politicalbetting.com

A big issue for political gamblers in the UK is how you do distinguish between the two polling organisations that were most accurate with the 2001 General Election and who both claim to be “Britain’s most accurate pollster” ICM and YouGov?

Is ICM, the Guardian’s pollster, overstating what Labour will get at the General Election because it is giving too much weight to people who say they are not certain whether they will vote?

This is a critical question for political gamblers for currently ICM is showing a split of LAB-37,CON-32: and LibD 22%. This is by far the biggest Labour lead and contrasts sharply with YouGov which is predicting a Conservative lead which, as we showed last week would make a dramatic difference to the way the next House of Commons looks.

At the moment, at least, the spread betting markets seem to lean more towards the YouGov view than ICM.

Understanding how ICM produces its figures is important in order for political gamblers to determine how much significance to attach to the firm’s monthly findings.

Each ICM interviewee is asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 their likelihood of voting with 10/10 being “absolutely certain”. This was the detailed response in the April survey:-

Looking at the detailed breakdown it is clear that Conservatives say they are much more likely to vote than Labour supporters. The critical thing is the weighting to attach to these answers. The Mori polling company asks a similar question for its political monitor and only includes those responses from people who say they are “certain”.

With the April ICM survey a totally different picture emerges if you just include those who are “absolutely certain” or are 90% sure. Politicalbetting.com has done that recalculation and this is how it would look:-

LAB 33.5%
CON 36.8%
LIB D 21.5%

What is remarkable at the moment is that whichever pollster is carrying out the survey or however you crunch the numbers the result for the Lib Dems is, within a very small margin, the same.

We have raised thepoints in this post directly with ICM and will publish its reply.

Illustration - www.makevotescount.org.uk

The intriguing possibility of Labour winning the next General Election by a very small majority but with the Tories holding most seats in England is raised this morning by a further softening of the Labour position on the spread betting markets. The latest spreads are:-

LAB 327-337 seats
CON 243-253
LDs 52-57
Total seats in next House of Commons 646

Taking the mid-points in the spread a Labour total of 332 would give Tony Blair/Gordon Brown just nine more than is required for an overall Common majority. The Tory mid-point split of 248 would comfortably take them over the 245/245 target to have more MPs representing English seats than Labour. They would still, however, be 17 seats short of the 265 target that would give them an overall majority of English seats.

With the possible exception of the fuel crisis in September 2000 this is, we believe, the highest ever point the Tories have been on the spread markets.

Given, as we have shown repeatedly on politicalbetting.com, that it requires a political earthquake for the Tories to secure a Commons majority the objective of winning England might be one that Michael Howard would be happy to accept. It would also create an extraordinary situation whenever Scottish Labour MPs sought to vote on England-only matters.

The spread markets are worth following because political gamblers are not just people who have opinions. These are individuals who are prepared to back their judgements with cash so the spread price is based on decisions of hundreds of punters who are digging deep into their pockets to support their position.

In spread-betting a punter wanting to back the Tories would “buy” at the top of the spread - 253 seats. The winnings would be the stake multiplied by the number of seats the Tories actually win above 253. So if they got 275 seats and the stake was £50 the winnings would be 22 times £50 = £1100. But if the Tories only managed 230 seats the punter would lose 23 times 50 = £1150. The same works in reverse with a sell bet. If you do not believe that the Tories will achieve the total at the bottom of the spread, 243, you sell and if they ended up with 230 you would win 13 times £50 = £650.

The spreads are set by the spread-betting companies in response to what real punters are doing. So the more money going onto a position then the chances are that the spread-price will move accordingly. The attraction of spread betting is that the more you are right the more you win.

There are huge down-side risks and this form of betting is only for the very bold.

A big gap is opening up on both sides of the Atlantic between men and women over their support for the incumbent political leaders. Both Bush and Blair are supported more by men than women and in recent months this trend has become more pronounced.

A BBC report this week quoted Deborah Mattinson, Opinion Leader Research as saying that many older female voters were disillusioned with the political process and the Labour government in particular.

“Back in 1997 it was basically the older women who won it for Labour,” she told Today. “I think that this spells a potential difficulty ahead for the government because it’s quite clear that women are much less enchanted by the government currently than men are.

The electoral significance of this is magnified because UK women 4% are more likely to vote than men and 35-64 age group is 18% more likely to vote than those below.

This trend is echoed in the US where the pollster Zogby International regularly publishes a gender breakdown. This is the latest:-

Men:- Bush 49% : Kerry 44%
Women:- Bush 39% : Kerry 50%

What’s even more remarkable is that the difference between the sexes in their attidude to Bush is wider than ever. Kerry’s figure tops 50% with women and the Bush total is the first time he’s been below 40%. Just a month ago the male-female margin between Bush and Kerry was just one per cent.

In the UK the question “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the job Tony Blair is doing as prime minister?” in the April ICM for the Guardian has the following gender split:-

Satisfied:- Male 41% : Female 34%

Dissatisfied:- Male 56%: Female 59%

Just like in the US the male-female gap has got larger in recent months and it seems to be widening with each poll. Much of this might be due to the Iraq war where male support in both countries has been higher amongst men than women. As things have got worse in Iraq in recent weeks the polls have shown less female support for the leaders.

But in the UK the disillusionment amongst women with Tony Blair has not translated itself into a switch to the Tories.

The same ICM poll had Labour 5% ahead of the Tories – the biggest lead for months. This might change in the coming months when the campaign to win the support of women, particularly those in the older age groups who have much higher turnout rates, looks set to be the battle-ground where the next General Election will be won or lost.

Illustration - US Postal Service

Sunday’s telephone call by Charles Kennedy to the David Frost TV programme to say that he was definitely staying as Lid Dem leader has sparked more activity on the betting markets. This was not the move of a man confident of his position.

In all the talk on Charles Kennedy’s future the question always arises as to what circumstances would lead him to go. No one can envisage the LDs doing what the Tories did to IDS last autumn. The only way that Charles Kennedy could be replaced as leader would be if he voluntarily stood aside and his call on Sunday indicates that he probably won’t.

But there is another scenario that a number in the party are talking about. Firstly everything will be put on hold until after the “Super Thursday” Euro, local and London elections on June 10. The party’s whole platform for the General Election is based on establishing even further its credibility on that day. With its poll standings higher than at any time for two decades the LDs look set to make a huge breakthrough.

In the June post-election euphoria the leadership issue could be raised because the opportunity facing the party would be enormous and the desire to hold and build on the expected successes would put the focus on Charles Kennedy. What could the Lib Dems achieve if the leader was someone who had real gravitas such as Menzies Campbell?

Nobody can dispute that the party has made huge progress under Kennedy and it would be ironic if a move on the leadership took place in the aftermath of such good election results. But would the party have done better with somebody else?

The central figure here would be Lord (Chris) Rennard, the party’s Campaign guru who directed Liberal Democrat parliamentary by-election successes from Eastbourne (1990) to Romsey (2000), was responsible for the party’s target seats campaign which resulted in 28 gains at the 1997 General Election, and with Lord (Tim) Razzall was in charge of the party’s successful 2001 General Election campaign.He became Chief Executive last October.

Rennard is the man who has made the modern Liberal Democrats and holds great sway. If he felt that the party could capitalise more fully on its position with Campbell as leader then he could raise the issue with Charles Kennedy. In those circumstances there is little doubt that Charles Kennedy would step down.

But does Rennard hold this view and would he have the conversation? We’ll have to wait until after June 10 to find out.