Should your betting be following the Prime Minister?

With just five weeks to go before five million Londoners vote on their Mayor there’s a report in the Times this morning that is hardly going to improve relations between the government and City Hall. Under the heading “Gordon Brown deserts Ken Livingstone..” the paper reports that the PM has “… all but written off Ken Livingstone’s chances of winning the London mayoral election, according to close allies.”

Brown, it is noted pointedly, will be visiting the US next month as the fight for City Hall reaches its climax.

The report goes on: “..Some Brown allies are already consoling themselves that a Johnson victory “would be a disaster” for Mr Cameron. Others, including senior Cabinet supporters, fear that a Johnson mayoralty would hand the Tories a prize platform for building bridges with the business community in the City.”

Certainly it’s the case that Brown and Livingstone have never been the best of friends but such a note of no confidence from Number 10 as the campaign just starts to open up is quite surprising. Negative comments ahead of an election should not be coming out like this. If Ken does, against the odds, make it then relations between the two men are going to be even colder.

The Times report is not going to go down well with the wider Labour movement as Ken faces his biggest challenge.

The betting, meanwhile, continues to move from Ken who is now getting close to the 2/1 level.

Mike Smithson