General Election
Back in late June I noted that IG Index were forecasting that at the next GE, Labour would get 352 (-61), the Tories 203 (+37) and the Liberals 73 (up 21), giving Labour a majority of 47.I thought I would update you on the impact Michael Howard has had. First a word of warning -- these 'markets' have had some historical success in predicting results (e..g Iowa) but at other times (the UK general election in 1997) they have been far out. D-Squared noted a while back that they provided 'a good summary of the latest opinion polls', which is perhaps a little harsh...
Anyway Labour are down to 343, the Tories up to 223 and the Libs on 65. This would be a Labour majority of 27.
Update: Incidentally on a uniform swing this would mean 37% Conservative, 35% Labour. Is the market predicting that %, or is it expecting a non-uniform swing? Peter Kellner's excellent article explaining the biases of the system seems to suggest that 1/3rd of the bias is tactical voting, which I would expect to be far less than at earlier elections, but that still leaves 2/3rds. If you think Labour will be ahead in the polls you should buy at this price.
posted by Matthew @ 12/11/2003 11:07:00 AM
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