Punters backing Sunak are ignoring that there isn’t a vacancy
Ladbrokes have just reported that 63% of the next PM bets they’ve laid this week have been on the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. He’s now a very tight favourite in the betting.
All this assumes that there will be a vacancy and that he would win the ensuing leadership election. But Johnson is sitting tight and the only way he’s is going to be pushed aside is if there’s a vote of confidence that he loses.
So unless there’s the unlikely possibility of the incumbent voluntarily stepping aside he is going to have to be forced out. It is just about conceivable that 54 CON MPs will submit a confidence vote letters to Graham Brady but that is not the end of the matter. As we saw with confidence vote against TMay in December 2018 that second hurdle could be difficult to surmount. She won with 63% of the vote.
As has been clear this week Johnson’s team are going to work incredibly hard first to stop the letters going in and then, no doubt, to ensure that the PM gets a majority if the confidence vote is actually held.
My view is that the chances are that Johnson will survive which would mean, surely, that he would make it to the next general election as PM.
I have just put more money on at 11.5 on Betfair that Starmer will be the next PM.