Ladbrokes are quoted as offering the best price for Labour hopeful Anneliese Dodds at an eye-watering 100/1, putting her beyond the realms of even a 'value' bet!
And in a neat piece of symmetry Conservatives and LibDems are made the twin contenders by Paddy Power at 1/14 and 14/1 respectively. Other parties are not quoted.
Cllr Swaine is excited by this news. He says Ms Dodds has aligned herself too closely with the dying Labour government and is almost certain to suffer the same fate as a swathe of people dramatically reject Gordon Brown.
With voters equally concerned about the prospects of a hung parliament allowing Mr Brown to continue in the job, and a landslide majority for Mr Cameron's Conservative party which would give license to the more ideological tory tax-cutters, the prospect that Labour are 'no-hopers' in this seat may encourage significant numbers to swing behind Cllr Epps parliamentary bid for the LibDems.
It would also mark a remarkable decline for the Labour party to be pushed from 1st place into 3rd in the space of two elections.
UKPollingReport provides unrivalled coverage and analysis of the state of the parties as the final party conference season before the general election heads to its' climax.
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Altogether now....
ReplyDeleteIt's A Two Horse Race!
Except in the parallel universe of Adrian Windisch that is.
Amazing what has happened to Labour. This will be the first election I'm voting in and I wanted a Labour candidate to come to my door and beg me to vote for them, and then i would say, YOU LOST MY VOTE WHEN YOU INVADED IRAQ!
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
14/1 compared to 1/14 is quite a difference in odds. Considering Paddy Power is giving 7/1 for Labour winning the next election, they think it twice as likely that Labour will remain in power than the Lib Dems taking Reading East.
ReplyDeleteMe,
ReplyDeleteBookies calculate their odds from the amount of money wagered by punters and their exposure to potential losses, and as smaller books are naturally less reliable indicators it is impossible to make direct comparisons.
14/1 to 1/14 multiplies out to 1, which says virtually no money has be laid against Labour in this seat, but if you add the odds of the outsider in it tells you the size of the book can only be measured in the thousands, when the total on the outcome of the election is well into the tens of millions.
That means the confidence of the betting market that their prediction is correct is many thousands of times higher in the outcome of the general election than in Reading East.
Apologies for the maths lesson.
Congratulations on finding something that chimes with your belief. If you think the Lib Dems will come close to the Tories here I'd happily bet you €50 you're wrong.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, flash.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's the point of the post as the headline makes plain. I do however think it is a point worth considering given the Labour vote is collapsing, so I'm actually tempted to take up your bet.
In 2005 (compared to 2001) the vote was:
Con 15,557, 35.4% (+1,614)
Lab 15,082, 34.3% (-4,449)
LD 10,619, 24.3% (+2,541)
Green 1,548, 3.5% (+498)
Others 1,016, 2.5% (+468)
What do you predict the outcome in 2010 to be?
If the Labour votes continues to collapse in the same pattern, added to the boundary changes, then it depends entirely on turnout whether or not the seat becomes a battleground.
My personal belief is that safe seats are a lure to the corrupt, so it is important to raise turnout and have a meaningful election where votes actually matter.
In other words it's not about who wins (because winning is only temporary), but the manner in which they do. Should I take it that you disagree?