politicalbetting.com

A pollling quirk or are women really flocking to Dave?

The full dataset from May’s YouGov poll in the Telegraph shows a gender divide in voting intention on a scale that is almost unprecedented.

Putting these shares into the Baxter calculator Labour would have a 72 seat majority if the electorate was compised only of men while the Tories would have a 154 seat majority if it was all female.

Normally you need to be wary about taking subsets from polls because inevitably the smaller the sample the greater the margin of error. In this case, however, the sample size for each sex is larger than for most ICM polls. However while the overall sample was adjusted to make it politically representative, using YouGov’s “political identifier”, this is not applied to sub-sets like gender.

What makes this interesting is that a similar picture has appeared in other recent polls – though not on anything like the scale of the latest YouGov numbers. The significance of a move by women to the Tories is huge for it was the move of the female vote to Labour in 1997 that played a key part in Tony Blair’s victory.

In the Observer at the weekend Mary Riddle noted “If women alone had voted in 2005, Labour would have won by 90 seats instead of 66. In a men-only ballot, Blair’s majority would have been down to around 20 seats. Should the female vote melt away next time, then Gordon Brown, as leader, would face catastrophe.“

This change seems to have been fairly recent. In a poll for the Sunday Times taken just after the leadership election in December the male and female CON-LAB figures were almost the same. By February, after Cameron’s initial honeymoon was starting to wear off, the pollster had the Tories with a 3% lead amongst women but 6% behind amongst males. In March the Tories had a 4% female lead balanced by a 4% shortfall amongst men.

Going back through recent ICM polls there is now a small pro-Tory margin amongst women voters but nothing on the scale of that seen in this latest YouGov survey.

Whether this is a quirk in one poll or a serious trend we need to see more evidence. As I have observed here before the YouGov methodology tends to pick up trends earlier and then magnify them more than the other pollsters.

If a switch in female voting intention has changed it is simply a return to normal. Right up until the time Tony Blair and NuLab came on the scene women tended to be much more Tory than men.

Mike Smithson

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Could one of these be Britain’s 2nd woman party leader?

With the speculation about Ming’s future as Lib Dem leader it’s inevitable that people should be thinking about who could succeed him. So far the main focus has been on Nick Clegg (8/11), who did not do his chances any good the other day after being over-heard discussing Ming’s failings in a mobile phone call.

As well as Clegg in the betting are David Laws (4/1), Ed Davey (5/1) who in January all made the questionable decisions to stand aside and not oppose Ming. Chris Huhne, who did run, is also at 5/1.

But what about the women? Could one of the new crop of female MPs who’ve come to the Commons in the past three years after beating Labour have the bottle, Margaret Thatcher-style, to take on the men?

First one there – from right to left- is Sarah Teather – who came onto the national stage following her by-election spectacular in Brent East in September 2003. That she beat Labour then and went on to hold the seat at the General Election was no mean achievement. When she arrived she was the youngest MP and being just four feet ten inches tall she shares the honour, along with Hazel Blears, of the being shortest member of the House.

Teather showed she was prepared to take risks when she played a key part in Kennedy’s departure being the co-author of the letter threatening to resign her front bench position if the former leader carried on. Her betting price is 14/1.

In the centre picture is Lynne Featherstone who pulled off the second most sensational result a year ago in Hornsey and Wood Green when she over-turned a Labour majority of 10,614 by a margin 2,395 votes.

Lynne showed she was not going to be cowed by the party hierarchy when she played a key part in Chris Huhne’s campaign. But for this she would probably have been given a more prominent role in the party by Ming. In her 50s she’s the oldest of the three and was shortlisted in the “Rising Stars” category of this year’s Channel 4 political awards.

On the right is Julia Goldsworthy (14/1) who took Falmouth and Camborne and shadows the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She’s starting to impress a lot of people but being only 27 years old is really far too young.

A great advantage all three have got is that they will be facing Labour opposition in their constituencies next time – a task that should be easier than those defending against the Tories.

Of the three Featherstone seems to have the most immediate potential, is more mature, and you could imagine her having the presence, sharpness and humour to cope with PMQs. She would certainly put a spark back into her party.

Mike Smithson

Could a contest now be a proxy vote on both Brown and Blair?

The two big current issues in UK politics – Blair’s departure date and whether Brown will succeed him – could be brought to a head if the Deputy Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott steps aside and there is a contest.

