General Election '24

[Gfamily]

Labour candidate Kevin Graig admits betting against himself (so no inside information). Labour immediately suspend and I understand they say they will return the £100,000 he recently donated to the party

I suspect you were intending to be sarcastic. But what you say is technically true. The issue in such a situation is called moral hazard rather than inside information.

I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. I was describing the situation exactly as it is. Unless he planned on throwing the election the lack of misuse of inside information makes it a totally different scenario to the others we have seen. That’s not to say it was politically wise or morally acceptable but a lot of the “they’re all the same” crowd are trying to allege equivalency when there is none.

Is it possible he hoped that his £100,000 donation to the party would give him a more winnable seat, but having only been assigned Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, he thought he'd engineer getting his investment back?

[IvanV]

Labour candidate Kevin Graig admits betting against himself (so no inside information). Labour immediately suspend and I understand they say they will return the £100,000 he recently donated to the party
...
I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. I was describing the situation exactly as it is. Unless he planned on throwing the election the lack of misuse of inside information makes it a totally different scenario to the others we have seen. That’s not to say it was politically wise or morally acceptable but a lot of the “they’re all the same” crowd are trying to allege equivalency when there is none.

Is it possible he hoped that his £100,000 donation to the party would give him a more winnable seat, but having only been assigned Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, he thought he'd engineer getting his investment back?

Moral hazard is the general term that covers the situation such as throwing the election, because now the bet gives you an incentive to do so. In sports betting, betting against yourself is one of the worst offences there is, precisely because people doing that are typically conspiring to fix the outcome. It is much easier to fix a worse-than-expected outcome than a better-than-expected outcome. So typically by being caught betting against yourself, you have both invalidated your bet by the rules of the betting company, and committed one of the most serious offences of your sport, probably resulting in an extended or permanent suspension.

Having said that, there are some situations where "betting" against yourself is normal and benign. It's called insurance. But insurance companies are still worried about moral hazard. Some people, once insured, do have a strong incentive for their house to go on fire, or their spouse to die, or write off the car, to collect the insurance. The insurance company strives hard to ensure these situations do not arise, with excesses, exclusions, no claims discounts, etc. Typically with the fuss of claiming and deductions, you are usually better off not suffering the incident. But even with that, because the loss is no longer as large, it often makes people less careful about avoiding those outcomes. And this is the more usual issue and pervasive moral hazard problem insurance companies have to face.

A bet against yourself to win an election might have been straightforward insurance, but mainly if you needed the income of being an MP. There are fans who bet against their team, because either they "win" the match or they win the bet, happy either way. Though I doubt the odds are attractive as practical insurance at a practical price for an election, if you need the money, unless you were a near shoo-in. But as someone who can apparently give the party £100k, he hardly needed financial insurance against failing to win. So it looks very fishy. I'm not surprised the party expelled him and gave his money back. And I expect the betting company has invalidated the bet too.

Gfamily very cleverly suggests it was another kind of insurance, and if so it worked very well. But also reflects badly on him.

[El Pollo Diablo]

We've had three polls today, and there's still time for the narrative to change, but just thought I'd note that with the ones we've had so far, the 7-day average for the Tories is now 20.4%, which is the lowest average for the Tories since the previous election. Yep, lower than Truss, who only got to 20.5%.

On a 10-day average, it's nearly a full point below (21.2% vs 22.1%), and on a 14-day average, it's 1.4 points (21.0% vs 22.4%).

Lol.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Meanwhile, this is a useful chart. Shows how voting intention results in seat numbers historically - once you get below 25% you're f.cked.

[lpm]

We've had three polls today, and there's still time for the narrative to change, but just thought I'd note that with the ones we've had so far, the 7-day average for the Tories is now 20.4%, which is the lowest average for the Tories since the previous election. Yep, lower than Truss, who only got to 20.5%.

On a 10-day average, it's nearly a full point below (21.2% vs 22.1%), and on a 14-day average, it's 1.4 points (21.0% vs 22.4%).

Lol.

Historically there's little movement in polls in the final week - except in 1992. And 1992 is what everyone remembers, so people think polls change in the final run in.

