September opens with Corbyn continuing to dominate the Lab betting but with a little bit more interest in Cooper
Eight more days before voting closes
The LAB leadership Betting has been pretty stable since the YouGov poll last month that had Corbyn on 55% on first preferences. Inevitably he’s become the overwhelming favourite as can be seen by the chart.
The only recent movement has been with Yvette Cooper who was out as a 5% chance last week and had seen a tightening. At the same time there has been a slight easing of the Corbyn price from a dominating 81% implied probability to a 78% one.
It is easy to read too much into these minor adjustments but the shift a bit to Cooper seems to have happened since the Gordon Brown endorsement. Whether the former prime minister has any remaining influence is hard to say.
What we haven’t got any information on is when people voted. The general theory is that voters in elections by mail get their ballot packs into the post very quickly and Corbyn was riding very high when the these started being distributed on August 12th.
There was an unsourced report at the start of last week that 40% of the selectorate then had not voted – a figure that seemed very high. Maybe the fact that voting is taking place during the main holiday season has had an impact.
My betting position remains the same. I’m all green across the board making the same profit whoever is announced as winner a week on Saturday.