Reports that Corbyn “has fixed his exit date” sets off betting rush on when he’ll go and who’ll replace him
Overnight there has been a bit of a betting flurry following reports that Corbyn has shared with close colleagues his planned date to leave the LAB leadership. William Hill say they’ve been forced to take evasive action by slashing their odds for Jeremy Corbyn to cease to be Labour leader during 2017, after a rush of bets for him saw the odds slashed from 2/1 (33% chance) to even money (50%).
This suggests that he is going before the next general election which should causes us to rethink the prospects for that contest.
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A general election in which Theresa May is fighting Keir Starmer, Hilary Benn, Clive Lewis, would be of a totally different magnitude than her facing Jeremy Corbyn.
The reason that Theresa May had such a good best prime minister rating is simply because the alternative has polled so badly and has done ever since he was first elected in September 2015.
May’s pained struggle today to deal with Corbyn’s NHS questions at PMQs suggests that she needs to do a lot of work on her communication approach before she is campaign fit to face a general election. She was poor.
The idea that something was going on with in Labour with first sparked off last week when it was reported that Rebecca Long-Bailey had become the preferred choice of Corbynistas to be his successor. I saw a snippet on this and got £20 on with Ladbrokes at 66/1.
Long-Bailey, who was on Question Time last Thursday, has since moved in sharply and now the longest you can get is 16/1.
The overnight report that JC has confided to close colleagues his planned exit data fits into to last week’s Long-Bailey hyping.
My guess is that Corbyn would find it easier to step aside if Labour wins both February 23rd by-elections in Copeland and Stoke Central. He would, deserved or not, get some kudos from the seats being saved.