Johnson’s position is holding up well on the betting markets where he’s now an 82% chance to succeed TMay
Betdata.io chart of Betfair exchange movements
Political punters, those who risk their cash trying to predict political outcomes, haven’t changed their view of Johnson’s chances of becoming the next CON leader and PM and is still a solid odds-on favourite to succeed TMay. The events of Thursday night and what’s happened since have had an impact, as can be seen by the chart, but not that much. Those gambling on Betfair £11m TMay succession market don’t think it will impact on his chances.
My reading is that the one thing that could change perceptions is polling that suggests that Johnson does not offer the Tories the electoral advantage that earlier polling has shown particularly the ComRes “145 general election” majority survey. So far there has been nothing contradict the broad thrust and he remains the strong front runner.
The hard reason why Boris is rated so highly is that he is seen as having a much greater chance of leading his party to general election success than Hunt.
Fourteen years ago, it will be recalled, the Tories went for David Cameron ahead of the long standing favourite David Davis because they believed the former would take them to a Commons majority after three bruising defeats by Tony Blair. At the end of the day perceived electability is key.
I’m expecting several polls this week and hopefully we will see numbers that will give us a post Camberwell incident snapshot of where things now stand
Mike Smithson