Who would have thought only 6 days ago that we would be having a by-election in the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton with the LDs as red hot favourites? The pace and the betting has been quite extraordinary given that at GE2019 the LDs came in third 46% behind the Tories.

From my perspective the big way of telling whether Davey’s party is in with a shout is if the LDs decide to make it a priority and their top campaigners look set to move in.

In the betting I wonder what the odds would have been if the LDs had not won such thumping victories last year in Chesham and Amersham and Shropshire North. In the former I got my big bets on at a staggering 19/1 and this ended up as my most profitable bet ever. In Shropshire North the opening odds as I recall on the LDs were about 5/1.

Alas their by-election reputation is so widely known that the last price matched on the Smarkets exchange rated their chances as a 64% chance.

These odds are somewhat generous in comparison with the 90% that Smarkets have on Labour in Wakefield.

We do not know of course have any dates yet. My guess is that there will both took place towards the end of June and that the Tories will hold both on the same day.

Mike Smithson