After a weekend of rising specualtion both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have come to Prescott’s defence because it appears to be in the interest of both to avoid a contest that could reinforce divisions within the party.

For Blair a Deputy Leadership battle could be seen as a party referendum on when he should go while for Brown it could bring a contender to the fore who could challenge him when the leadership election finally comes.

Both camps are said to be concerned that a contest would see the party turning in on itself just at a time when the Tories have got the initiative.

The problem they’ve both got is that coverage like yesterday’s pictures in the Mail of Prescott playing croquet on the lawns of his grace and favour country house, Dorneywood is very damaging. Why is Labour letting somebody continue with his big salary and massive perks when his job has all but been taken away?

But as we saw on the site on Saturday with the contribution by a Labour MP who wants to keep his identity secret there is growing pressure and speculation about who would run.

Such a contest would get massive coverage with all the candidates being asked in almost every interview whether they want Blair to step down early and if they would be backing Brown. Inevitably anti or pro Blair and Brown tags would be attached to each of the contestants and the eventual result would be interpreted in these terms.

As yet there is no betting market on the Deputy Leadership or on how long Prescott can survive. These will surely come. Meanwhile Brown retains his 0.36/1 price for next Labour leader while in the Blair departure date betting you can still get 3.1/1 on Tony lasting another 19 months.

Mike Smithson

“They’ll be dancing in the streets of Witney tonight!”

Phew! Everyone calmed down now after the local elections at the start of the month? That’s a relief because boy has this month been a real rollercoaster for all concerned (and to think it all started with a set of local elections that were quite frankly unpredictable). When the dust had settled and the councils all declared it was clear that was just one winner and that was David Cameron’s Conservatives.

Local Elections 2006: National Projected Vote Share / Change on 2002 / Seats Won / Change on 2002
Conservatives 39% (+5% on 2002) winning 1,830 seats (+317 on 2002)
Labour 26% (-7% on 2002) winning 1,442 seats (-320 on 2002)
Liberal Democrats 25% (Unchanged on 2002) winning 907 seats (+1 on 2002)
Others 10% (+2% on 2002) winning 133 seats (-2 on 2002)

And so naturally after that bonanza you think that the Conservatives could do no wrong in local by-elections? And you’d be right! Defending 13 seats, they ended up with 18! And yet they did have a couple of hiccups along the way. They gained Eynsham on Oxfordshire County Council from the Lib Dems and Pakefield on Suffolk County Council from Lab as well as several Labour wards on Wyre and North Kevesten, but managed to lose two on Epsom and Scarborough councils to the Ratepayers and Greens respectively. But on a three cornered tally of 45%, I don’t think that Mr. Cameron will be too worried.

And neither can the Lib Dems either, a 28% three cornered tally isn’t that bad and compared well with recent months and managed to gain a couple of wards from Independents on West Lindsey and Caradon.

The real losers in both the locals and the local by-elections were Labour. Managing to poll just a paultry 16% in the three cornered tally wasn’t enough, they also went on to lose 3 seats to the Conservatives! All of which will not make happy reading for Mr. Blair when he comes back from Washington. But you know what he’ll say: “These are local by-elections, not a general election”. Which brings us nicely to the national projected share and an admission

In my recent postings, I’ve been using the numbers published by the BBC on their local election programme of 2004 that suggested when a general election and local election are held on the same day, the Lib Dems do 8% better in a local election, whilst Labour do 4% worse, and the Conservatives and Others do 2% worse. I have since discovered that these numbers are in fact WRONG! I have found the correct figures and so will adjust the three cornered tallies by these new adjustments which are:

Tories: 45% in local by-elections May 2006, who poll 3% worse in a general election = 42% (+9% on Election 2005)
LDs 28% in local by-elections May 2006, who poll 6% worse in a general election = 22% (-1% on Election 2005)
LAB 16% in local by-elections May 2006, who poll 9% better in a general election = 25% (-11% on Election 2005)
Others 11% in local by-elections May 2006, who poll unchanged in a general election = 11% (+3% on Election 2005)

Thus gives us a forecast House of Commons of:CON 377 (+179): LAB 176 (-180 ): LD 62 (n/c): OTH 31 (+1 ). CON majority 108

So to quote that famous line from BBC Rugby, “They’ll be dancing in the streets of Witney tonight!

Harry Hayfield is a Lib Dem activist in Wales.