politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How many of these ten will fail to become MPs next week?

3 will make it - Gorgeous George, Balls and the Straight Choice

James Chapman (Mail)‏@jameschappers·2 mins2 minutes ago
.@TheEconomist, which backed Labour in 2001 and 2005, announces it is urging readers to vote #Conservative

FPT. Macisback

"All depends on the UKIP vote, if a proportion of that swings late to the Conservatives Soubry could sneak it, my impression last weekend is though the vast majority of the UKIP support will stay solid, Nick by less than 1000, maybe 500 but Conservatives to hold Amber Valley well worth a punt, UKIP support in that seat much more ex-Labour."

Do you have a Batmobile? You seem to get round a vast number of constituencies and then report on their expected majorities to within a few hundred. I went round a constituency the other day and wouldn't have a clue even which party was winning.

6 out?

Mike, it's actually Ipsos MORI, not Ipsos-MORI

RobD said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

RobD said:

Ipsos-MORI....

Ipsos MORI, actually

TNS BMRB

Just says TNS on their data tables!

@MarqueeMark

Oooh a spreadsheets dig!! You fiend you with your vicious tongue

Nigel Farage (Thanet South) HOLD
Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam) F*cked if I know
Ed Balls (Morley & Outwood) HOLD
Douglas Alexander (Paisley & Renfr’ S.) DEAD
Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn…), DEAD
Jim Murphy (Renfrewshire East) DEAD
Charles Kennedy (Ross Skye & Loch’) DEAD
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey & S’wark) Noone REALLY knows
Esther McVey (Wirral West) DEAD
George Galloway (Bradford West) HOLD

I'm just waiting to see which way Polly T advises us to vote in the election.

Her input is always so important on everything.

Who will suffer the biggest defeat?
I think it might be wee Dougie

Labour membership over 200,000 -as ever we're wondering how many are in Scotland !!

https://twitter.com/LabourList/status/593736814323601409

Scrapheap_as_was said:

James Chapman (Mail)‏@jameschappers·2 mins2 minutes ago
.@TheEconomist, which backed Labour in 2001 and 2005, announces it is urging readers to vote #Conservative

Who did they back in 2010? LDs?

Shouldn't it be Night of the Long Knives?

"I’m tied up all afternoon."

Have fun Mike, with the cuffs and all that knotted rope!

Nick P - where did you get the final Broxtowe electorate figures from? Looks like 2k registered late on in Broxtowe compared to the Feb 2015 figures.

manfrom said:

manfrom said:

Pong said:

Sorry Mike, I think this is wrong;

"The current spread is 27-32. So if you bought at 32 you’d make money provided that FOUR on the list failed. Your exact winnings/losses would be based on how many failures there were."

Buying at 32 would mean you only make money if SEVEN or more fail to win.

Points are cumulative. So if 3 fail to win, total points would be 5+10+15=30

At least I think that's how it works! Could be wrong

I don't think so, otherwise the potential max would be well over 100

Mr. Fenster, if I were writing the 5th, it'd start with the murder of Indy's son.

I didn't mind the switch the alien stuff in South America, but the obvious CGI looked bad, whereas the original trilogy's practical effects hold up much better, the villain was forgettable, and Son of Indy was eminently punchable.

Mr. Woolie, did you just call me Mr. Blair?

peter_from_putney said:

"I’m tied up all afternoon."

Have fun Mike, with the cuffs and all that knotted rope!

Any guesses for the safeword? Basil??

edmundintokyo said:

FTP Procedural question: Say Cameron doesn't have the votes, but Ed Miliband may be able to cobble together some unholy coalition. Am I right in assuming nobody can vote on Ed Miliband's government until Cameron resigns and suggests to the Queen that she ask him to have a go? At that point does Cameron move out of Downing Street and Miliband become PM, even though nobody knows yet whether he'll be able to pass a Queen's Speech? If so can Miliband move into Number 10 and fire off nuclear weapons at people and do other Prime Ministerish things?

