politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » CON moves to 9% lead in first GE2020 poll.

surbiton said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FrankBooth said:

Philip_Thompson said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

Philip_Thompson said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Regarding Bercow, a Speaker is supposed to have the support of the whole house. A speaker that only has the support of one side of the house should resign and if Bercow had any self respect or respect for his own office he'd realise that was lost and resign.

Otherwise if it's acceptable to have a Speaker that only one side respects what is to prevent every majority government installing a ridiculously biased pro-government speaker and keeping them there on 51% of the vote?

Some say that Bercow is more popular with Conservative backbenchers than its frontbenchers would have you believe.

The proxy confidence vote in him got nearly 50%. If it had been the opposition 45% trying to remove him then I think most would say he's failed to command confidence in the whole house. It's very dangerous to have a Speaker that a very significant proportion don't have confidence in. There's a reason a Speaker is supposed to be neutral and be seen to be neutral, in many countries the Speaker is a partisan pro government member and Bercow staying without the confidence of the whole House leads us down a slope for that being the future.

I'm no great fan of Bercow's but he would be the second successive speaker to have been ousted, which is not necessarily a good thing, and is surely more likely to lead to a pro-government speaker.

Or it'd make the next Speaker be more likely to try and be an impartial chair respected by both sides of the House and not be the news himself.

Sorry but the speaker is supposed to stand up to the government in the name of parliament. If we have a government that can't accept that then it's the government that's the problem not the speaker. Isn't it funny that out of all the people who follow parliament closely only tribal Tories seem to dislike him as a speaker.

No, the Opposition are supposed to stand up to the government. The Speaker is supposed to be neutral.

We have a very good Speaker. If he is removed by the majority party which has a 12 seat majority - then that is fine.

It will set a precedent !

The fact you think he's a very good speaker rather than a neutral one kind of proves the point.

HurstLlama said:

Dair said:

Die Grune have been a regular presence in German governments over the years but it hasn't harmed the economy. Having a strong Green presence tends towards smart government. They aren't morons much as they are portrayed as such in the UK.

The best thing about coalition PR governments is they form a consensus as opposed to adversarial system. The core problem with UK politics is that Labour and the Tories despise each other and make up ever more ridiculous reasons why certain policies of the other side are ridiculous (which rub off on society).

Consensus politics results in less change, less swing, a more stable system and a lot of different voices being found in government. It's by far the best system and FTPT has failed on every measure except ONE - it keeps the Tories and Labour in power no matter how damaging that is to the UK.

Perhaps you would care to reflect on the Italian experience post WW2 and perhaps that of Israel. PR is not of itself a guarantor of anything good in the governement line.

No, I do understand, there are splintering problems with PR and pure PR gets worse as it lowers the threshold (which weirdly Israel keep's doing and I can't work out why unless its coalition requirements to avoid future wipe outs - and if so the LDs should have paid attention).

I understand that a government is a reasonable idea and I also understand it should reflect the votes cast. AMS really does do this. You CAN get a majority but only if you approach 50%. IN reality, when you exclude votes below the cut off on the List you pretty much get over 50% for a Majority every time.

It also reflects any reasonably widespread opinion and encourages votes for what you believe in. It is not perfect but it works pretty well in Scotland, Germany, New Zealand (I'm sure elsewhere but those are the ones I know well).

FPTP works terribly. It allows 37% Vote Share to impose a tyranny. It ignores alternative views. It is a broken, outdated, failed system which destroys the idea of a democratic vote. You vote AGAINST something. Not for something.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Peter Kellner

It was not shy but reluctant Tories who wrongfooted us

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/focus/article1554416.ece

I think I know why I voted Lab on Thursday.

I'm an extremely shy Tory.

I'm so painfully shy in fact, that I found myself physically incapable of marking an X in the Con box on the ballot paper.

#ToriesforWes xD

Just noticed the result in Belfast South. Is winning with 24.5% a record?

Chris_A said:

Just noticed the result in Belfast South. Is winning with 24.5% a record?

Looks like an early By-Election to me.

AndyJS said:

One thing that puzzles me is that none of the parties seemed to expect the exit poll result at 10pm on polling day. Wouldn't they usually have information by then re. what had happened during the previous 15 hours of polling? I thought that was what the tellers outside polling stations are doing.

There was a tweet that people inside CCHQ were predicting Con 306 (IIRC).

AndyJS said:

One thing that puzzles me is that none of the parties seemed to expect the exit poll result at 10pm on polling day. Wouldn't they usually have information by then re. what had happened during the previous 15 hours of polling? I thought that was what the tellers outside polling stations are doing.

No tellers outside my station in Ilford North round about 7pm - they seemed to be out and about GOTV'ing in neighbouring streets!

