politicalbetting.com

Mayor Competition Results - how did you do?

Congratulations to Andy Cooke, one of pb’s leading analysts and number-crunchers, on a clear victory in the PB London Mayor prediction competition. Andy’s overall score was just 5.07 and he also had the best first preference score of 4.59. Richard Stoneman was runner-up with a score of 6.87 while Dave Hague took third with 7.39. Fourth-placed Jack Peterson on 7.71 had the best final vote predictions, being just 0.12 away from the actual result.

The full results are available to download here:

Mayor Competition Results

Now that Boris has his feet firmly under the desk, a final thought - could Ken be the best available Labour candidate to take him on in 2012, or would they be better off with someone new - experience or a fresh face? Might Livingstone still be the only politician of stature to take on Johnson in four years time, or would he simply look well past his sell-by date? Ladbrokes quote Ken at 10/1 for a 2012 win, or there’s Paddick at 200 for the more adventurous.

Crewe & Nantwich - markets now open for business

Punters will probably be itching to place bets after all the excitement of the Mayor and the locals, and the good news is that the markets for what could be the most important by-election in years are now open. Shadsy has flagged up the Ladbrokes market where they go Conservatives 4/5, Labour 7/4 and Lib Dems 4/1. Personally I think the Conservatives will take their first by-election gain since 1982 and so I’ve made the first trade on Betfair (the “tissue” here is as per the Magic Sign prices) with (£20) at 1.8 - for the Tories it’s a case of “if not now, then when?” and I think that Tamsin Dunwoody won’t be enough to keep the seat in the red column. This will be the key betting event for the next fortnight - please use the PB betting links to help keep the site going. (7.45 update - now 4/6, 2/1, 9/2)

Bye Bye Bertie, hello Dmitry

Not one but two countries will have new leaders tomorrow - Bertie Ahern will submit his resignation as Taoiseach to President McAleese this evening, but will continue as caretaker PM until Brian Cowen’s expected election in the Dáil tomorrow afternoon, while Dmitry Medvedev (making, as Morus has rightly pointed out, a major contribution to the shortest ever G8 leadership) will take over at the Kremlin from Putin tomorrow, following his election in March.

Key questions for Russia watchers are to what extent if any Medvedev will differ from his predecessor’s policies, and how Putin’s new role as PM and head of the United Russia party will unfold vis-a-vis the new president. Meanwhile, Berlusconi is waiting in the wings to take over in Italy, although disconcertingly for those used to UK-style swift changes in government, Prodi is still in the post of Presidente.

Olmert facing new criminal probe - will Shas pull the plug on Kadima?

Israel is another country which may soon see a change at the top - the gagging order on the new criminal probe into PM Ehud Olmert will not be lifted before Independence Day, which begins Wednesday night. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has been mooted as a possible replacement should the Kadima-led 4-party coalition manage to survive Olmert’s departure.

However, even if Ehud Barak’s Labor aren’t keen on early elections, the rest of the government looks shaky - three MKs (MPs) from the Pensioners’ Party Gil jumped ship at the weekend, and and on Monday Shas threatened to quit, following reports of progress in the talks with the Palestinians. Could it be Shas with their spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef who finally bring down the two-year old Kadima-led government, prompting early elections (September has been mooted) and the likely return of Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of a Likud administration?

Coming up on PB - Indiana and North Carolina

There’ll be full coverage of today’s primaries in the Hoosier and Tar Heel states - polls close at 11pm/midnight in Indiana (6pm Eastern/Central) and 12.30 in North Carolina (7.30 Eastern).

Don’t forget to use the betting links to help keep Politicalbetting going:

Paul Maggs “Double Carpet”

So will it be Ken or Boris? - the PBC London Mayor Competition

Just four days until London goes to the polls - who do you think will be the new Mayor and how will the various candidates fare?

You will be asked to predict the first preference shares for Ken, Boris, and Brian, plus the BNP, Greens, Left List, and UKIP, and then the final vote share for your predicted overall winner. (Final vote share is winner’s total votes / total votes for top two candidates x 100 - Ken’s final vote share in 2004 was 55.4%)

Please click here to open the competition which is in Excel format:

London Mayor Competition

Please do not make any predictions in this thread as they will not count.

The scoring system is available on the second sheet of the attachment, and the prize will be a copy of Mike’s book The Political Punter.

Save the attachment (if you open it straight away it may be in read-only mode) and send your predictions to pbpredcomp@yahoo.co.uk - entries close 7pm Wednesday.

International round-up

A poll out today by Red C in the Sunday Business Post suggests that support for a “Yes” vote in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is dropping, with the Yes/No/Undecided split now 35-31-34. Paddy Power offer evens on a “No” vote, which may be value - what do pb’s resident Irish experts, Neil, Yokel, and Caveman think?