In 1992 Kinnock's notorious Sheffield rally was on the equivalent of today - Wed 1 April for the Thurs 9 Apr election day. The polls had actually been moving against Labour in the previous week, then moved further in the final week, turning a decent Labour lead into a tiny Labour lead.

Then the actual outcome was worse again.

The only other recent time when there was a polling movement of note in the final week was 2010 - LibDem's fell by about 4 points. But that was only because of the "I agree with Nick" stupidity in the opening weeks which had inflated LibDem's polling numbers early on.

A 7 or 10-day average is going to struggle to detect late movement.

[TopBadger]

What is striking to me, driving around Badenoch's constituency of NW Essex for the last 2 weeks, is that up to about 2 hours ago I hadn't seen a single blue placard outside a house, I don't recall seeing any orange ones for LD's either - seen loads of red ones for Labour though, along with a few for the Greens.

I've just seen my first and only blue placard, down a teeny tiny country lane...

If Lib Dem voters are clued in and vote tactically, there's a significant chance she can lose here.

[bagpuss]

Stopthetories has finally released its tactical voting recommendation for Mid Bucks. It's not helping me. With tactical.vote still refusing to give any recommendation and the other 2 recommending different parties, I think we're stuffed. The progressive vote will be evenly split and the Tories will win. Bugger.

[lpm]

The three most recent opinion polls for each pollster (up until today's Good Morning Britain poll).

Labour percentage point lead

Pollster / Oldest-Middle-Most Recent / Labour up or down

BMG 19-20-23 / Up
Deltapoll 25-27-24 / Down
Focaldata 19-18-22 / Up
Ipsos 18-20-23 / Up
JL 17-17-16
Ashcroft 22-25 / Up
More in Common 16-14-16
Norstat 23-20-20 / Down
Opinium 18-17-20 / Up
Redfield 25-23-23
Savanta 19-23-21
Survation 18-21-23 / Up
Techne 24-24-23
Verian 21-18-17 / Down
We Think 25-23-21 / Down
Whitestone 20-22-19 / Down
YouGov 18-16-18

No consistent sign of movement. 6 going up, 5 going down, the others meh. The ups are a little bit bigger than the downs, probably leading to the proper EPD rolling analysis.

My guess: we're past the initial Farage attention-grab, past the later Farage's-candidates-are-fascists stage, past the debates and leader interviews, past the manifestos, past the final inflation data, past the tax lies, past the main scandals... What else is coming up? One more England men's team match on Sunday to uplift the nation with a glorious victory? Glastonbury where Coldplay demand we vote Conservative? Start of Wimbledon when Sue Barker tells us to vote Communist?

[Woodchopper]

Meanwhile, this is a useful chart. Shows how voting intention results in seat numbers historically - once you get below 25% you're f.cked.

Yes, and that's why the predicted seat numbers for the Tories are so variable. When they are at about 18-23 per cent a few percentage points each way makes a huge difference to the number of predicted seats.

[El Pollo Diablo]

New MRP out from WeThink says the Tories will win 76 seats. We're a week out from the election. This is mad.

Some of the individual seat projections are a bit dodgy, mind - Farage not to win, for example - but it's actually realistic overall. Crazy.

The main reason why is that they've found proportional swing - the safest Tory seats have the largest swing. It basically means no Tory seats are safe.

[lpm]

New MRP out from WeThink says the Tories will win 76 seats. We're a week out from the election. This is mad.

Some of the individual seat projections are a bit dodgy, mind - Farage not to win, for example - but it's actually realistic overall. Crazy.

The main reason why is that they've found proportional swing - the safest Tory seats have the largest swing. It basically means no Tory seats are safe.

Mmm. A bit dodgy? The individual seats can be seriously dodgy.

For example Guildford being won by Labour, not LibDem? Labour won't top 10% there. Greens winning North Herefordshire? Reform winning Isle of Wight West and South Suffolk?

[IvanV]

New MRP out from WeThink says the Tories will win 76 seats. We're a week out from the election. This is mad.

Some of the individual seat projections are a bit dodgy, mind - Farage not to win, for example - but it's actually realistic overall. Crazy.

The main reason why is that they've found proportional swing - the safest Tory seats have the largest swing. It basically means no Tory seats are safe.