ISAM Blue Labour will not win Labour seats like Finchley or Worcester or Brighton Kemptown which are the key marginals they now need to win after Thursday

Flightpathl said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Chameleon and @HYUFD

I think it's a tad presumptous to assume that because he's very londony he'll get elected - Miliband fitted that profile too, and didn't win over the parliamentary party (who voted for David) or Labour members (who I think also voted for David). I think Cooper probably has more of a chance than Umunna, tbh.

Who do the Unions want to annoint as leader? Surely this is the question.

Union influence has been minimised with one member one vote, but I thought it'd still be there to a degree (which was why I posted my suspicions the unions wouldn't be so keen on Umunna). And for all the talk of Labour membership being in London = Umunna, it doesn't mean those members won't understand the need to appeal outside of London after this electoral defeat.

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Something for the people demonstrating in Whitehall to consider:

In Great Britain the combined Conservative and UKIP share was 50.66%, 15,188,670 votes out of a total of 29,980,107.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much in the media is that turnout only increased by 1%. It looks like a lot of potential Labour voters didn't bother to vote.

Given the changes to registration, as well as the increase north of the border, a 1% increase probably masks a real decrease. Does anyone have the raw figures yet?

Which raw figures are you talking about? The total electorate this time was 46,425,386:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

ElectionForecast's final numbers:

Con 278
Lab 267
SNP 53
LD 27

http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/2015/index.html

Isam There is nothing racist about it, but as well as being of mixed race who would be the first non-white president/PMs of their countries, they are also metropolitan lawyers. In 2008 Hillary and McCain supporters both made exactly the same arguments against Obama that he was too liberal, too elitist and too metropolitan etc he still won regardless

Sean_F said:

HYUFD, White voters are 88% of the total. 70% of those are working class, making 62% of voters White working class. This section of the electorate is essential for victory.

70% working class? You're joking I assume.

HYUFD said:

Isam There is nothing racist about it, but as well as being of mixed race who would be the first non-white president/PMs of their countries, they are also metropolitan lawyers. In 2008 Hillary and McCain supporters both made exactly the same arguments against Obama that he was too liberal, too elitist and too metropolitan etc he still won regardless

A politician who is a lawyer. Wow that's never happened before what an amazing coincidence.

Pulpstar said:

Carshalton & Wallington looks very very lonely there.

I think the reason the LDs held it is probably because white-working class voters on the St Helier estate defected from the LDs to UKIP rather than the Tories. That's the most likely explanation.

A good write-up of the campaign from a friend working for the Cons in s north west constituency...

http://www.viewtoahill.com/?p=211

TGOHF said:

AndyJS said:

One thing that puzzles me is that none of the parties seemed to expect the exit poll result at 10pm on polling day. Wouldn't they usually have information by then re. what had happened during the previous 15 hours of polling? I thought that was what the tellers outside polling stations are doing.

Messina was predicting over 300 on the morning and 315 by mid afternoon . But was kept to the inner circle.

The Mail has a story about Ed writing a victory speech at 10pm as the exit poll came out, and then shouting at the TV screen. But I don't really believe he hadn't received any information by then about what was going to happen.

BTW - 9% ahead?
Its even better than that.
The coalition Parties are polling 46% compared to the opposition 36%. 10% lead.

:-)

The American political landscape is very different from the British one, so you can't really compare it tbh.

TCPoliticalBetting said:

It is none of our business who Mrs Bercow is screwing.
These stories in a newspaper just bring closer a privacy bill.
Also, the sympathy he gets may make it more difficult to oust John Bercow.

Could it make her a blackmail target perhaps? Maybe? Or not?.

isam said:

HYUFD said:

Isam There is nothing racist about it, but as well as being of mixed race who would be the first non-white president/PMs of their countries, they are also metropolitan lawyers. In 2008 Hillary and McCain supporters both made exactly the same arguments against Obama that he was too liberal, too elitist and too metropolitan etc he still won regardless

Oh right that's why he is known as the British Obama... They're both lawyers

Don't forget that Obama is a serious liar - he was named 'Liar of the Year' by the Washington Post. Does this guy tell porkies on TV too?

The Southport declaration:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2fyBc7g8no

AndyJS said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Something for the people demonstrating in Whitehall to consider:

In Great Britain the combined Conservative and UKIP share was 50.66%, 15,188,670 votes out of a total of 29,980,107.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much in the media is that turnout only increased by 1%. It looks like a lot of potential Labour voters didn't bother to vote.

Given the changes to registration, as well as the increase north of the border, a 1% increase probably masks a real decrease. Does anyone have the raw figures yet?

Which raw figures are you talking about? The total electorate this time was 46,425,386:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

That would mean 10% of votes cast were in Scotland. One extra seat in a 600 seat parliament.

