Should you be betting on 10/1 Lord Monckton?
Is he the man who can make UKIP a force?
There’s another leadership battle going on – for UKIP, the party which beat Labour for the second place slot in last year’s EU elections.
Compared with the current Labour battle the likely contenders are a much more colourful bunch though, admittedly, that’s not difficult.
One of the most prominent is the international anti-AGW campaigner and former aide to Mrs. Thatcher, Christopher Monckton. He became one of the party’s deputies earlier in the year and following Lord Pearson’s resignation yesterday is well placed in the coming battle for the top job. Monckton is related by marriage to Nigel Lawson.
Ladbrokes had him at 20/1 when their market opened yesterday – that’s now tightened to 10/1. The evens favourite is former leader, Nigel Farage, who stepped down in 2009 so he could take on John Bercow in Buckingham. He failed, coming in third place, and I wonder if that will stand against him.
Monckton is a superb publicist and an articulate campaigner and I wonder whether those qualities will be what the anti-EU party will looking for following Pearson’s lacklustre approach.
At 10/1 he’s worth a punt.