Just under £34,000 has been wagered on the Next Conservative Leader market on Betfair. Of that, £8,400 has so far been wagered on the most traded contender, Boris Johnson.

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— Alastair Meeks (@AlastairMeeks) October 12, 2023

It seems that some people, or someone, is unusually keen to back Andy Burnham for next Labour leader.

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— Alastair Meeks (@AlastairMeeks) October 12, 2023

Alastair Meeks has alerted me to this interesting aspect on the next Labour leader market as seen in the tweets above.

Andy Burnham is currently the Mayor of Greater Manchester, which means he’s also the Police & Crime Commissioner for the area, that prevents him from being concurrently the Mayor and a member of parliament which presents a bit of a problem for Burnham to succeed Starmer. I don’t think Labour could successfully pull off the Earl of Home trick these days.

For about seven years, on and off, David Miliband was inexplicably the favourite to succeed Ed Miliband and then Jeremy Corbyn despite David Miliband not being an MP and living in America, many PBers made decent money from laying David Miliband in those markets, I see Andy Burnham as the new David Miliband.

I would love to hear the logic behind behind these people making Burnham the favourite.

TSE