William Hill have a market on whether Mrs May being Prime Minister for longer than the country’s first female Prime Minister. To be honest I’m not enthused by either option. To win the  10/1, you’d be tying up your money for the next eleven years, I can think of better things to do with my money than given William Hill an interest free loan for eleven years.

For this bet to pay out Mrs May would have to win the 2020 and 2025 general elections, whilst Jeremy Corbyn remains Labour leader the 2020 general election should be a slam dunk for Mrs May, if Labour choose someone more electable post a general election shellacking then calling a 2025 general election will be hard. (As an aside, Labour don’t need to win a majority to form a government, they can probably be 70 seats short of a majority, and the reality of Parliamentary arithmetic would mean we’d get a Lab/SNP alliance with the possible acquiescence of the Lib Dems, Greens, and SDLP, assuming Scotland hasn’t seceded by then.)

As for taking the 1/25 on Mrs May not lasting as long as Mrs Thatcher, this is also a no bet for me, she’ll be Prime Minister until 2020 at least (assuming no early election) and if the most recent YouGov and Ipsos Mori polls are accurate, she’s on course for a decent three figure majority, so that should keep her in place for a few years post 2020. I can see her standing down in 2024, so we’re looking at this becoming potentially becoming at minimum seven year interest free loan to William Hill.  I can think of a lot of other better priced bets that have higher chances of paying out this week.

That we have such a market is probably reflection of truly dire state that Labour party finds itself in whilst it is led  by Jeremy Corbyn, I think Abraham Lincoln had brighter prospects when he picked up those theatre tickets than a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour party does.

TSE