Martin Baxter introduces his new calculator The former Cambridge and now city financial mathematician, Martin Baxter, has produced a new version of his famous predictor which allows the user to input suggested party shares and at the click of a mouse button produce a projected new House of Commons. For years this has been a great tool for all who like speculating about what is going to happen and it is great that Martin has got round to producing the…
After three victories and they call him a vote loser! Whatever your political allegiances it is hard not to feel a touch of sympathy for Tony Blair. After delivering his party’s third successive General Election victory the first thing he has to face when meeting his MPs again is dissent and calls for him to step down quickly. To have pulled of this triumph and to have seen off his fourth Tory leader is an incredible achievement – particularly against…
The biggest winners were the bookies – surprise, surprise In the run up to polling day we reported on a number of really big bets and it is a good reminder of the dangers of gambling to look at what happened to them. DOWN £36,000 was the £2,000 bet on a Labour majority of more that 84 seats placed on the Tuesday before polling DOWN £15,000 was the £3,000 a seat on the Liberal Democrats placed on April 11 with…
Spread markets open on the 2009 race Although it’s less than a week since the last one the first spread betting market on the next General Election has now been opened an early prices indicate that Labour will be returned with a majority of about 20. The opening spreads from Spreadfair are LAB 325-335: CON 226-232: LD 54-60 . The best prices on the conventional markets are LAB 4/7: CON 7/4: LD 80/1. From a pure financial perspective the spreads…
ICM’s raw data had Labour nearly 20% ahead An extraordinary insight into the challenge that pollsters have in finding representative samples is revealed in the detailed data for the final surveys which is just being made available. We all know now that in terms of the popular vote in Great Britain Labour beat the Conservatives by 36.2% to 33.2% – or about eleven Labour voters for each ten Conservative ones. But base data for the final surveys ICM and Populus…
One of the quirks of modern British politics is that for the last twenty-six years whoever has been the Prime Minister has sat at Westminster for a seat on the A1 trunk road. Margaret Thatcher’s Finchley rests at the southern end of the main route to Edinburgh; John Major’s Huntingdon is on the A1 as it goes through Cambridgeshire and Tony Blair’s Sedgefield covers both sides of the highway in County Durham. So is this “rule” which has lasted a…
Could the Tories really go back to the last leader but two? The big money in the Tory leadership contest has been piling on the last leader to be beaten by Tony Blair, William Hague. At one stage William Hill’s reported that it had taken £85,000 worth of bets on the former leader in just an hour and all the bookmakers have tightened their prices. The best you can get from a conventional bookmaker is 7/2. Hague, who is now…
Book it in your diary – the next General Election will be on June 11 2009 If the next General Election is held in four years time then it will be the first time that the vote to determine the next House of Commons will coincide with the cycle of five-yearly Euro elections. If Prime Minister Brown/Straw/Hain/Clark/follows the pattern of his/her predecessor then the next General Election looks like being held on June 11 2009 – the Euro date that…