The markets: St John may be glad to know that I’ll be keeping an eye an international betting markets in DC on Sunday, although they are fairly quiet at present away from the US. One however that I do think is value is to back the Nationals in New Zealand - they have had comfortable poll leads for a while now and although trading is very thin on Betfair, there is £173 available at 1.31. I hope to feature NZ in more depth as we approach the election in the autumn.

Finally, a useful article from Bloomberg ahead of the German election in 2009, speculating on whether SPD leader Kurt Beck or Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the popular Foreign Minister, will be going head-to-head with Merkel as the party’s Kanzlerkandidat in the Bundestag election. Merkel looks currently nailed on for a second term, with the CDU/CSU having had big leads for months - the key question is what the makeup of the next government will be.

Paul Maggs “Double Carpet”

A look at the Forecaster of the Year numbers

The above table shows the leading predictions for the “what will happen in 2008?” section - there were 106 entries altogether.

Other key findings:

Thanks to everyone who entered the competition, and having the spreadsheet format has speeded up “number-crunching” the predictions by several days - good luck to all the competititors.

The full summary predictions, plus all the entries, are here - please email me at pbpredcomp@yahoo.co.uk if you think any of your predictions appear wrongly on the entries sheet.

Paul Maggs “Double Carpet”

Guest Editor

Who is going to come out top this year?

Politics in the first few days of 2008 has already burst into life with the Iowa caucuses - so what will happen in the rest of the year? Back by popular request, test your forecasting skills once again with the PBC prediction competition.

Due to the likely number of entries, the competition this year will be in spreadsheet format, which will mean that collating and marking can be greatly speeded up (there were over 3000 items to mark in the 2007 competition).

The spreadsheet can be downloaded below - there are 23 questions in 4 sections.

PBC 2008 competition

Do not post your answers in the thread below - please email your completed spreadsheet to pbpredcomp@yahoo.co.uk

If you don’t have access to Excel, these links may be helpful:

OpenOffice

NeoOffice

Mike Smithson

Paul Maggs

Your chance to help predict the next 12 months

Instead of our usual prediction competition for 2008 we have “The Big PBC Prediction” where everybody is asked to give their views on a range of political and associated economic events.

Please fill in the questions below and let us see if our combined wisdom can get the next year right.

Also please can you write comments in the normal way on the thread below and not on the individual poll result pages.

Mike Smithson

Keeping you entertained throughout the holiday

Thanks to Rod Crosby for all he did yesterday providing the constant stream of political trivia questions which kept us amused on Christmas Day. This worked brilliantly - there were 275 comments which compares with the paltry 16 contributions that the site got on Xmas Day 2006.

For Boxing Day we have StJohn’s PB Cross-word. I have no idea how hard this is going to and I think that keen cross-word experts are going to have to print the page off - but it does look very interesting.

Across

1. Mystery poster conceals most of thong from minister (4,5).
6. Lady was a strange sort (5).
9. Allowance given to President (5).
10. Speaker portrayed as a hot and broody mixture (9).
11. Politician let Comrade Blair run amok (7,8).
13. 3/1 Balls is reprimanded (8).
14. Smear on oil wrecked nation (6).
16. Country in drug and alcohol issue (6).
18. NuLabour activists? (3,5).
21. America need forty; one less could result in a defeated force (11,4).
23. He protected club teams (9).
25. Stupid book on despot (5).
26. Party loses nothing down under (5).
27. Appears again to join in stuffing former Home Secretary (9).

Down
1. Yokel! Toby’s with a gangster (5).
2. State room first in ceremonial office (11).
3. This puzzle was liberated (3,4).
4. Film director covered The Man in the White Suit and was opposed to the establishment (8).
5. Garment worn to court by Hutton (6).
6. Former Royal Marine and show off (7).
7. In addition to nothing (3).
8. Bush territories make for extremist conditions (3,6).
12. Relating once more to a drawback for Campbell (11).
13. Confused lurch off to the left by Cold War leader (9).
15. Highly spoken of ruler and religious leader. (8).
17. Theatre assistant (7).
19. 21 sheltered here (3,4).
20. First editorial (6).
22. Reportedly poetic justice seeker (5).
24. Second rate movie awarded Golden Globe (3).

Thanks StJohn for doing such a great job for our amusement. If you want to talk to him directly StJohn has indicated that he will be at this year’s PBC party. This will once again be held at that excellent venue, The National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE, on Friday 25th January 2008, from 6pm until about 9.30pm, or when thrown out if sooner.

There will be a cash bar and a £5 entry charge, payable on the door, as a contribution towards sandwiches and nibbles. Ladbrokes have generously donated £150 towards the event, thanks to the influence of regular poster Matthew Shaddick (Shadsy) of The Magic Sign.

Happy Boxing Day to everybody. Normal service from Thursday.

Mike Smithson