I hope HM still has the prerogative power to sack her ministers!

isam said:

@MarqueeMark

Oooh a spreadsheets dig!! You fiend you with your vicious tongue

I'll take that as a no, you are not canvassing.

Esther McVey. I spoke to someone in her constituency of indeterminate voting intention who said they didn't care as long as she lost. I didn't bother to find out why but something must be going on. Anyway I just found this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11570422/If-Esther-McVey-loses-Wirral-West-it-will-be-a-rejection-of-Tory-modernisation.html

No idea, I wouldn't touch that with a bargepole. Balls will be safe, Danny Alexander definitely gone, the rest..

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Fenster, if I were writing the 5th, it'd start with the murder of Indy's son.

I didn't mind the switch the alien stuff in South America, but the obvious CGI looked bad, whereas the original trilogy's practical effects hold up much better, the villain was forgettable, and Son of Indy was eminently punchable.

Mr. Woolie, did you just call me Mr. Blair?

No darling, I was doing a GG impression x

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Scrapheap_as_was said:

James Chapman (Mail)‏@jameschappers·2 mins2 minutes ago
.@TheEconomist, which backed Labour in 2001 and 2005, announces it is urging readers to vote #Conservative

Who did they back in 2010? LDs?

Tories I think.

FT & Evening Standard are the only endorsements that might surprise, although I suspect they'll both go Blue (however given '92 analogies are all the rage the FT did back Kinnock, so who knows?!).

SouthamObserver said:

Shouldn't it be Night of the Long Knives?

Night of the Long Drives

Mr. Woolie, then I shall not unleash the enormo-haddock upon thee.

RobD said:

edmundintokyo said:

FTP Procedural question: Say Cameron doesn't have the votes, but Ed Miliband may be able to cobble together some unholy coalition. Am I right in assuming nobody can vote on Ed Miliband's government until Cameron resigns and suggests to the Queen that she ask him to have a go? At that point does Cameron move out of Downing Street and Miliband become PM, even though nobody knows yet whether he'll be able to pass a Queen's Speech? If so can Miliband move into Number 10 and fire off nuclear weapons at people and do other Prime Ministerish things?

I hope HM still has the prerogative power to sack her ministers!

Theoretically she can recall the prerogative at any time and hence could sack without recommendation. To do so would invoke a Constitutional Crisis leading to the abolition of the Monarchy.

Hence if Cammo resigns and Miliband can't get a QS through and has to resign, HMQ will have to select a caretaker PM and dissolve parliament as otherwise all prerogative will be in her hands under guidance from Privy Council

For those that missed it, my post from yesterday:

https://royaleleseaux.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/picking-the-players-our-next-government/

"Deeply frustrating" watching the election campaign, says David Blunkett: "I'm shouting at the radio and the television"

Does his guide dog throw things at the TV for him?

dr_spyn said:

"Deeply frustrating" watching the election campaign, says David Blunkett: "I'm shouting at the radio and the television"

Does his guide dog throw things at the TV for him?

I've heard rumours that UKIP could get a hefty share of the vote in Blunkett's former constituency.

@Roger

' I went round a constituency the other day and wouldn't have a clue even which party was winning.'

Was it in France or the UK or you don't remember?

Mr. Royale, at school my French teacher used to [sometimes] deliberately make mistakes when writing the date or other things on the blackboard, and failure to correct would lead to prompt chastisement.

Besides, if we don't correct things they pass unencumbered into common parlance. Like the misuse of 'decimated'...

edmundintokyo said:

FTP Procedural question: Say Cameron doesn't have the votes, but Ed Miliband may be able to cobble together some unholy coalition. Am I right in assuming nobody can vote on Ed Miliband's government until Cameron resigns and suggests to the Queen that she ask him to have a go? At that point does Cameron move out of Downing Street and Miliband become PM, even though nobody knows yet whether he'll be able to pass a Queen's Speech? If so can Miliband move into Number 10 and fire off nuclear weapons at people and do other Prime Ministerish things?

Convention would be that Cameron has first opportunity to form a government, since he's PM. If he fails to do so, he resigns.

