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Keir Starmer’s textbook opposition strategy looks vindicated
In that sense, he’s following in the footsteps of the previously successful opposition leader, Tony Blair. The parallels with the 1990s, Black Wednesday and Tory implosion, are obvious.
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UK By-Elections Betting: North Shropshire far likelier to produce an upset
This article first appeared at betting.betfair.com on 17th November 2021 Just as British politics gets interesting, as Labour register a series of poll leads for the first time under Keir Starmer’s leadership and Boris Johnson’s position becomes shakier than ever, we have a couple of by-elections. First in Old Bexley and Sidcup on 2 December,…
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Why Re-fighting the Last Election Rarely Makes Sense
This article first appeared at betting.betfair.com on 29th July 2020 Nate Silver has some rather unflattering comments to make about the rationale of betting markets. No doubt the Fivethirtyeight pundit is responding to the sustained mis-match between the 2020 odds and polling models. Current Betfair odds imply a 62% chance of victory for Joe Biden.…
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Betfair Masterclass Series Part 2: Tips and Strategies to Bet on Politics
The history of leadership contests is littered with bad early favourites. A classic mistake is to overstate the importance of early polls. When members or supporters are first asked, name recognition will be uneven.
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Starmer Thrives at PMQs But Does it Matter?
“So far as the commentariat were concerned, the new Labour leader made a big impact.”
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Will Keir Starmer turn Labour’s fortunes around?
This article first appeared at betting.betfair.com on 4th April 2020 Sir Keir Starmer has been confirmed as the new Labour leader and Angela Rayner will be his deputy. Their victories were resounding. Starmer won in the first round of the party’s AV system with 56.2%. Rayner won 41.7% in the first round and passed the…
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Four takeaways from the UK General Election
This article first appeared on 16th December, for betting.betfair.com The Exit Poll emerges triumphant but is imperfect This may sound strange, having spent the last six weeks totally immersed in it, but this was quite a boring election. At least from a betting perspective. Once the Tories opened up an early lead, victory never looked…
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Next Labour Leader – Who will succeed Corbyn?
This article first appeared on December 13th at gambling.com The post-mortem began less than a minute after 10pm last night, when the exit poll accurately predicted Labour’s worst result since 1935. Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he won’t lead Labour into another election but, frustratingly for the 6/1 bet advised in January on all three party leaders…
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UK General Election Analysis
This piece was first published on Tuesday 10th December for gambling.com In previewing this general election over several months, I’ve put up two positions available on the political betting sites – Conservatives to win most seats at 4-5, No Overall Majority at 4-6. According to the betting, the first is nailed on at 1-20 with BetVictor, with the…
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How will the Liberal Democrats fare?
If I could take back one recent prediction, it regards Jo Swinson and the Lib Dems. When this campaign started, I thought they would benefit from extra exposure, particularly for their Revoke stance on Brexit – divisive for sure, but clearer than Labour’s muddled offering. 20-25% seemed realistic. As it transpires, the Lib Dem in the last…