at stake, but you could get a zero-liability bet on Hillary and Romney if you fancy it.
9 Thanks Morus - That’s helped me cover my main exposures.
Re Madrid - I have a daughter and prospective son-in-law in Granada - will see what they think.
2-From last thread, PP will do better on a lower share of vote as they tend to be better represented in small provinces with 3 MPs, so getting 2/3 of these as well as being a shoo in in the 2 with one MP. If PP end up ahead in seast but behind in % vote who will govern?
Of assorted regional parties, only the Canarian CC (2-4 seats) is normally a PP ally. The Catalan CiU (say 12-14 seats) would normally support PP if they are ahead in seats. To govern PP would normally need to get at least 160/350 seats, at present a tall, but not impossible order.
PSOE would normally be supported by the left IU (say 6-8 seats). The Catalan ERC (say 8-10 seats), and the Galician BNG (up to 2 seats) would normally support PSOE. This leaves about 10-12 assorted Basque seats from the conservative (but not necessarily pro-PP) PNV, the nationalist EA, to the successors of HB (read Sinn Fein), and possibly a leftist nationalist Navarre seat. My guess PSOE would need 156 or so seats (2004: 164), but it MAY be unacceptable to support PSOE if they come second in seats.
In summary, I’d expect a carbon copy finish to 2004, with maybe PP up a few on 2004 but not enough to govern. A weakened PSOE win or a PP minority may lead to early elections. Either way, expect the PP to tighten grip in (weak) Senate.
A general description follows.
http://www.electionresources.org/es/index_en.html
9: yup, disappointing liquidity at Betfair. I’ve got adorably low commission rates there from sports arbing, so was hoping UK betting interest this time round would be higher than 2004.
3
If the individuals responsible in hospitals or other public sectors had the threat of losing their job due to poor performance / incompetence then that would certainly start to focus minds.
As it is, it’s vrtually impossible to be sacked in the public sector,within social services I have lost count in the number of tradegies involving kids & babies,each and every time nobody is blamed or accountable or responsible and everyone gets to keep their jobs.
12- I share most of your analysis.
It’s also necessary to factor in that PP was only hundreds of votes away from another seat in several constituencies (Avila, Teruel, Girona…).
I would also add that the PSOE strongly benefited from the very even split between ERC and CiU in catalan constituencies (D’Hondt formula favours leading lists against split oppositions)
15 Was reading Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” in which he is amazed at the safety and efficiency of the French Railways and concludes it is because in France there are consequences to officials for failures: “No blame attached to officers - that lying and disaster breeding verdict so common to our soft hearted juries, is seldom rendered in France”.
The problem is that, unlike 150 years ago, response today is to circumvent responsibility through process, rules and regulation which protects management/ministers. An outbreak of MRSA is no-ones fault, apparently, so no-one can be blamed but obviously processes and instructions need to be reviewed.
In another field the verdict that that a Brazilian electrician’s death by shooting is the fault of processes and procedures being incorrectly applied not people is accepted.
O/T About hospitals, apparently the Marsden royal hospital in London has been evacuated because of a fire.
4
I have never called for Mrs Thatcher return ;);)
15-Most analysts seem to say there are only about 12-15 seats really in play. Agree on the Catalan seats, ERC was strong, but not strong enough, so depriving CiU of the “Catalanist” seat.
Something to look out for, PSOE seem to be tanking in Madrid and this alone could provide the PP with up to 4 seats, a big number in a close election. Most of the 3-4 seat provinces are in effect 2 party provinces, and lots were won by only a few hundred votes last time round.These “marginal” consituencies would include Navarre, Huesca, Teruel, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Albacete, Cuenca, Castellon, Almeria off the top of my head. Add to these Alava (a 3 way marginal where top party will take 2 seats to one each for #2, and 3). So, targeted campaigning could be very successful. Taking all the above would add +10 to any party for a minimal change in vote share. Of course, in 2004 they were split…
I look in on spreadfair from time to time to see what punters are thinking, and the answer nearly always seems to be ‘nothing’. There was a big move after the non-election, but most weeks I get the impression that nobody has bet anything. As Mike says, it’s only big poll shifts that move the prices, and even then it’s slow - the Tory figure has been around 300 for ages as the lead zooms up and down from 5 to 13 and back. My guess is that apart from Mike only a dozen or so people are active there outside election times.
Thanks to ukpaul for his hilarious post 87 about the primary election system on the last thread.
