A LAB overall majority slipping in the general election betting – politicalbetting.com

For the past few days I have been following closely this betting market to see if the big move on Northern Ireland by Sunak has had an impact on the way the next election is being perceived.
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...One supporter of Johnson said: “By appointing Sue Gray, Starmer has inadvertently reinflated Boris. The privileges committee and Sue Gray gives Boris a platform to attack Labour. He loves that platform.”...
...Johnson has the support of up to 100 MPs and an inner core, led by Nigel Adams and Jacob Rees-Mogg, is helping. When the privileges report was published, his office was swift to issue a statement and a dozen or more MP allies took to social media to support him.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-was-written-off-now-hes-back-to-torment-rishi-sunak-again-mvtng7wvm
He told them a good team environment “provides you with a lifeboat” to pull together. “If the team environment is not good, then all you have is 11 heads bobbing up and down in an ocean of fear and self interest.”
And many of the seats in theory needed are held by the SNP. For good or ill, taking seats off them will be a different ball game from unseating Tories.
It is definitely a challenge.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/04/a-reminder-starmer-needs-a-net-gain-of-124-seats-at-the-next-ge-to-win-a-majority/
If Starmer manages a Wilson-style majority of 3 (1974) or four (1964) he will have done bloody well.
Personally, it's not what I'm expecting.
*Discounting 1945 which was under rather unusual circumstances.
If I had to guess then it would be that “up to 100” means considerably fewer than 100.
Where he would suffer the greatest defeat since the Chelsea Flower Arrangers beat Harrow by twelve sore bottoms to one.
If they come to think it couldn't get worse, more of them will take that gamble.
Yes Johnson has his devotees, but they are a diminishing number and the majority of conservative mps just want an end to this circus, as evidenced by Steve Baker, a prominent member of the ERG, and others this week
Good news for Starmer is his internal opponents insist 2017 was a win because they got close, so if he gets close but falls short they cannot say it is not a win.
All they’re doing is reminding us all of how utterly appalling many of them behaved. And to top it off, just how unsuitable Boris was for the job
https://twitter.com/DanielEllsberg/status/1631381696661827584
Even taking that starting point, the median LOTO had around 260 seats. They didn't need 124 gains and it's not likely to me that their election strategies would have involved trying to do so. Above all because winning 385 is a much more challenging task than winning 330 regardless of your starting point. You are getting into seats that more deeply support the incumbent government party. Johnson (from office) won the most seats of any Tory since Thatcher: "just" 365.
Even if we take it seriously after all that, I think there are only 11 relevant elections: the ones where the parliament lasted 4-5 years and the opposition made gains. Exclude the remaining 5 where the opposition had 250 or more seats, which all led to victories, regardless of the number of gains. Of the 6 remaining, you have 1 change of government without a majority (2010), 1 quasi-hung parliament that ended up with a change of government (1950), four outright losses against Blair and Thatcher, but no majority.
However, I don't think the frequentist analysis makes a ton of sense when we know the opposition is leading by double digits in polls. This sometimes reverses (Cameron, Miliband), other times not (Blair).
She might have lots of experience and is well respected but the timing is either a mistake or part of a Labour plan to re-inflate Johnson to cause more internal Tory drama .
The question is whether Starmer is seemingly seen as unthreatening. Certainly personality-wise, yes. More of an issue I think is whether people think the same of Labour as a whole. Not sure on the latter.
G R A Y
I do think people are reading far too much into this. He wants her, as soon as possible, because he rates her. Simple.
Let it go, man.
The debates saw Clegg get the biggest bounce relative to Cameron and Brown and led to a hung parliament. If Sunak does well in the debates against Starmer, which he should, then a hung parliament is still possible
Boris Johnson: I did not know there were any parties
Boris Johnson: I did not think the parties I was at, were parties
Boris Johnson: I have been stitched up by Sue Gray reporting on the parties I was at
I wouldn't be shocked if we're about to discover that Blair's brilliance was mostly being in the right place at the right time and not stuffing up.
1) No poll gave Blair as little(!) as a 13 point lead prior to 1997. The narrowest was 16 points. So your point is based on a misunderstanding there.
2) You appear to be seriously suggesting that political leaders don't try to win as many seats as they can. Which only has to be stated that way to be demonstrated as bollocks.
All leaders of the opposition try to win as many seats as they can. That it's unusual for them to win enough for a comfortable majority is not because of some pseudo-mathematical babble, but because it's bloody hard work.