RobD said:

perdix said:

Dair said:

Gorgeous George has new work which doesn't involve barrels of oil.

twitter.com/IDS_MP/status/596782907471036416

The IDS stuff is obviously a hoax. The poster should be banned from the site.

I think we all know IDS_MP is a hoax.

Wasn't the real Ian Duncan Smith's father in law played by Sean Connery in a movie? I have no idea why this stuck in my mind.

Dair said:

AndyJS said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Something for the people demonstrating in Whitehall to consider:

In Great Britain the combined Conservative and UKIP share was 50.66%, 15,188,670 votes out of a total of 29,980,107.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much in the media is that turnout only increased by 1%. It looks like a lot of potential Labour voters didn't bother to vote.

Given the changes to registration, as well as the increase north of the border, a 1% increase probably masks a real decrease. Does anyone have the raw figures yet?

Which raw figures are you talking about? The total electorate this time was 46,425,386:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

That would mean 10% of votes cast were in Scotland. One extra seat in a 600 seat parliament.

Seats are based on the electorate, not the number of people who vote.

David Miliband ain't flying over is he ?

Just laid him on Betfair at 20s anyway.

Dair said:

That would mean 10% of votes cast were in Scotland. One extra seat in a 600 seat parliament.

It would in fact mean that Scotland would have 53 seats in a 600 seat Parliament, a loss of six.

TheScreamingEagles said:

EXCLUSIVE: Bercow's wife has affair... with his cousin: While Speaker fought seat in election,

46-year-old moved into his £1.2million London home with Sally

Sally Bercow 'was in relationship with Alan Bercow who moved in with her'

It began at start of General Election campaign, Mail on Sunday understands

A friend says they became close due to 'a mutual appreciation of fine wine'

Alan's wife Erica - who he has one son with - confirmed the affair took place


http://dailym.ai/1KTVWri

So this affair lasted just a month, if that?

Feel quite sorry for Nige if this is true:

https://twitter.com/IsabelHardman/status/597093924243648512

isam said:

Patrick O'Flynn (@oflynnmep)
09/05/2015 22:48
Rioting Lefties - remember Ukip explicitly endorsed Treasury deficit reduction schedule. So on that front you can add our 13% to their 37%.

LDs endorsed it too, albeit with more tax rises than cuts , so add another 9% too.

HYUFD said:

There are 5 million ethnic minority voters in the UK now, almost double the 3 million who voted UKIP on Thursday
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/06/labours-electorate

5 is almost double 3.8?

Dadge said:

John_N said:

Suggestion for this site: how about a regular page saying which political betting markets have the most liquidity and the biggest amounts staked at a given time? Maybe the top 10? It makes sense on a betting site for people to be encouraged to discuss those markets most.

I say this full of bitter regret that I didn't put a lot more on a Tory majority on Thursday, and eager to put more money where my mouth and brain are next time.

I regret not using my knowledge and the PB information often enough. Last week I could easily have turned £5000 into £10000 with even-money bets on safe Tory marginals but I wasn't "professional" enough to put in the minimal effort required. Still, I did make a few quid, especially from betting on things like Con most seats and Cameron PM. EICIPM was never going to happen, was it.

Hindsight bias

Those "safe tory marginals" were likely labour gains according to the pre-election polls. I was backing EICIPM at anything over evens - and I don't actually regret it. It was definitely a value bet as the polls stood.

On may the 6th, I wrote this;

"If I had to put %ages on it, I'd guess there is a...
90% chance the result will be within +-5% of the poll average for all the parties.
50% chance the result will be within +-3% of the poll average for all the parties."

The final result vs. poll averages;

CON 36.9 vs 33.3
LAB 30.4 vs 33.4
UKIP 12.6 vs 13
LD 7.9 vs 8.9
SNP 4.7 vs (>5%)
GRN 3.8 vs 5.1

My level of confidence in the opinion polls was actually pretty reasonable.

With a betting bank of just over£12k, I made £5.7k net profit. That profit was after losing, in total, £2.5k in bets on EICIPM.

Like it or not, EICIPM was a value bet at the time - I'll be backing a similar bet in 2020, should we have the same polling/next PM odds mismatch again.

If the boundary changes go ahead, could the Lib Dems lose all their seats except perhaps Westmorland ? (Orkney on a knife edge)

Dair said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

AndyJS said:

Dair said:

AndyJS said:

In England the Con + UKIP figure was 55%. Still 51% with Scotland and Wales as I said earlier.

People keep repeating this to give the 37% Government some legitimacy. I don't think it is remotely true. Kippers took as many (if not more) from Labour as from Tory and I don't think there were any significant number of Kippers voting for UKIP to get continued Austerity.