The latest prediction from Electoral Calculus also has a substantial movement that way since I last looked at it: Tories in 3rd place on 60, Reform 19, majority of 250.

Certainly the Tories have done nothing to reassure anyone of anything recently.

The funniest thing I have seen is the Tories' promise to get more houses built than Labour. The only proposed measure to achieve it is help for first time buyers. I don't think even a died-in-the-wool Tory supporter could look at that and believe it.

[El Pollo Diablo]

We've had three polls today, and there's still time for the narrative to change, but just thought I'd note that with the ones we've had so far, the 7-day average for the Tories is now 20.4%, which is the lowest average for the Tories since the previous election. Yep, lower than Truss, who only got to 20.5%.

On a 10-day average, it's nearly a full point below (21.2% vs 22.1%), and on a 14-day average, it's 1.4 points (21.0% vs 22.4%).

Lol.

Seven polls today in total, and the Tories have ended up on 20.4% average, Labour on 40.9%. Reform still on a big high but as lpm says, the very latest numbers show them slightly down, and we'll not see that in the average for a while.

[IvanV]

Stopthetories has finally released its tactical voting recommendation for Mid Bucks. It's not helping me. With tactical.vote still refusing to give any recommendation and the other 2 recommending different parties, I think we're stuffed. The progressive vote will be evenly split and the Tories will win. Bugger.

These situations are exceedingly frustrating. Electoral Calculus predicts a marked lead for the Lib Dem candidate, and so only a small swing from Lab to Lib Dem needed to defeat the Tory. Since Mid Bucks includes a substantial chunk of what was Chesham & Amersham, which has its Lib Dem MP, and a substantial pruning was needed as C&A took over parts pruned off Beaconsfield as well as reducing its overall size, you'd think Lib Dem was the more obvious choice.

Also Labour have said this is not a battleground seat for them, so they are essentially saying to the Lib Dems, go win it.

Tactical.vote have no recommendation for my father's consituency, Reigate either, and a while ago Electoral Calculus had the LibDem and Labour candidates completely equal. But now they have Labour running away with it. And whilst the Tories losing Reigate to Labour seems bonkers, actually the more modest bits of the constituency are just-managing suburbia and so hardly natural Lib Dem territory.

[bagpuss]

Stopthetories has finally released its tactical voting recommendation for Mid Bucks. It's not helping me. With tactical.vote still refusing to give any recommendation and the other 2 recommending different parties, I think we're stuffed. The progressive vote will be evenly split and the Tories will win. Bugger.

These situations are exceedingly frustrating. Electoral Calculus predicts a marked lead for the Lib Dem candidate, and so only a small swing from Lab to Lib Dem needed to defeat the Tory. Since Mid Bucks includes a substantial chunk of what was Chesham & Amersham, which has its Lib Dem MP, and a substantial pruning was needed as C&A took over parts pruned off Beaconsfield as well as reducing its overall size, you'd think Lib Dem was the more obvious choice.

Also Labour have said this is not a battleground seat for them, so they are essentially saying to the Lib Dems, go win it.

Tactical.vote have no recommendation for my father's consituency, Reigate either, and a while ago Electoral Calculus had the LibDem and Labour candidates completely equal. But now they have Labour running away with it. And whilst the Tories losing Reigate to Labour seems bonkers, actually the more modest bits of the constituency are just-managing suburbia and so hardly natural Lib Dem territory.

I think that the fact that the Lib Dem candidate is local (at least to one end of the constituency, I can't say Buckingham feels terribly local to me) and the Labour candidate has clearly just been brought in to make up the numbers (little or no political experience, no local connection) does make it more likely that people will vote for her. Although, I have no idea how well she's regarded as mayor of Buckingham.

I don't really know what difference it makes that Labour has said it's not a battleground, other than that they have put up said inexperienced candidate from somewhere else. I've seen exactly the same amount of campaigning from all the candidates - ie, one leaflet.

I'm not sure the C&A bits being potentially more LD is a strong argument. Labour was second to the Tories in the last election in Aylesbury, which has also donated chunks to Mid Bucks (me included).

I think the "local" somewhat known entity vs non-local unknown will be the deciding factor, but I do still fear that Labour will get enough votes to give the Tory the victory.