This will cause Nulabour to lose a few points in the opinion polls, if only any oppostion party will pick up on it.
One of the most controversial honours is the CBE which will be awarded to Richard Summersgill, the head of HM Revenue & Customs (HMR&C)’s child benefit section, after the personal details of every family in the UK went missing two months ago.
An internal inquiry into who was responsible for the fiasco is continuing and the decision to honour Mr Summersgill is understood to have caused tensions in Whitehall, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Although Treasury officials are insisting Summersgill was unlikely to be directly involved, his reward is believed to prove controversial.
This is mainly because of HMRC’s poor performance in running the flagship tax credits system, which is costing taxpayers up to £1 billion a year.
Always nice to see you can bet on the Lib Dems to come out on top! A nice way for people to take money off absurdly enthusiastic Lib Dem supporters.
Having said that I think the Lib Dem spread on sporting index is a couple of seats too low - no more though. They are likely to gain during the campaign proper.
20- Actually The Economist remarked two weeks ago in an interesting article about the primaries that this seemingly absurd system is obviously way more democratic than a country where a party can suddenly appoint a new prime minister, without any vote cast.
Anyway, I don’t understand why Britsh PMs don’t have to conform themselves to a confidence vote by the Commons if they are not appointed just after a GE (as new heads of governments in all parliamentary systems do)
As with all the spread markets there is a bit of an activation energy - you have the believe that things have changed enough to spend some money trading away from the mid-market price - once that is overcome thing can change pretty quickly.
The seat markets since the last election have been far more volatile than ever before. In fact this was predicted by the huge implied volatilities in the fixed odd markets - I thought this had to be exaggerated but the market was right and I was wrong.
FYI 1st councillor defection of the year, from LD to Conservatives.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2008/01/conservatives-g.html
Maybe the real gain here is that Labour can no longer claim that there are no Conservative councillors in Manchester?
So that leaves just Liverpool and Newcastle.
3: Although something needs to be done Cameron’s proposals (like the Labour ones they’re cloning) won’t do much.
I’d get the manager of the ward to spend a hour cleaning it for every infected patient.
23. It’s implicit - a PM is assumed to have the confidence of the HoC unless it can be proved otherwise. It’s for the opposition parties to make that case, and they have the opportunity to do so either by putting down a confidence vote of their own, or in the votes on either the Queen’s speech or the Budget, both of which would usually be regarded as confidence matters.
25 Read the story in the Guardian and his statement “David Cameron has brought the Conservative party back to the centre ground of British politics. Like me, he believes in spreading opportunity and giving people a real say over their own lives. Across the country, only the Conservatives can be the change that Britain needs.”
Doesn’t that sound like it was written from his heart? No spin here, no sireee.
Agree that it does blunt the ammunition a bit though
25 And as he was re-elected in 2007 this can not be blamed on re-eselection. the LDs gained a few from Cons last year after they were deselected. As a former LD PPC at last GE they can not pass this loss off with their usual accusations. Full story http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1030231_defection_puts_tory_in_town_hall
27- David Herdson
I unterstand that it’s implicit and actually one very attractive aspect of British politics is the number of implicit or at least unwritten rules.
However, I think The Economist was right: British comments slagging off the primary system as bizarre and undemocratic seem a bit odd considering some aspects of the British system…
But presumbly, Ralph (26), that would have to be at the going rate of pay for cleaning wards…..
Clegg has spent the last few weeks laying into the tories, seeing one of his own councillors then do a moonlight flit over to them must be a bit annoying. Not majorly damaging to the lib dems, but something they could do without, and gives Cameron a boost.
28: That’s not spin. Spin it taking something bad and trying to sell it as good.
31: No, part of the managerial contract.
re 26 and what if the budget has run out - who’s going to pay to clean the ward? And what would you cut instead? Perhaps make do with fewer nurses, close a bed, etc?
We agreed here a long time ago, Cuddles (32), that Asian politicians are a law unto themselves: they do not fall into the usual pattern of things.
If you wish to prsue the point, please let us know how the Asian former-Labour councillors in Ealing Southall are getting along now with their new-found Tory colleagues? They are all “Cameron’s Conservatives”, if I remember correctly.
Oddly enough LD voice have not covered the Manchester defection….
Probably got better things to do …..
Here in Bedford councillors defect all the time. In fact there’s one ex-Lib Dem who went to the Tories and is now onto his third party.
