It’s an indication of how far John Kerry has come that betting prices on the Democrats taking the White House have more than halved, and those on the Republicans have more than doubled, since the start of the year when the long process of selecting a nominee began.

Following yesterday’s announcement about John Edwards being the running mate there’s been a further hardening of the John Kerry odds which are very close to evens on both sides of the Atlantic. In January you could get well over 2/1. A winning £100 bet then would have produced a profit of £200 – now that is down to £100.

In the UK the money seems to have been going on the Lib Dems in the Leicester South by-election and the price is now below evens. Thus last Thursday a £100 winning Lib Dem bet would have produced a return of £137.50 – today you will only get £90.90 – both figures, of course, excluding your stake. The market on Birmingham Hodge Hill continues to have Labour as firm favourite.

Yesterday’s opinion poll by Populus in the Times has led to a hardening of the Labour price for the General Election. Two and a half weeks ago we suggested that Politicalbetting.com users should take the 2/5 on Labour that William Hill were then offering. Now you can get nowhere near that. We now advise waiting until the price moves out maybe after the Butler report or bad results for Labour in next week’s by-elections.

The spread betting prices have also changed.

LAB 332-342 (+2): CON 235-245 (-2): LIBD 55-60

We would not attach too much importance to the Populus poll because it showed a big pro-Labour bias when tested against real electors placing real votes in real ballot boxes in the Euro Elections on June 10.

Although there’s still ligering specualtion on Tony Blair’s future the 8/15 price on him still being Labour leader at the General Election looks good value.