How the next CON leader betting market has moved since last year’s Conference
A Mr. Johnson still favourite but Javid very close
I love these historical charts of Betfair trades from Betdata.io and they are particularly interesting when you have events like the party conferences.
The man I’m working hard not to call just by his first name is still there in the favourite slot but the big gainers during the year have been the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, and the BrexSec, Dominic Raab. Both got promotions since the 2017 conference.
I’ve never been fully convinced of Johnson’s chances simply because of the CON election system. Remember how Portillo was squeezed out of a place in the members’ ballot in 2001 because he was pipped by IDS for one of the two names that MPs decided should be put before the membership. Looking back the Tories would surely have performed far better with Portillo than the hapless IDS who was forced out in a confidence vote in October 2003.
That’s history and Portillo’s career is now on a different track usually a railway one.
There has been some talk of the system being changed but it is hard to see CON MPs being ready to give up their power to determine the final shortlist of two.
All is dependent on when TMay goes and I am not convinced that she’ll be out next year.
On the betting I like to feature the Betfair exchange because the prices are based on real money being risked.