HMQ then (in theory) chooses who is asked to have a go next. That person would attempt to form a government, and be appointed PM once he or she confirms that a government is possible.

The issue of being unsure whether a QS will pass doesn't really come into it, there's a strong convention that in the negotiations required to form a government the various parties give a commitment to support the QS or to abstain. If you don't have enough commitments to form a majority government, minority government would be plausible if you have a commitment that enough opponents will abstain from the vote on the QS.

Of course, all that does is get you one session of support, and there would be nothing to stop allegiances changing before the next QS. Classic example would be a one-session grand coalition to pass "essential legislation for the good of the nation" and so on.

This hasn't been tested for a while and has the flexibility you'd expect of an unwritten constitution. As a result there's a fair amount of effort being put in by the Tory-supporting part of the press to imply a convention of absolute legitimacy for the largest party. The game plan there is to try and argue that it would be unconstitutional for the smaller parties to oppose a minority Tory government's QS - the fight now moves to arguing that FPTP still works to give stable governments because the convention should be that the largest coalition is able to remain in power even if it doesn't command a majority.

It's going to make Florida look tame.

Some brilliant background reading on this is Trollope's six political novels (the Palliser novels) covering a 19th century period of coalition negotiations.

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

But no-one seems to have picked OGH up on "So if you bought at 32 you’d make money provided that four on the list failed." which looks completely wrong - you'd need seven to fail...

Stereotomy said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/593754566765715456

Looks to me like it's Ipsos Ipsos MORI

There is precedence to use the hyphen in this situation: Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Stereotomy said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/593754566765715456

Looks to me like it's Ipsos Ipsos MORI

They think they're Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Polruan said:

The game plan there is to try and argue that it would be unconstitutional for the smaller parties to oppose a minority Tory government's QS - the fight now moves to arguing that FPTP still works to give stable governments because the convention should be that the largest coalition is able to remain in power even if it doesn't command a majority.

I find this line of reasoning hard to understand. Do the other parties also have a collective responsibility to vote for all of the Tory's legislation?

Stereotomy said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/593754566765715456

Looks to me like it's Ipsos Ipsos MORI

[sigh]

"Ipsos MORI, part of the Ipsos Group, is a leading UK research company with global reach. We specialise in researching Advertising (brand equity and communications); Loyalty (customer and employee relationship management); Marketing (consumer, retail & shopper and healthcare); MediaCT (media and technology), Social & Political Research and Reputation Research."

Sunil_Prasannan said:

The Knight of the Long Knives is the fourth Batman film by Chris Nolan, where Bruce Wayne returns from cavorting with Catwoman in Florence to stand for election as Mayor of Gotham City.

He also trades in his dark cape for one made of White Satin.

"I’m tied up all afternoon. "

The comments today by Ann Summers boss appear more persausive than first thought.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Stereotomy said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/593754566765715456

Looks to me like it's Ipsos Ipsos MORI

[sigh]

"Ipsos MORI, part of the Ipsos Group, is a leading UK research company with global reach. We specialise in researching Advertising (brand equity and communications); Loyalty (customer and employee relationship management); Marketing (consumer, retail & shopper and healthcare); MediaCT (media and technology), Social & Political Research and Reputation Research."

Oh, so it's "Ipsos MORI,". Weird that they didn't include the comma in their logo

AllyPally_Rob said:

Stereotomy said:

AllyPally_Rob said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Scrapheap_as_was said:

James Chapman (Mail)‏@jameschappers·2 mins2 minutes ago
.@TheEconomist, which backed Labour in 2001 and 2005, announces it is urging readers to vote #Conservative

Who did they back in 2010? LDs?

Tories I think.

FT & Evening Standard are the only endorsements that might surprise, although I suspect they'll both go Blue (however given '92 analogies are all the rage the FT did back Kinnock, so who knows?!).

The only reason the ES would even hesitate in going blue is because a Labour government could hasten Boris' (possible) ascension

London looks like the one party of the country that's gone Labour in a substantial way, so they'd be endorsing against the preference of their readership.