This is the first time that the candidate I vote for will have a real, if small, chance of winning since 1992 (they didn't) and I so want it to actually happen.

[Grumble]

I’m still not sure if I vote Labour that the Tory won’t get in. For the first time ever a Labour vote here might not be a protest vote.

[philbo]

I'm not sure the C&A bits being potentially more LD is a strong argument. Labour was second to the Tories in the last election in Aylesbury, which has also donated chunks to Mid Bucks (me included).

I think the "local" somewhat known entity vs non-local unknown will be the deciding factor, but I do still fear that Labour will get enough votes to give the Tory the victory.

This is the first time that the candidate I vote for will have a real, if small, chance of winning since 1992 (they didn't) and I so want it to actually happen.

You've gone from Aylesbury to Mid-Bucks? You must be just down the road (I'm in Grendon Underwood)

The electoralcalculus numbers do look like a LD vote is the best tactical vote, and I definitely prefer the look of her (a parachuted Labour youngster doesn't have quite the appeal).. I haven't been able to see any of them in person, though, which irks me somewhat. Leaflets are basically useless when it comes to deciding who to vote for

Though my record at picking winning candidates is a perfect zero, and I haven't missed an election since 1987. Sigh.

[jimbob]

I’m still not sure if I vote Labour that the Tory won’t get in. For the first time ever a Labour vote here might not be a protest vote.

Surely it must be Lib Dems for you? Hazel Grove?

[Grumble]

I’m still not sure if I vote Labour that the Tory won’t get in. For the first time ever a Labour vote here might not be a protest vote.

Surely it must be Lib Dems for you? Hazel Grove?

Yeah, but Labour quite possibly will be in second place

[jimbob]

I'm starting to wonder if Sunak took a spread bet on the number of Tory seat losses.

[bagpuss]

I'm not sure the C&A bits being potentially more LD is a strong argument. Labour was second to the Tories in the last election in Aylesbury, which has also donated chunks to Mid Bucks (me included).

I think the "local" somewhat known entity vs non-local unknown will be the deciding factor, but I do still fear that Labour will get enough votes to give the Tory the victory.

This is the first time that the candidate I vote for will have a real, if small, chance of winning since 1992 (they didn't) and I so want it to actually happen.

You've gone from Aylesbury to Mid-Bucks? You must be just down the road (I'm in Grendon Underwood)

The electoralcalculus numbers do look like a LD vote is the best tactical vote, and I definitely prefer the look of her (a parachuted Labour youngster doesn't have quite the appeal).. I haven't been able to see any of them in person, though, which irks me somewhat. Leaflets are basically useless when it comes to deciding who to vote for

Though my record at picking winning candidates is a perfect zero, and I haven't missed an election since 1987. Sigh.

Opposite side of Aylesbury from you but hardly a million miles away.

And I feel your final paragraph deeply, apart from the fact that I wasn't old enough to vote in 1987, so it's since 1992 for me.

[Grumble]

I’m still not sure if I vote Labour that the Tory won’t get in. For the first time ever a Labour vote here might not be a protest vote.

Surely it must be Lib Dems for you? Hazel Grove?

Yeah, but Labour quite possibly will be in second place

An extra chunk of Offerton was included in Hazel Grove in the constituency change, so more Labour voters.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Final week of opinion polls before the election! Yay!

I'll use this week's polls to give a sense of where I think the seat numbers will land, and will probably be wrong, but I'll have fun doing it and that's all that matters.

[TimW]

Stopthetories has finally released its tactical voting recommendation for Mid Bucks. It's not helping me.

Tactical voting only really works by people voting for the party that came second last time (or first, to keep them in).
This time around that often involves relying on the notional 2019 vote, which is less obvious. So, unfortunately, tactical voting is less likely to be effective this time.

National polls, and assorted tactical voting sites that rely on them, are just muddying the water.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Whilst there are some seats which are confusingly drawn up in terms of who to vote for to get the tories out, in most it's clear, and tactical voting will very much be more effective in this election than possibly any previous election. Estimates suggest somewhere in the region of double the 1997 vote, which was seen as a very tactical election.