20 - Thanks Nick! I can imagine the response you’d get from UK party members if they had to use the US system, any members in, for example, Yorkshire, left with a fait accompli because those in the south had managed to boot out most of the candidates before the circus came to town.
I can understand the usefulness of it in a pre-mass media age but surely it gives disproportionate power to a proportion of a party’s membership which is, in turn, a small proportion of the electorate.
25. & Gateshead & Knowsley (just to round off the mets). The thing is, defection is the only way you can get representation in these places, it’s not as if this fella is going to get re-elected in Manchester, if he stays in your party long enough to fight as a Tory that is.
Bob Novak reckons Hillary will come third in Iowa, Obama and Romney to win, just announced on Drudge.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24241
You mean that he has committed political suicide, Khunanup (40)? At least in Manchester. Strange that he should want to do that.
However, presumably the Tories have promised him a safe seat somewhere, like that did for Adam X - I forget his name exactly - the TV celebrity they paraded before us not so long ago. Where did they select him for in the end?
39- ukpaul- like Nick Palmer I think you did an exceptionally good post at the end of the last thread. I was going to mention it, but got sidetracked by the hospital headlines for Cameron.
Its hard to defend defections in a party political world - at council level there is a degree less party identification and a degree more personal vote than there is at constituency level, and as Mike says defections are a lot more common and defensible. Can’t though see how defections are defensible or permitted when elections are PR / party list where voter is voting for a party primarily - Saj Karim as the only Lib Dem MEP for West Midlands defecting to Tories means that the 13% who voted LD in what was a Party List election don’t have the representative they are entitled to.
44 Good point, but if they voted for the candidate, they vote for him/her, warts and all. There is no guarantee on the ballot paper
41. Bob Novak is a Republican who does his best to throw spanners in the works of the Democrat process to weaken whoever eventually wins. I wouldn’t listen to anything he says about it.
39. Such is the problem with a federal system where the States decides on how things are done, and the national government does not have the sovereignty to overrule. It happens with the silly primary system, the gerrymandering of districts, the inability to reclaim funds from pork barrel projects. Localism is good. Federalism is bad.
46 - My point exactly. Why is he playing into Hillary’s hands by helping to manage expectations (which has been the tactic for her campaign in Iowa since before Christmas)? Does this mean that he thinks the real threat is Obama? I am confused.
Except that they didn’t, Maggie TF (45). That is why the party list system is so anti-democratic. It is the party that puts candidates in order, not electors.
And that is why the STV system is so vastly preferable: each elector can express his preferences among parties, within each party, and totally idiosyncratically if he so chooses. And then his vote counts, almmost entirely: he helps to get SOMEBODY elected.
Saj Karim was elected because he was on the Lib Dem list. If he had not been, another Lib Dem MEP would have been elected instead of him. Personally, he is of no account.
48. I seem to have missed your dismisal of William Newton Dunn when he switched parties almost immediately he had been safely elected on a party list. Is he of no account?
44 Actually he was one of two LD MEPs for the North West but your point still stands.
If Saj Karim were to stand down he would be replaced by a LibDem which I guess means he isn’t going to.
I suppose the problem with the US primaries really reflects the drawbacks of a federal system (which leaves everyone to set different dates for primaries etc.). It’s always seemed to me odd that people in California aren’t upset that, say, Utah has the same number of senators as they do, so a Utah voter have maybe 50 times the influence on the Senate as a Californian voter. Why isn’t there a West Salt Lake City Question?
I think the reason is Americans jealously guard their constitution like it has been handed down on stone tablets even if history has rather left bits of it behind.
I suppose you could say certain amonst us jealously guard the constitution we don’t have with similar tenacity.
What can Gord do about this?
Oil is traded at $100 per barrel
A barrel of oil for delivery in February trades at $100 on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the first time.
Offer his resignation ?
52 - I happen not to agree, Nick, I like the quirks of their system as much as I like the quirks of ours!
However, I have just re-read Robert Dahl’s majestic “How Democratic is the American Constitution?”, and enjoyed it greatly. I disagree with his premise more than his conclusion, but it is a fascinating book, both for the history, and for the statistical research that supports his argument. If you haven’t read it (which on reflection, it is likely that you have!), it is worth a look.
50 - For some reason I forgot it was North West and associated Mr Karim with Birmingham. Would much prefer STV for European elections.
