What will the electorate make of the party with a Latin name?

After last night’s launch of Robert Kilroy-Silk’s new party ‘Veritas’, bookmakers William Hill are offering 20/1 that Mr Kilroy-Silk will win Geoff Hoon’s Ashfield seat (Nottinghamshire) at the next election. Hills also offer 16/1 that Veritas will win one or more seats at the next election. So far the market does not appear to be online and we only hope that the bookmaker will allow internet punters to bet. They have a habit of announcing these markets and then not making them available online.

We think that the second market offers better value just in case Kilroy-Silk decides to go for another seat. Unless the former Labour MP, TV host and MEP, manages to attract other “star” names into his party we cannot seem them having any chance of securing more than one seat. His target of Geoff Hoon’s seat looks quite smart in view of the difficulties that the Defence Secretary went through over the Iraq War and the process of the Hutton inquiry.

As yet the spread-betting firms have yet to catch up with the Veritas developments but we are sure that they will. Kilroy-Silk is such a media magnet that whatever he does will attract a lot of coverage.

The real issue is whether the new party will have a wider appeal and start to eat into the votes of the established parties.

Spread-betting punters continue to put money on the Tories and we have seen some more movement during the day. The Tory spread is now up eight seats on its low point just eleven days ago and punters who went in then would now be able to get out at a profit. When we called “buy Tory” the price was 185-192 seats.

IG Index spread prices: LAB 353-360 (-1) : CON 191-198 (+1) : LDs 70-74

Copyright 2005 Mike Smithson