Launching the new market – betting on Prime Minister’s Questions

The bookmakers, Ladbrokes has launched what could develop into a fascinating weekly betting market – What will be the topic of David Cameron’s first question at PMQs?

Normally the most watched and most speculated about moment in the commons each week happens just after midday on Wednesdays when the opposition leader gets to his feet and starts the first of the six questions he is allowed to put to the Prime Minister. The latter has no idea what is coming though clearly he can guess. The former can often try to wrong-foot Brown by taking a tangential approach and not starting with the obvious.

It’s said that prime ministers spend hours on Wednesday morning preparing for the confrontation and certainly Gordon is no exception. But what is Cameron going to start on? Brown doesn’t know – we don’t know but now we can bet on it.

This could be tricky and there was no better example than the first PMQs after the Northern Rock nationalisation. This surely was the certain topic that Cameron would lead on and clearly Brown had a well thought out sound-bite all ready. Not so. Dave split his questions into two batches and the first had nothing to do with NR. Then Nick Clegg came in with his allocated two questions and probed on Northern Rock.

Brown then used his pre-rehearsed anti-Tory sound-bite only to find that Cameron’s second phase of questions was to probe an aspect of the nationalisation plan where he thought the government was weak. Brown had used his sound-bite and looked flummoxed.

These were the opening prices for today’s PMQs
Childcare/Family issues 3/1
China/Tibet 7/2
Budget/Taxes 4/1
Economy/Banking/Stock Market 4/1
Iraq/Afghanistan 8/1
Schools/Education 10/1
Crime/Policing 14/1
Kosovo 14/1
ImmigrationAsylum| 16/1
Iran 16/1
NHS/Health 16/1
Environment/Green Issues 20/1
MPs Pay/Allowances 20/1
European Union 25/1
London Mayoral Election 25/1
Terrorism/National Security 25/1
Transport 25/1
Gambling 100/1

The Economy/Banking/Stockmarket option at 4/1 has been the most backed and last night Ladbrokes had tightened this to 4/5. The market should be up by 9 am and will be closed at 11.am You can link to it when it opens from here

If you are betting on this or any other political or non-political event please go from this page. This is really important for the continuation of the site. We have a revenue arrangement with the odds search engine, Bestbetting, that helps keeps us going.

Mike Smithson