After Newark CON must be pretty confident of holding Cambs South – the next by-election in the pipeline?
The contest that could be coming up to fill Lansley’s seat?
In February I was the first to tip the ex-health secretary and now leader of the House, Andrew Lansley, as the next UK commissioner in Brussels.
I got on at 16/1 and since the price tightened to him being an odds-on favourite. Now the bookies are not taking bets for it’s been informally announced that Lansley’s the man and he has even spoken publicly about it.
The winnings I expect to pick up will more than make up for my losses on EP14 and Newark.
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The only possible hurdle could have come if Newark had not been held by the Tories. If that had happened Cameron would rightly have been reluctant to trigger a Cambs S by election by appointing his former CCHQ colleague to the job.
The rules are that Lansley could not be both an MP and an EU commissioner.
The numbers for the seat from GE10 are above. It’s hard to see LAB or Ukip being able to make a challenge although the LDs are reasonably strong locally. Andy JS has produced some numbers of local elections in the constituency which I’ll post.
A second successive by-election defence by the Tories in the run-up to GE15 would reinforce the positive CON narrative.