Next Prime Minister Betting

 Here's a wide-open market for those who think that Cheltenham, the Grand National, the ITV7 or the Lottery are too easy,

Next UK Prime Minister, a snapshot as of this moment because it could look very different by this time tomorrow.

This doesn't mean 'after the next General Election', it means next incumbent of 10 Downing Street and, given Ed's position in the market, I'd take that to mean including any so-called 'caretaker',

Angela Rayner	14/5
Wes Streeting	13/2
Ed Miliband	7/1
Shabana Mahmood	12/1
Nigel Farage	16/1,

so, you can have Kemi at 33's for looking around but 14/1 is the meanest offer. William Hill make Farage a 6/1 shot.

I'm told by Times Radio that, as a regular listener to Times Radio, I'm well informed about politics and it's true that without them I wouldn't have heard of Alistair Carns, 16/1, but even with their help, I'd never heard of Lee Pitcher, 25/1.

 

I lost more money than I imagined possible in 2016 when Trump beat Hillary Clinton and the referendum said Leave. That disastrous year was thus declared the last time I'd ever bet on politics because there is no way of assessing how it works any more.

How we'd love it if it was still possible for Robert Mckenzie and his swing-o-meter to detect a 2% swing and thus a change of MP for the likes of Swindon South. But it's not like that any more. Us olde worlde liberal/left are bereft and clinging to driftwood, trying to work out why Farage isn't a shorter price than he is to win the next General Election because nobody ever went poor by under-estimating the taste of the general public.

 

The Labour candidate for Prime Minister then is unlikely to be Keir Starmer, decent man though he is. So, if we did have to bet on Next UK PM, we are looking for a promotion from within. Angela would turn out to be rubbish, much as we love her. Andy Burnham is 16/1 even though not currently qualified to run. Wes Streeting might look like the class act but it's the sort of race that might not suit a front-runner. I well remember our own Penny Mordaunt being odds on, about 8/13, to be the next Prime Minister but not long after that she was most shamefully supporting Boris.

Not that it might matter too much because the next General Election already looks unwinnable, but I'd go for Shabana Mahmood, for preference and for the bet. Because she's so far the least tainted. Although it won't take long in 'power' for her to become so.

It's an impossible job but not quite as impossible as Boris, Liz Truss and then, sadly, Starmer, made it look.  

He hasn't resigned yet, has he. One last check. No, he hasn't.