Their readership is commuters

Clearly a few toss-ups in that list, but I make it four (incl 3 out of 4 Scottish MPs + Farage) appear very unlikely to be returned and by my estimation and four definitely will be (incl both Clegg and Balls). So I'll split the remaining 2 seats as being one apiece, and therefore from the point of view of the bet, I reckon a total of 5 from this list of ten won't make it back, worth 25 points, so were I to wager, I would be a very modest SELLER at Sporting's 27 points, but certainly not sufficiently so as to tempt me to actually place a bet.

Barnesian said:

FPT I have finally got round to analysing the recent COMRES top 50 Con/Lab marginals and comparing their average shares to a) the latest Ashcroft average shares and b) my switching model average shares for these 50 seats

Here we go:

... COMRES ... ASHCROFT ... My model

Con .. 37% ...34% ...37%
Lab .. 40% ...39% ...40%
LD ... 5% ... 6% ... 5%
UKIP .. 11% ..15% ..14%
Grn ... 5% ...4% ...4%
Other ... 2%

A reasonable fit except for UKIP which is lower in the COMRES poll. I have done a small tweak to the UKIP switching assumptions and my model is now showing:

... Share ... Seats
Con ..35.0% ... 268
Lab .. 32.9% ...269
LD ...9.6% ...30
SNP...4.3% ...59
Grn ... 4.0% ..1
UKIP ...13.6% ...1

I think it is overstating SNP by 2 and understating UKIP by 2.

But overall, I am still on a 2% Tory lead and equal number of seats.

I think you need to give your model a name like "FUNNYBUTTFARTYPOOP" for it to get attention.

AndyJS said:

dr_spyn said:

"Deeply frustrating" watching the election campaign, says David Blunkett: "I'm shouting at the radio and the television"

Does his guide dog throw things at the TV for him?

I've heard rumours that UKIP could get a hefty share of the vote in Blunkett's former constituency.

That will be "Machine-gunner" Blunkett? Wasn't he already UKIP?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6057528.stm

peter_from_putney said:

Clearly a few toss-ups in that list, but I make it four (incl 3 out of 4 Scottish MPs + Farage) appear very unlikely to be returned and by my estimation and four definitely will be (incl both Clegg and Balls). So I'll split the remaining 2 seats as being one apiece, and therefore from the point of view of the bet, I reckon a total of 5 from this list of ten won't make it back, worth 25 points, so were I to wager, I would be a very modest SELLER at Sporting's 27 points, but certainly not sufficiently so as to tempt me to actually place a bet.

Is Farage really in the "very unlikely" camp?

Pong said:

Tissue_Price said:

Casino_Royale said:

Ha. Love the instant pedantry from pb'ers on the typo on this thread. Lightning quick!!

But no-one seems to have picked OGH up on "So if you bought at 32 you’d make money provided that four on the list failed." which looks completely wrong - you'd need seven to fail...

*cough*

Typos generally don't bother me one bit - but especially seeing as SPIN is sponsoring PB's election coverage, I think it is important that mike corrects this error.

Sorry Pong! I'll try again: Has anyone picked Mike up on "three Scottish ones"?

Our local news has just shown George Osborne visiting a goalpost factory.

I was wondering if he was advising them on how to move the goalposts, or organise a stitch-up. ?

Stereotomy said:

Polruan said:

The game plan there is to try and argue that it would be unconstitutional for the smaller parties to oppose a minority Tory government's QS - the fight now moves to arguing that FPTP still works to give stable governments because the convention should be that the largest coalition is able to remain in power even if it doesn't command a majority.

I find this line of reasoning hard to understand. Do the other parties also have a collective responsibility to vote for all of the Tory's legislation?

For those of a technocratic mindset who consider there to be an absolute priority to maintain "stable" government in order to stave off the wrath of bond vigilantes, yeah, that's pretty much where it goes. It's the mindset that led to the the LDs abject 5-year support for a Tory government which went way over and above what was required by the coalition agreement.