As I pointed out in December, in South Africa, where it’s party list, defections aren’t banned but are only allowed in a short window every year. Result is generally not all one way with each party trying to present their gains as great wins and their defectors as defective. Adds a bit of colour to the political game.
52- Nick P
Why isn’t there a West Salt Lake City Question?
Because California has 55 delegates in the electoral college and elects 53 congressmen while Utah elects 3 congressmen and has 5 delegates.
57- Actually I think the “winner takes all” rule in almost all states for the presidential election is far less democratic than the principle of equal representation of the states in the Senate.
52/57 - I’m trying to remember the statistic, and I think it is 16% of the voting age population votes for half the Senate. Voting population of 200m, means that 9.6m could elect 50 Senators, or 4.8% of the voting population (3% of total population).
52. Because that’s what was agreed in the Connecticut Compromise (passed by 1 vote after 11 days of wrangling.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_compromise
Without it, there would have been no United States…
re defections………North West……& Saj Karim……
I suppose the Tories must be really hacked off in that almost 2 months after Saj defected this is the only councillor defection that he has taken with him.
Let’s just have a little look………..Saj is a solicitor with a new office in……Manchester. Today’s defector is a ……legal executive! So there’s going to be no linkages there, are there!
BTW if anyone has to sack staff, please don’t do it the Karim way…..by text! No points for style, or courage.
O/T Boris level-pegging with Ken in new poll in today’s Standard. Inspector “Nasty” Paddock grazing far far behind..
http://tinyurl.com/yts36q
re 48. Well it was the party list for the European Parliament in 1999 that got Nick Clegg into an elected position.
63 …And Huhne too!
An interesting point, Ian (61): “I suppose the Tories must be really hacked off in that almost 2 months after Saj defected this is the only councillor defection that he has taken with him.”
This would seem to suggest that Saj did not have any significant personal followers withinthe Lib Dems; and it reinforce my point that he was elected only because he was on the Lib Dem slate.
Logically then, no Lib Dem would follow him into the maws of the Tories (except one, now who would seem to have other - non-political - interests).
Cameron’s Conservatives; nul point. In Engllish, no point to Cameron’s Conservatives. Very sorry, chaps…..
44. You also have to wonder why there seems to be a tendency for asian representatives of the Libdems to defect. Is it a sign of institutional racism in the LiDem party perhaps??
But the difference is that Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg were elected because they were Lib Dems, enjoyed support from Lib Dems and continue to do so.
Only self-deluded Tories (who am I thinking of?
) see THEM as potential defectors to the Tories.
Saj Karim destroyed his built-in base of support when he defected. All he can take with him is his personal vote and personal supporters, which - from the latest evidence - would seem to be limited in the extreme.
No, Chrisio (66). They tend to go with the perceived winners. At this moment, Cameron and his Conservatives. But when the electorate see through Cameron (any day now), what will they do?
It is all very short-termism (referring to Asian politicians, not to Cameron’s support, though many PBC readers might think otherwise). OK, both….
66 - I think that is a very nasty innuendo.
69. I may feel guilty if I’m nasty about an individual person but never a political party.
66. Hmmm, the only party where the wider membership has voted a black or Asian to a top party position? Oh that’d be us with our former federal president!
New story - YouGov has Ken just 1% ahead
66 You may also recall the Labour Asian councillors in Southall who defected en masse to the Conservatives and are now causing some trouble within the Ealing Conservative council group . It is more self interest than as Tressage says going with perceived winners IMHO . This latest defector would have had precisely zero chance of getting elected in May as a Conservative in that ward .
Personally, I don’t believe that any party* is institutionally racist. There may be circumstances where some communities see a local advantage to tacking towards (or away from) one or other political party, however.
(*Excluding the BNP)
There are some desperate postings from Tressage and Mark Senior today.
Another Lib Dem ex-PPC has defected. That must be about 10 now since the 2005 election. He is not an insignificant figure as you make out. By the very fact that he sits on Manchester Council and chose the Conservatives over any other party makes him significant.
Try getting some perspective.
74. Surely the last thing the BNP is, is ‘institutionally’ racist. That suggests there is an unwitting element to it…
50 STV works well enough in Australia, though, because of the stupidity of the electorate, not as well as it might. They myth that giving you first preference to a minor party means you’ve “wasted your vote” persists and is subtly reinforced by the major parties at every election. If you want PR without handing undue power to party organizations, consider the system used in the Australian Capital Territory, Hare-Clark with Robson rotations.
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