So is Johnson going to survive as PM or not?
By far the biggest current political betting market is the one above on when will Boris Johnson cease to be Prime Minister. As can seen from the chart there has been a movement away from him going early but it’s still a 68% chance,
This is a very tricky want to call because ultimately this is in the hands of his fellow Tory MPs. One thing that might help in forming a judgment is this from former PB regular, Alastair Meeks, who has sought here to look at each Tory MP and make a forecast as to how they might vote if and when it comes to the crunch.
The thing you have to remember about the Tory party at Westminster is that they were elected in December 2019 when the party’s overall GB vote lead over LAB was just under 12%. The latest polls have this as a LAB lead of 7-8% which is marginally better than earlier in the month but is still a huge gap.
That the Sue Gray report, which we were hoping to see by now, has helped trigger a criminal inquiry clearly is not good for the incumbent.
My own instinct is that the Johnson exit might be a lot further down the road than we think. There will always be a reason why Tory MPs should not act now. I have not yet been prepared to back this up with a bet.