Polling is more sophisticated now than in say, 1992 or 1997, but people can still change their minds when given an actual choice.
There has to be some kind of rule about a key sign of the demise of a political party's prospects is when they seem far more interested in themselves than the public.
/@ObserverUK poll
Labour lead reaches 17 points, changes are with 15-17 February
Con 27% (-1)
Lab 44% (nc)
Lib Dems 7% (-2)
Green 7% (+1)
ReformUK 8% (+1)
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1632108652596436992
Currently:
> 30% approve of the job he is doing
> 38% disapprove of the job he is doing
> Current net approval: -8%
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1632108902971060224
> 31% (-1) approve of the job he is doing as Labour leader
> 29% (-3) disapprove.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1632109154696306691
Amongst those who gave us an opinion:
> 19% think it is a good deal
> 21% think it is a bad deal
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1632109406308409345
> 38% want MPs to vote for the deal.
> Only 14% currently want MPs to vote against the deal
> However, 48% do not know either way.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1632109658113466370
Several Conservative MPs in senior positions reacted with disbelief after Johnson and his dwindling band of allies questioned the work of the independent Commons privileges committee and accused it of an “outrageous level of bias”, after it said on Friday there was a significant volume of evidence suggesting that the former PM may have misled parliament.
Referring to Johnson and his backers, a senior MP who is well informed about Partygate said: “They have gone full Trump. It is wicked. Where will this end? They are desperate.” Another grandee said Johnson was “just like Trump, saying black is white, white is black”.
Tobias Ellwood, Tory chair of the defence select committee, said the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had shown real leadership with last week’s deal on the Northern Ireland protocol, but warned that the progress risked being undermined by Johnson. In a reference to the ex-PM’s behaviour, Ellwood added: “If we now stay united and disciplined we could win the general election but not if this latest distraction turns into a Trumpian drag anchor.”
Other Tories in high positions in the party said Johnson may have committed contempt of parliament in the past 48 hours alone – by attacking, deriding and undermining the work of a committee which was specifically authorised by the Commons to look into whether he had told the truth to MPs.
Sir Bob Neill, Tory chair of the all-party justice select committee and a lawyer, told the Observer: “It is wrong for anyone to try to undermine the work of a parliamentary committee.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/04/hes-gone-full-trump-tories-turn-on-boris-johnson-over-partygate
And unless you live in NI (in which case, you're not voting Conservative), how does this deal improve your life?
NI just shows how events can change perceptions over the next almost two years. Alternatively, if the polls don’t change significantly despite events, it will indicate that the Conservatives are beyond saving.
Paris Metro carriages aren't well designed. They have the normal train seating arrangement, which is not good when the trains are overcrowded.
There will be no Conservative recovery as long as inflation remains out of control, and prices continue to rise visibly and significantly in the shops month on month.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1632091286944587779
You’ve missed out “I’ve now learned there may have been parties, and I am disgusted and appalled they could have happened.” between 2 and 3 - followed by “you can’t blame Boris if others choose to ambush him with a cake.”
If you add this to “rings of steel around care homes” “PPE contracts for Landlord of local boozer via a green lane to bypass scrutiny and due diligence with public money, for items that couldn’t be used and eventually got cut up by prisoners” and “when testing kits were scarce so best place for them care homes and hospitals government ministers had them diverted to their own home” that’s quite a pattern developing here.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/04/pompeii-treasures-digs-city-disaster-romans-excavation
My Latin master made me translate the relevant letter from Pliny the Younger as a special task. Never forgotten that (though the wording itself has almost completely vanished from memory).
At some Paris train stations there's a really menacing atmosphere. Can't wait to get back to London where nowhere ever feels like that, even in the early hours of the morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4EFDGP4yg
It looks to me like a simple reduction in the over rounds in the market, with 100.14 the current sum of all the probabilities, though I don't know what would cause that.
And the conclusion from this evenings return is this is a truly awful opinion poll for Rishi and the Conservatives. The trend on their % down, which you could say is very MOE, but in Opinium terms I would argue it’s not. This poll this evening could be a particular moment, like when you remember it in future as moment a penny dropped - like in the Odessa File when there wasn’t much issue till he said “that man was my father.”
Hope this makes sense, as I am drinking and dancing this evening.
Overall still a smaller Labour lead than many other pollsters with Opinium