It's a completely bogus argument.

The problem is left-wingers kept saying the Thatcher government wasn't legitimate because you could add together the Labour and Alliance shares to get more than 50%. The "progressive majority" as it was called.

Even more funny given that people like Dair were saying UKIP were a right wing party before the election and now that they don't like the percentages they are trying to claim they are not right wing after all.

They are a right wing race hate party. Unsurprisingly that means they get at least half their vote from previous Labour voters. Race Hate trumps left vs right.

Dair I have seen you spew more bigoted hatred on here than any UKIP poster. You also seem to revel in your own ignorance so I would suggest you take a long hard look at yourself before accusing others of the traits you show in such excess.

surbiton said:

HYUFD said:

Sandpit Complete crap, Labour has its base of ethnic minority and public sector workers which would only increase under an Umunna leadership, post a close EU referendum it is the Tories who will worry about losing voters to UKIP. But as I said the white working class is in relative decline, there is no future in being UKIP lite for Labour, they will not beat the real thing, to win they have to win back the educated, relatively prosperous suburban middle class who backed Blair and Obama in the US

I don't think Labour would win one single extra vote from Ethnic Minorities if Umunna was the leader. A few Liberals , who still voted Liberal, might come over. But that's about it.

We need a leader from Middle Britain. Why can't we have another Harold Wilson ? Much criticised while leader even by members of the Labour party, yet won 4 elections.

Why can't you have another Harold Wilson?
Well first you need to find someone with... wait for it... Brains. he was an Oxford Don at 21.
Wilson studied PPE by the way...

NickPalmer said:

Moses_ said:

TCPoliticalBetting said:

It is none of our business who Mrs Bercow is screwing.
These stories in a newspaper just bring closer a privacy bill.
Also, the sympathy he gets may make it more difficult to oust John Bercow.

Could it make her a blackmail target perhaps? Maybe? Or not?.

"Get Thursday's Order Paper or we'll reveal all"? Pshaw.

Come on Nick you know how it works it's not always the order paper ...... Though it would start small. It just is a compromised position for someone who should know better than to place themselves even potentially in such a position.

Flightpathl said:

surbiton said:

HYUFD said:

Sandpit Complete crap, Labour has its base of ethnic minority and public sector workers which would only increase under an Umunna leadership, post a close EU referendum it is the Tories who will worry about losing voters to UKIP. But as I said the white working class is in relative decline, there is no future in being UKIP lite for Labour, they will not beat the real thing, to win they have to win back the educated, relatively prosperous suburban middle class who backed Blair and Obama in the US

I don't think Labour would win one single extra vote from Ethnic Minorities if Umunna was the leader. A few Liberals , who still voted Liberal, might come over. But that's about it.

We need a leader from Middle Britain. Why can't we have another Harold Wilson ? Much criticised while leader even by members of the Labour party, yet won 4 elections.

Why can't you have another Harold Wilson?
Well first you need to find someone with... wait for it... Brains. he was an Oxford Don at 21.
Wilson studied PPE by the way...

- and always seemed to wear Gannex coats

Sutton & Cheam declaration:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=up5IwGXFKtg

No Offence Alan Yes there is because the first vote is for a constituency, you then have a second list vote

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/597177657424478208

YawwwwwnnnnGov

HYUFD said:

TA David Miliband was born and brought up in London just like his brother

Nonetheless he was an essentially Blairite candidate who would have likely focused on Middle England, something his brother didn't have in mind.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

AndyJS said:

Dair said:

AndyJS said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Something for the people demonstrating in Whitehall to consider:

In Great Britain the combined Conservative and UKIP share was 50.66%, 15,188,670 votes out of a total of 29,980,107.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much in the media is that turnout only increased by 1%. It looks like a lot of potential Labour voters didn't bother to vote.

Given the changes to registration, as well as the increase north of the border, a 1% increase probably masks a real decrease. Does anyone have the raw figures yet?

Which raw figures are you talking about? The total electorate this time was 46,425,386:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

That would mean 10% of votes cast were in Scotland. One extra seat in a 600 seat parliament.

Seats are based on the electorate, not the number of people who vote.

"Sounds of the 80s" on Freeview 601

Well spotted!

RodCrosby said:

Problem for Labour now is how the hell do they win from here?

Back of the envelope says they need something like a 7% swing for a majority, historically unlikely.

But anything less is a hung parliament, with the spectre of the Nats at the table, just like last week. The South and Midlands, as we saw, just won't wear that.

Labour's best hope must be for an independent Scotland, with them taken out of the equation completely...

But that takes 50 or so seats out the equation that will never vote for a Tory QS. Labour has long term problems in Wales. And England is a HUGE ask for Labour.

They are screwed.