Latest Poll Information for 9 March
| Party | BBC Poll Tracking | LSE Poll Tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Per cent | Per cent | |
| Last Change | 6 March | 9 March |
| Labour | 31 | 33 |
| Conservatives | 40 | 38 |
| Liberal Democrats | 18 | 17 |
| Other Parties | 11 | 12 |
Two new (and somewhat divergent) polls released since yesterday’s update. With the LSE Election Expert’s aggregate measure, Labour gains one point, which narrows the Conservatives’ lead to 5 percentage points. The Liberal Democrats drop back a point to 17 per cent, but this is fairly consistent with our previous measures which have them oscillating between 17 and 18 per since the last week of February. The latest Daily Express poll has Labour on 30 per cent and the Conservatives on 37, while yesterday’s YouGov poll puts Labout at 34 per cent, and the Conservatives up on 39 per cent. Both polls have the Lib Dems on 16 per cent. As our measure shows (to echo the old saying), “The truth [often] lies somewhere in the middle”.
Marginal Seat Polling
Peter Ridell reports in the Times today on a Populus poll of marginal seats, which suggests a 6.7 per cent swing to the Conservatives on the 2005 election result, with Labour on 38.2 per cent and the Conservatives on 37.6 per cent. The poll included the seats which are at 50 to 149 on the Conservative’s target list (presumably the top 50 are quite likely to be won by the Conservatives come the election). We must remember, however, that polls of marginal seats, by their very nature, are harder to sample. They are performed less often (and thus are less comparable than other polls), with more difficult procedures and more potential inaccuracies. The gap between Labour and the Conservatives in the marginals is certainly closing at present.
Betting odds and the Election as of 9 March
| Conservative Majority | Labour Majority | No Majority/Hung Parliament | Conservatives Most Seats | Labour Most Seats | Lib Dems most Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ladbrokes | 4/7 | 10/1 | 7/4 | 1/7 | 4/1 | 200/1 |
| Betfair | 5/7 | 13/1 | 15/8 | 1/5 | 9/2 | 499/1 |
| William Hill | 8/13 | 8/1 | 6/4* | 1/6 | 7/2 | 125/1 |
* Note that this figure for William Hill, is for ‘No Overall Majority’ rather than a hung parliament.
To return to our betting odds discussion from last week – we can see some, though not many, changes. While there are no changes in Ladbroke’s stakes, Betfair and William Hill have altered their odds on party lines. For Betfair, the Conservatives odd’s are improving, with their chance of majority increasing from 4/6 to 5/7 and having the most seats from 2/11 to 1/5. The Liberal Democrats drop all the way down to 499/1 from 99/1. William Hill is similar, dropping Lib Dem odds from 80/1 to 125/1. William Hill has also put more faith in a Labour majority, with the odds falling from 9/1 to 8/1 in the last few days. From their point of view, also, the chances of no majority have changed from 5/4 to 6/4, a slight fall.
