But could the race still produce a surprise?

It was inevitable that the first opinion surveys restricted to those who can actually vote in Labour’s election was going to spark off a fair amount of activity on the betting markets.

The big move has been to the elder Miliband where the best bookie price is now 1/2. His brother Ed has moved out to 7/4 while Balls/Burnham/Abbott are now seen an rank outsiders with almost no chance whatsoever. On Betfair the picture is even worse for the non-Miliband three.

We now move into the holiday month of August with the ballot papers going out on September 1st. The one element that could muck up the YouGov picture of a DaveM victory is the trade union section because the ballots will be accompanied by recommendations from each of the affiliated unions on which way members should vote. With Ed having the backing of the big three then that could possibly close the gap.

Th other thing YouGov did was to blunt the scale of benefit Mili-E would get from 2/3/4th preferences. How these will break is probably going to be less significant than some EM backers were hoping.

Mike Smithson

Is last night going to aid or hinder its survival?

It’s the big question in British politics – how long will the coalition last? No doubt we’ll all have our own views which might have evolved following the revelations that came out in last night’s programme on what happened in those five days after the election.

I am talking with one of the big spread betting firms about them establishing a “number of coalition weeks” market and have been asking around for views. Currently the consensus is that the opening point for betting should be about 130 weeks or into the period immediately after the conference season in the year after next. That would be end October/early November 2012.

A break can, realistically, come from two parts – disgruntled elements within the Libs Dems who would challenge the deal and Clegg’s leadership – or right-wing elements within the Tory party who, presumably, would oust Cameron at the same time.

My reading of the yellow position is that it will now take an enormous amount to prompt a splinter – even if the AV referendum does not produce a YES. They’ve gone down this route and the only real option is to stick with it for better or for worse.

What last night’s programme did not show is the extraordinary lengths that Clegg went to in order to ensure that there was a consensus and this will hold him in good stead however difficult it gets.

It’s the blues, I believe, where the pressure will come from and the circumstances in which the party agreed to the AV referendum commitment will continue to cause trouble.

For apart from Labour the big losers in the whole arrangement have been the Tory right. They’ve been marginalised and at some stage there might be an attempt to break Cameron and the deal.

One other thought from the programme was the role taken by Andrew Adonis. He’s a defector from the Lib Dems and seemed to be the big backer of the red view that the yellows should jolly well do as they are told. Maybe that reflects his own political journey?

What he did not grasp was that after being made a generous offer by the Tories then the LD team had high expectations from Labour. Mandy seemed much more realistic.

One thing’s for sure -this story will run.

Mike Smithson

YouGov – First round poll

So punters seem to have been getting this right

The first YouGov poll members of those able to vote in the Labour leadership election, is just out and suggests that David Miliband is heading for victory.

The older brother is leading in all three sections of the electoral college on the first round and the firm projects that in the final round of counting Dave will beat Ed by a 54-46 margin.

Full details are here.

This is big news and should reinforce the betting.

Further reflections I think that this is a brilliant poll for DM and the scale of the challenge facing EM with lower preferences is enormous.

DM is on 37% after the first round and an overall 35% put a non-Miliband in first place. So DM just needs 13/35ths of the balance in lower preferences while his brother needs 22/35ths.

But we know that in this form of election a significant chunk of voters ONLY name their number one choice – thus requiring an even great proportion of the Abbott/Burnham/Balls votes to give their lower preferences to EM if he is to win.

Mike Smithson

Was it his inaction that made the coalition possible?

Lots of things are popping up ahead of tonight’s big programme on the BBC telling the story of how the coalition came about.

The presenter, Nick Robinson, has a long piece in the Telegraph giving us a flavour of what to expect.

“..The Tory leadership was well prepared for a hung parliament. They had analysed the overlaps and the gaps between the Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos so that a day after the election they could table a series of documents focusing on 11 areas of policy, highlighting where agreement would prove hardest to achieve, and possible compromises. Although all claim that their minds were on the likelihood of a minority government, William Hague and George Osborne confirm that David Cameron spoke to them before polling day about a possible coalition.

In stark contrast, Gordon Brown had not prepared a policy offer, nor got the backing of his Cabinet, nor developed a relationship with Nick Clegg. This despite the fact that he must have known that a Lib/Lab deal was likely to be his best hope of political survival. When I put it to Peter Mandelson that Clegg found Brown impossible, the Prince of Darkness replied with a wry grin that “No… he’d found him Gordon-ish”.

Instead of building a relationship with the man with whom he might have to share power, Gordon Brown relied instead on his contacts with former Lib Dem leaders – Charles Kennedy, Paddy Ashdown and Menzies Campbell – and Vince Cable. Cable, who has known and liked Brown for three decades, was a regular pre-election visitor to Number 10. There were even hints of a ministerial job for him. Brown ignored the advice of Cable and all his Lib Dem friends to find a way to get on with Clegg….”

In the end it does come down to those personal releationships and maybe if Brown had planned then we would have a very different government today.

This programme could have a big political impact. I agree with the Speccie’s Peter Hosken when he writes: “.What happened during the coalition negotiations – who said what, why and when – could impinge on everything from the Labour leadership race to what the coalition members think about each other.”

Mike Smithson