Should you take the 40/1 on Bell’s man in Bedford

Should you take the 40/1 on Bell’s man in Bedford

How’ll the “Man in the White Suit” affect the race?

As predicted here a month ago the “Man in the White Suit”, ex BBC-reporter and victor as an independent at Tatton in 1997, Martin Bell has got involved with the next big political betting event in the UK – the mayoral by-election in Bedford on October 15 with an electorate of 100,000.

We’ve reported already on the visit of David Cameron and the Tory open primary to select their candidate and some of the issues that this has created for the local party. Cameron is said to be planning further visits and Nick Clegg is due in the town.

Now Martin Bell is also coming to campaign for a veteran independent councillor, Apu Bagchi, who has the same campaign team behind him that won the last last two mayoral elections.

I’m a local and I don’t think he will win but his chances are far better than the 40/1 that Ladbrokes are currently offering. Certainly some local Tories are spitting blood over what happened over the primary and Bagchi looks set to pick up quite a few of their votes.

This will be a low turnout election where voters have a second choice and I can see Apu picking up a fair slab of these.

I got £25 on at 66/1 with Ladbrokes an hour or so ago and this seems to have brought the price down.

Mike Smithson

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