politicalbetting.com

Is the Iraq debate encouraging punters to back the Chancellor?

With Tony Blair preparing to face a difficult session in the House of Commons tonight on calls for an inquiry in Iraq the best betting price on Gordon Brown being Tony Blair’s successor has tightened to 0.35/1 - a level that it has been at only once before since David Cameron’s election as Tory leader on December 6th.

The price has been moving in this direction for the past three weeks when punter sentiment started to change and few were taking rival bids seriously. The scale of the change is best expressed in what a £100 winning Brown bet would produce. In the first week of October you would have come out with £56 - today that’s down to £35.

For punters following this market the big question is whether it will tighten further or will it bottom out. Certainly for today a Government defeat on the Iraq motion should send the price even tighter. What happens after that is hard to say.

Mike Smithson

Politicalbetting.com - the UK’s most read political blog

Will today’s YouGov data give a better pointer to tactical voting?

Detailed data from the October YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph, due out sometime today, should provide an indication of how tactical voting might impact on the next General Election.

The poll, it will be recalled had a CON 46% - Lab 33% split to the question “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”. What poll watchers will be looking at is how the Lib Dem voters in the survey responded and the detailed data should provide the answer.

Two months after Cameron had been elected Tory leader, in February, the Lib Dems responded CON 22% - LAB 52% when asked this forced question. By June, when the question was asked again, Lib Dem voters were still overwhelmingly with Labour and split CON 28% - LAB 48%. In August this had moved to CON 35% - LAB 44%.

Could today’s figures show that the two main parties were nearer to level-pegging? Given the way the top-line figures have moved then there is a good chance that this might have happened.

I regard this as quite important because one of the factors that has given Labour more seats for its vote share has been anti-Tory tactical voting. This happened again in 2005 where Labour incumbents in Lab-Con marginals performed better than the party generally - a sign, it’s suggested, of Lib Dems and others switching to stop the Tories.

If there are signs that anti-Tory tactical voting might not happen on the same scale then the seat predictors could be giving an over-optimistic view of Labour’s position.

Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report has now posted full list of polling responses to the question since since the famous 2003 survey that had Iain Duncan Smith trailing Tony Blair by just 3%.

UPDATE 10am: The YouGov data has now been published and the Lib Dems in the sample split CON 36-LAB 42 on the question “If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by David Cameron or a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown?”.

Mike Smithson

Politicalbetting.com - the UK’s most read political blog

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This is your chance to bet on whether Bush gets a bloody nose?

In terms of global importance by far the biggest elections anywhere in the world take place across America next Tuesday. If the polls have got this right then the Republican grip on Congress is set to come to an end and there could be a spill over in British politics.

For after winning back the White House in 2004 on what was the biggest day ever for political betting George Bush looks as though he might get a bloody nose - and that could have ramifications for the rest of his time there.

The polls for the House of Representatives do not look good. Those taken last week have recorded leads of 11-19% for the Democrats, and although the arithmetic is not as simple as that, the “blues” as the Democrats are known appear set to beat the “reds”.

But so far the election has barely caused a ripple of activity in the UK. On the Betfair exchange just £5,420 has been traded on Senate market and £8,632 on the House of Representatives elections. This is absolute peanuts.

Is it any wonder the Betfair is reluctant to open up new political betting opportunities when those they do have attract such little interest?

For the House the Democrats are 0.37/1 which is about the same return as you’ll get on Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership. The only difference is that winning bets will get paid next week.

For the Senate the Republicans are favourite at 0.56/1.

Mike Smithson

The illustration, with its imagery of the protests against the Iraq war, is the masthead from the campaign website of the only person so far to declare that he is standing for the Labour Leadership - the Hayes and Harlington MP and former Deputy to Ken Livingstone on the old GLC, John McDonnell. With much less being heard about a Reid or Johnson challenge the chances are that he could be the only alternative to Brown when next year’s race gets under way.

Yesterday he featured on BBC 1’s Sunday AM programme and he came over well. He’s photogenic; his voice is easy on the ear; and he is lucid. If he is the only candidate then he’ll get a lot more exposure and would present Gordon with a big problem when the inevitable calls for TV debates will be made. Should the Chancellor apparently give status to McDonnell by agreeing to take part and how would people compare the two?

A big part of McDonnell’s pitch is that he provides a protest vehicle for those large sections of the movement who are sore about NuLab generally and about the Iraq War. Because Brown’s victory is seen as a foregone conclusion many members and trade unionists will give him their votes without the risk of him getting it.

Of course Brown’s eventual victory is assured but a reasonable showing by McDonnell could be highly damaging and could also raise the issue of Gordon’s backing for Blair on Iraq.

McDonnell’s biggest challenge, however, will be getting on the ballot paper in the first place. The rules require him to find 44 fellow Labour MPs to sign his nomination and the signs are that this will be tough. With many colleagues focused on their career prospects under the new leadership there won’t be too many prepared to risk upsetting Gordon.

So for Gordon is it better to have a contest than a coronation? Could he, for instance, encourage McDonnell to stand by enouraging others to sign the nomination?

Brown might judge that the best way of starting his leadership would be with an emphatic election victory. The way he had got the job would be seen to have been fair and all the associated publicity of a campaign might help create the succession poll bounce that his team so desperately want.

The alternative, a coronation, could open him and the party up to attacks from the Tories and Lib Dems who have both gone through leadership contrasts in the past year. What does it say about Labour, you can hear it being argued, that there was only one candidate because not enough Labour MPs wanted to risk upsetting their future boss by signing his opponent’s nomination paper?

The more I’ve thought about this the more I am drawn to the view that Gordon will avoid a contest if at all possible. He’s risk averse and a challenge poses the bigger uncertainty. I do believe, however, that McDonnell’s quest for his 44 signatures will become a big story and that he will succeed whether Gordon likes it or not.

In the betting I’ve invested a total of £6 at an average price of 478/1 on McDonnell. I do not think he will win but that price will move dramatically if he is able to run and I should get out at a profit.

Mike Smithson

Politicalbetting.com - the UK’s most read political blog