Ipsos-MORI

Why this divide on bringing capital punishment back?

As most PBers probably know Guido has launched a campaign for the re-introduction of capital punishment which hasn’t been used as a penalty in the UK since the summer of 1964. I remember it well because at the time I was doing a vacation job at a printers next to Strangeways prison in Manchester and was one of the group waiting outside for the notice of the execution to be posted at the gate just after 8am.

There’s little doubt that this is one issue where polling has shown a big divide between the general public and those who represent them and it’s hard to see any change certainly with the current composition of the house of commons.

The last comprehensive piece of research was by Ipsos-MORI in July 2010 which showed a voter split in support for capital punishment for adult murder of: TORIES 60%: LAB 44%: LDs 41%.

Interestingly, as in the chart, there was quite a difference between those who use the web daily and those who never browse and do not have interet access. My guess is that this is a reflection of socio-economic factors rather than the web itself. It does mean that Guido might have a more challenging time with his internet based campaign.

@MikeSmithsonPB

Is the hacking effect starting to recede?

The latest YouGov party leadership ratings for News International are out and show the prime minister gaining some ground.

As can be seen Dave is up a net five on last week with Ed down a net two and Clegg unchanged.

Looking back over the past few weeks both Clegg and Miliband are still in much better positions than before the scandal erupted.

Miliband is a net 17 points up while Clegg is a net 9 points to the better. Cameron is a net 2 points worse.

The polll also had just 35% saying they believed that Nick Clegg will still be in his job as party leader in May 2015. The Miliband figure was 47% with 66% for Cameron.

News International’s Sunday Times is making a big deal of the Clegg figures though their report omits that with LD voters the figure is 58% for Clegg compared with 29% saying he wouldn’t be. Amongst Labour voters 66% said they thought Ed would still be there while 90% of Tory voters believed that Cameron would make it to the general election.

A lot for all leaders depends in the short term depends on the reaction at the party conferences.

@MikeSmithsonPB

But shouldn’t Labour be capitalising more on their poll position?

The next big scheduled UK election is that for London mayor next May. The main battle, like last time, will be between Ken and Boris with the former attempting to make it three wins out of four.

As the chart of Betfair prices illustrates punter sentiment is strongly with the incumbent.

In 2008 Ken ran Boris reasonably close at a time when his party, Labour, had slumped to almost a low point in the national polls. Next May the national situation could be very different and, as we saw at the 2010 general election, London moved less to the Tories than any other region in England.

My view is that this could be a lot closer than the markets suggest.

@MikeSmithsonPB

Gallup

Should he really be such a tight odds-on favourite?

One statistic about US politics that has been bandied about quite a lot recently is that no US president since Franklin Roosevelt has been re-elected with the unemployment rate above 7.2%. The figure for this month is 9.2%. It will take some turnaround for the rate to get back down by November next year, particularly in light of the sluggish growth figures released there this week.

As they say in the adverts, past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes – but it’s often not a bad guide. That being the case, should Obama really be the 4/6 shot he is on Betfair, never mind 4/7 with Ladbrokes which is itself the best odds with a bookie?

Obama won an astonishing number of votes in 2008: nearly eight million more than any other candidate in history. Even so, it was not the landslide some in the media would have the world believe. John McCain – by no means the strongest of Republican candidates – himself polled the third-highest ever number of votes, and Obama won fewer Electoral College votes than Clinton, Bush snr or Reagan did in any of their victories.

The economy is a particular vulnerability with the Hope/Change message that Obama ran on last time. Having raised expectations, hope is in short supply, change has not necessarily been for the better.

He has been reduced quite rapidly to Just Another Politician. That may change once back on the campaign trail – he still gives a good speech – but he can never again be the fresh face of the future.

Perhaps fortunately for him, the election is not (just) a referendum on his first term but a choice between him and his Republican opponent. That field already looks quite thin. Palin looks unlikely to run with Bachmann making strong inroads into Tea Party territory but neither is really a credible candidate. Huntsman and Pawlenty’s campaigns have been at best tepid and show no sign of catching the public imagination. That only really leaves Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry – though the latter has yet to formally declare.

At the time of writing, Perry was best-priced with Ladbrokes at 7/1 (which unusually is longer than Betfair even before commission), while Romney could be backed at 11/2 with both bet365 and Victor Chandler and was slightly longer on Betfair. All these seem good value given the lack of strong contenders in the primaries and the far less clement conditions Obama faces this time around. An alternative strategy would be to lay against Obama, whose price will surely drift at some point. Both Republicans have their weaknesses as potential candidates but then so does Obama.

Of more immediate concern are the Debt Ceiling negotiations. These are complex, multilateral and could have any number of outcomes. One pertinent fact however is that Obama is involved in them while both GOP frontrunners are Washington outsiders. That makes the political cost of failure much more personal to him, even before any economic effects of a shutdown and/or credit downgrade are felt. Likewise, any cuts into his healthcare programme reduces the record of delivery he’ll have to stand on.

Obama’s approval ratings hit a new low of 40% this week including just 34% among independents. The figure may have been adversely affected by the debt ceiling games. Even so, he’s been below 50% for most of the last year, something which doesn’t tally with re-election odds of 4/6 or shorter unless there’s good reason to expect him to turn it around. It’s easy enough to create scenarios as to how he might do that but the reality is that the hard stats are at best mixed.

The race feels much more of a toss-up at the moment with Obama no shorter than evens and probably marginally odds-against.

David Herdson