Are we missing something?

Having not taken a four figure bet for the Conservatives to win the General Election all year, bookmakers William Hill have now taken a five figure bet for them – the biggest struck on them since Michael Howard took over – and shortened their odds as a result.

Hills took the £10,000 bet at odds of 13/2 and have now cut the Conservatives to 11/2 to emerge as the largest single Party. Labour’s odds have been lengthened from 1/14 to 1/10 while the Lib Dems are offered at 66/1 and a Hung Parliament at 5/1.

‘There has been no shortage of big money bets for Labour to win the Election, but this is the first sign that serious punters are now regarding the Tories as electable’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe.‘The customer, based in West London,rang us shortly before midnight on Tuesday night to open a brand new telephone account purely to stake this bet. We are also now seeing a run of two and three figure bets for the Tories which have been notable by their absence for some while’

The Tory price has also risen on the Spreadfair betting exchanhge where the current price is 200-204 seats

While we think that there might be value on the current spread Tory seat markets we are far from convinced that Michael Howard’s party can win more seats than Labour. To achieve an overall majority he needs 324 MPs – they got 166 last time.

Mike Smithson