Punters finally abandoning the unlikely independent The chart is from Smarkets and shows the deteriorating fortunes of the big surprise in the betting for May’s London Mayoral election – Brian Rose. At one stage when the betting was far less liquid he edged up to a 15% chance. As can be seen that is all over and the market is getting a tad too big for even the most loyal Rose supporter to keep the odds up. In this election,…
On Smarkets you can lay him for 26 In previous years when there has been a London mayoral election it has been a major political betting event. That has been much less so this year because the incumbent, Sadiq Khan, looks totally dominant and all the polling has him clearly ahead. This was one of those elections that should have taken place last May but has been put back because of COVID. The big betting story has been about the…
Google pics This comes ahead of “Super Thursday” when a huge number of elections are being held There’s a big row brewing over the government’s apparent efforts to ban door to door political leafleting ahead of the elections set to take place on May 6th. Of course given the pandemic it is right that there should be no doorstep canvassing but leaflets are different and it appears that different rules apply to commercial leafleting. The British civil liberties and privacy…
A crucial test for Johnson, Starmer, and the new LD leader One of the consequences of the the pandemic is that this year’s May local elections had to be postponed and also there have been no council by elections. Clearly having voting taking place while coronavirus is having such an impact would not be a good idea but democratic institutions have to carry on and renew themselves. So assuming there is no further postponement then the country looks set for…
Westminster voting changes from today's YouGov London poll suggest the Tories could make gains from LAB in the capital Changes since GE2017: Lab -16%CON -4%LD +10%BRX +6%GRN +2% Swing 6% from Lab to Con — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 5, 2019 And terrible ratings for the LAB leader in his home city London has for so long been such a stronghold for Labour that it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that on December 12th it…
Has he bitten off more than he can chew? There has been a big shake up in the betting for the 2020 London Mayoral race following the announcement this morning that the former Tory cabinet minister and failed leadership contender, Rory Stewart, has decided to enter the race. This came after he announced that he would not be standing again at the General Election for his Penrith seat. Stewart has quickly moved into second place in the betting while the…
Icknield (Luton) result: LAB: 36.7% (-5.6)CON: 35.4% (-8.8)LDEM: 25.6% (+12.1)GRN: 2.3% (+2.3) Labour GAIN from Conservative. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) September 26, 2019 We’ve seen big movements in the polls in recent months with Farage’s and the LDs move forward very strongly the latter often near tripling their GE2017 GB vote share of 7.6%. The local by-election above shows how the LD resurgence is going to make general election predictions that much harder. Swinson’s party will go into the election…
SV means the Lib Dems could pull off something extraordinary In the absence of big names and big characters, London politics has dropped off the media radar a bit. After the controversial Ken Livingstone and the future PM Boris Johnson, Sadiq Khan has been – spats with Donald Trump aside – a lower-profile mayor. Khan’s term ends, however, in less than eight months, when he’ll bid for re-election. Until recently, this was all-but assured. The Tory candidate, Shaun Bailey, looks…