The betting on next PM since BoJo bowed out
Today is a big day in the contest to choose the next CON leader and of course next prime minister. The 1922 committee of Conservative backbench MPs will be meeting later to decide and then announce the various rules of the contest.
From reports that we have the idea is to concentrate the first part of the process as much as possible so that it is fully complete before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess next week. So we’re going to see a number of consecutive ballots of Conservative MP’s which will whittle the contenders down to 2. Those will be the names that will go to the Conservative Party membership in a postal ballot.
One thing’s that’s clear is that this is more open a contest than the last one in 2019 when the assumption was that Johnson would get it almost right from the start.
During the process to select the leader the intention of Johnson is to carry on. It might be that the 1922 committee has a view on that and we could see an interim CON leader and PM for the next few weeks. I placed a bet on the current deputy leader, Dominic Raab, being the next PM some weeks ago at long odds in the expectation that this might happen.
As no doubt PBers will get sick of hearing I have a £20 Ladbrokes next PM bet on Sunak placed in November 2019 at odds of 250/!.