The talk in political circles is all about whether the new Prime Minister can survive after yet another lambasting in the papers following a dire performance in PMQs. We take a look at the latest odds in the Next Prime Minister Odds market on Betfred…
Liz Truss is now odds-on to face both a Vote of No Confidence before the next General Election and odds-on not to lead the Conservative Party into said ballot – whenever that may be. This is still bonkers to me considering she’s only been in the job a handful of weeks but her popularity is sinking like a stone and it isn’t like she started with an all-time positive approval rating.
Should those odds accurately reflect what is going on behind the scenes in Westminster then we could feasibly have another Tory PM before the public goes to the polls. This is the main reason that Sir Keir Starmer is odds-against to be the next person to walk into 10 Downing Street.
If the markets were convinced Truss would make it as far as an election then the Labour leader would be a very short-price considering the polling numbers out there suggesting that his party may be in a position to get half of all votes. Should that happen, then Labour would come out of the next General Election with a stonking majority similar to what Tony Blair came away with in 1997.
So for the purposes of this article, let’s put Starmer to one side and look at the runners and riders who would replace the current PM between now and 2024 should Conservative MPs find a way to remove her.
Next Prime Minister Betting Odds
Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak is the top Tory in this market at 9/2. He was the choice of the majority of Conservative MPs when they were balloting but lost out on the top job when the membership decided to go with Liz Truss. He is seen as the safest pair of hands and has already held a Great Office of State. His biggest problem is a significant proportion of the membership have already rejected him and blame him for the removal of Boris Johnson. Does a few weeks (or months by the time they potentially remove Truss) of terrible leadership change their minds or do they stick steadfastly against him?
Speaking of the former Prime Minister, he’s hovering around 10/1 to make the big comeback. Should the party panic and he puts himself forward, who knows how it would play out. If the rules are not changed and he somehow manages to get in the final two and it goes out to the members then he’d be the red hot favourite to return to the top job. There are plenty of hurdles to get over before that could happen but is there a navigable path for this to happen? You bet your bottom dollar there is.
Michael Gove was on stage alongside Johnson during the Brexit Referendum campaign and the former cabinet member is an 9/1 shot. This seems too short to me as I don’t see a path for him to be in the top two of any ballot among his colleagues.
The final realistic candidate is Penny Mordaunt who is priced up at 14/1. The Portsmouth North MP spent the vast majority of the previous leadership campaign trailing only Rishi Sunak but when the final round of voting happened, she was pipped by Liz Truss. Very much a dark horse who is much better value than Gove.
Despite having written all of this, as it stands the 1922 Committee have no way of removing her or having a leadership contest as all new Prime Minister’s get a year’s grace. However the noise and private briefing of journalists clearly suggest that her position is far from secure. I fully expect this market to see movement in the near future as the situation is clearly very fluid.
