Is David Davis really the man gamblers should thank?

One of the great bets at the end of last year was the 7/2 you could get against David Blunkett not surviving until the end of December in all the furore over the Kimberely Quinn paternity case. Blunkett was of course Home Secretary and David Davis was his Tory shadow.

Until yesterday’s formal launch of the David Davis campaign for the Tory leadership not everybody, we guess, fully realised the part that Davis played in Blunkett’s departure. For in a BBC potted history of the paternity affair the Shadow home Secretary’s name appears just once and that was a reference to a call he made sixteen days before the departure.

But according to the short biography on his campaign website one of Davis’s achievements, we are told, was that it was he who “prompted” Blunkett’s resignation.

This follows the the Newsnight feature on Wednesday which questioned the extent of his role in coming to the aid of a gay teenager while he was at school – something that he has spoken about. That can be explained because it was all a long time ago and people have different memories.

The Blunkett claim is different because he is talking about something that happened amidst a huge amount of publicity just ten months ago and is within people’s recall. You have to be careful about taking the credit for things that people know about.

Tory leadership betting prices

Conventional bookmakers best price: Davis 8/15: Clarke 11/4: Cameron 10/1: Fox 12/1: Rifkind 33/1

Betfair betting exchange: Davis 0.6/1: Clark 2.85/1: Cameron 8.8/1: Fox 11.5/1: Rifkind 84/1

BinaryBet spread market. Davis 56-63: Clarke 23-29: Cameron 5-9 Fox 5-9: Rifkind 1-3

Mike Smithson