All the possible years are coming together

One of the liveliest political betting markets over the last few months has been on which year Johnson will finally cease to be Prime Minister. As can be seen things have moved sharply and there is is at the moment no real consensus about when he is going to go.

He has made statements to the effect that he will not go of his own accord which means that he has to be forced out and the mechanism for that is a confidence vote amongst Tory MPs. We had one of those earlier in the month which Johnson won but not by very much.

I wonder whether there is another exit possibility. If several leading cabinet ministers decide to walk out it would be very difficult for Johnson to carry on.

Looking over the chart, based on Betfair trades, the worst it got for Johnson was in January when a 2022 exit touched 78% in the betting.

Mike Smithson