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Month: January 2005

Will Blair get his Bagdhad bounce?

Will Blair get his Bagdhad bounce?

But why aren’t the markets moving in his direction? After the success of yesterday’s elections in Iraq can Tony Blair now draw a line under the war and its aftermath and start to relish in what some have described as his “Bagdhad Bounce”? For if there had been any doubt at all about whether he will be returned with another huge majority it has been over his decision to take the country into the war without UN sanction and against…

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Posting Arrangements

Posting Arrangements

As we get nearer the General Election there will be more active moderation in order to ensure that the site remains a place where people from all parties can feel comfortable discussing the effect of issues in relation to political outcomes on which betting takes place. We should try not to get into debates on the issues themselves, particularly if they are controversial, and we should avoid being offensive to others who make comments We have slightly changed the posting…

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Enter the era of dog whistle politics

Enter the era of dog whistle politics

Sending a message that’s only heard by the target audience The real reflection of the state the Tories are in is that if they make the magic number of 200 seats it will be seen as some kind of victory. Yet even at that level Tony Blair would be returned with an overall majority of more than 70 – sufficient to sustain the party for a full third time. It’s against this background that the poll moves after last week’s…

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Who’ll be the loser from Kilroy-Silk’s new party?

Who’ll be the loser from Kilroy-Silk’s new party?

Where’s Veritas going to get its votes from? With the UKIP share down to just 1% in one of the weekend’s polls there are further blows for the party with news tonight that it has lost one of its two London Assembly members to Robert Kilroy-Silk’s new political party, expected to launch on Wednesday. Mr. Damian Hockney said Mr Kilroy-Silk had made him deputy party leader of Veritas, Latin for truth and sources stated that around eight other members of…

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Conventional pollsters show big Labour leads

Conventional pollsters show big Labour leads

The methodology divide deepens Three new surveys this morning from conventional interview-based pollster show big leads for Labour and contrast sharply with the interviewer-free YouGov poll on Friday that had the party just 1% ahead. ICM in the Sunday Telegraph, which uses telephone interviews, have the Labour margin down by 2% on last week’s survey by the same pollster in the Guardian. The shares are – CON 32(+1): LAB 37(-1): LD 21(nc). Interestingly both YouGov and ICM are recording the…

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Communicate Research – Labour gap widens to 8%

Communicate Research – Labour gap widens to 8%

But some good news for Howard and Kennedy After Friday’s YouGov poll with a Labour lead of just one point a very different picture of the current political climate is shown in the January survey by Communicate Research for tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday. The figures are: LAB 40 (+1): CON 32 (-2) LD 20 (+1) and mean that the pollster’s Labour total is 2% higher than any other firm. But all is not plain sailing for Tony Blair because the…

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A new market on Commons seats

A new market on Commons seats

An interesting new market on how many seats each of the main parties will win has been launched by Skybet. The structure is similar to the one that Bet365 recently had but with the seat options at levels more in keeping with current forecasts. The markets make a good alternative for those wanting decent prices but are not willing to take the risks or get involved with the complications of spreadbetting. Labour seats 7/4 0-340 15/8 340-365 6/4 365+ Conservative…

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Surely this is the safest General Election bet?

Surely this is the safest General Election bet?

In all the focus on spread-betting we’ve somewhat ignored the main General Election market on which party will win most seats. This has just been spiced up by a new Labour price of 7/50 from SuperOdds – which offers almost twice the return as many of the other bookmakers. Given that you would only be locking up your stake for about 13 weeks this seems like a good value bet. Betfair have a similar price but with the betting exchange…

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