William Hill have a few markets on various events, a lot of these appear designed to enrich William Hill or ones that I wish William Hill offered the other side of the bet. I’d really like to bet on UK GDP growth to be lower than 1.8% one calendar year after Brexit.

The 4/7 on the Democrats to win a majority in the House of Representatives seems like the safest bet. On the principle on betting on something NOT happening is usually profitable, the 5/6 on Mrs May being PM on Christmas Day looks of interest.

However I suspect if she promotes a pragmatic Brexit deal that is not the full fat Brexit the likes of the ERG wants, she will be toppled, this should come to a head in the next few weeks.

With talk of nearly 90 Tory MPs backing Jacob Rees-Mogg as next Tory Leader & PM, I can see Michael Gove uniting behind Rees-Mogg to once again to stop Boris Johnson from ascending to the Premiership. Gove could expect to occupy one of the great offices of state for his support, or Rees-Mogg might wish to make Gove his deputy.

Given that Rees-Mogg has no ministerial experience, he might see the advantage of appointing an experienced minister who has a vision to help him run the government, Gove certainly fits that bill. One of the most damaging criticisms of Mrs May and her Government is that there’s no strategic vision, whilst many might not agree with the vision Gove offers, nobody can deny he lacks a vision.

With the parliamentary arithmetic being so tight, Gove’s experience as Chief Whip could help in running the government.

In the past Deputy Prime Ministers have on occasion served concurrently in one of the great offices, Gove could revive that tradition.

At 25/1 I’m going to have a small stake on this, Gove being Deputy PM to Prime Minister Rees-Mogg seems unlikely but not 25/1 unlikely.

TSE