The next Chancellor of the Exchequer market that Ladbrokes have is a hard market to assess. There’s two major known unknowns, will David Cameron stand down in this parliament (potentially to maximise George Osborne’s chances of succeeding him) or will the result of the next election be the trigger for the Osborne’s successor?

Sajid Javid is quite rightly the favourite to be the next Chancellor whilst Osborne is favourite to be the next Tory leader, however at 16/1 another Osborne ally Matt Hancock might be value. In the last couple of days he’s been praised by David Cameron for his work. Whilst he doesn’t have the back story of Sajid Javid, he does have the advantage of being Osborne’s former Chief of Staff, Osborne has seen at first hand the advantage of a PM and Chancellor working close together for the greater good, who better to help a PM Osborne achieve than his former Chief of Staff as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

With the strong likelihood of both the next Labour leader and their deputy being men, the new Labour leader might want to make their Shadow Chancellor a woman, given the high profile the role enjoys. We must remember the Tories only have to lose 20 seats for a Rainbow alliance to take power in 2020 and for us to have a Labour Chancellor. So Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper at 10/1 and 20/1 might be value, to show Labour don’t have a woman problem, forty years after the Tories first elected a woman leader.

You can access the Ladbrokes market here.

TSE