unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

PoliticalBetting.com and Jon Cruddas

PoliticalBetting.com has this graphic of the odds on different Labour deputy leadership candidates. The clear trends, after the Newsnight hustings, are the odds shortening on John Cruddas (he's doing well) and lengthening on Peter Hain (he's doing badly). Alan Johnson and Hilary Benn are on a different graphic as their odds are much shorter - between 1.7 and 2.

Certainly, Cruddas has improved and Hain is generally seen as being in a weak position, but I have the impression that Political Betting functions as part of the blogosphere and so the information it gives reflects the mores of that section. I don't know whether it's represenative or not, but a few things are certain. Jon Cruddas does (it seems to me) have a clear advantage in the blogosphere (with some notable exceptions), but you can't blog if you don't have access to the internet. The wonderful people at National Statistics have this release on internet access by region, with this chart:

Hazel Blears, for instance, represents the North West of England, which has rather lower internet penetration that London, where Jon Cruddas hails from. If it is right (and I'm not saying it is) that there is either a London or a blogger bias (or both) towards Cruddas, this would explain the success on PoliticalBetting.com.

xD.

Labels: Labour

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