Note: I have excluded John Smith’s tenure as Labour leader for obvious reasons.

The nexus point for British politics in 2026 is whether Sir Keir Starmer KC will remain Prime Minister and there’s an expectation he will be ousted shortly after the local and devolved elections in May.

The current expectation is Labour will perform as well as HMS Hood at Battle of the Denmark Strait, if you’re not aware of that engagement ‘Less than 10 minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from the German battleship Bismarck struck Hood near her aft ammunition magazines. Soon afterwards, Hood exploded and sank within three minutes, with the loss of all but three of her 1,418 crew.’)

As we can see from the chart above Labour leaders over the last 43 years only quit after a general election defeat, in the case of Kinnock and Corbyn, it is after two general election defeats. 

The only one to be ousted at a time not of their choosing was Tony Blair who was ousted in part due to a war involving Israel but that was mostly due to a heavyweight like Gordon Brown trying to force out Blair, I cannot see a Gordon Brownesque figure in the current Labour government  

In 2016 out of 232 Labour MPs 172 of them expressed no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn but he didn’t resign as Labour leadership so it is very difficult to shift recalcitrant leaders. 

A good rule when it comes to betting on politics is to bet on something not happening and that\’s why I think it makes sense on backing Sir Keir to remain as Prime Minister this year.

In the afternoon thread I will look at the implications of this on some other betting markets.

TSE