David Maddox: The Numbers Game (29) - Bookies' Balls up

As regular readers may know, The Steamie has at times tried to help you add a few pounds to your pockets by offering a tip on the political betting front with mixed success.
Those of you who put money on Iain Gray to become Labour leader may appreciate The Steamie's advice, while those who went for Ann Widdicombe to be Speaker may not.
But we've had some interesting odds regarding who will be the next Chancellor to give a Budget from our old friends at Ladbrokes. Please note these odds are ahead of tonight's debate and may change at 9.10pm, I'm reliably informed.

George Osborne 2/5 (fav)
Alistair Darling 5/1
Ed Balls 10/1
Vince Cable 16/1
Ken Clarke 16/1
Philip Hammond 20/1
Gordon Brown 100/1

So tip of the day would be to put your money on Balls.
With Labour closing the gap there is now a decent chance it will be the biggest party and may even have a majority.
If that were to happen Gordon Brown has already made it clear that he wants to replace Alistair Darling with Ed Balls, despite the fact that many people now believe the current Chancellor is the last remaining minister with any credibility and certainly could claim to have won an election for Labour.

This also applies to the newly published odds on the next Labour leader with the very same Ed Balls at 14/1. Again this tip is based on the fact that the Brownites would support him against the Blairites' David Milliband (the 5/2 favourite). He would also probably have the backing of the major unions including the dreaded Unite.

I'm not just saying this because he is a fellow Norwich City fan, but while Ed Balls is reportedly incredibly unpopular in the Commons he has enough powerful supporters and hangers on to make both sets of odds from Ladbrokes look pretty generous.

Perhaps the clever bet is to actually back Ed Balls on both. Whilst it is extremely unlikely but not impossible to clean up on both it makes a decent each way bet on Mr Balls' ultimate fate based on whether Labour win or lose the election.

Here are the rest of the runners and riders to replace Gordon Brown as Labour leader:

David Miliband 5/2
Ed Miliband 5/1
Alan Johnson 6/1
Harriet Harman 8/1
Peter Mandelson 8/1
Alistair Darling 12/1
Ed Balls 14/1
Jon Cruddas 14/1
Jack Straw 25/1
John Denham 25/1
Andy Burnham 25/1
Hilary Benn 33/1
Yvette Cooper 33/1
Shaun Woodward 50/1
Jim Murphy 50/1
Douglas Alexander 66/1
Peter Hain 66/1
John McDonnell 66/1
Liam Byrne 66/1
Hazel Blears 100/1
Tony Blair 100/1
Alastair Campbell 500/1
Cherie Blair 500/1

David Maddox: General election games

One of the more interesting election bets on offer is from Ladbrokes on how many cabinet ministers will lose their seats when voters go to the polls.
Given that three of them - Lords Mandelson and Adonis, and Baroness Royall - are not elected this leaves just 20 possible targets.
In Scotland we have two cabinet ministers often talked about as possible scalps. The Tories have hopes of taking both Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat and Chancellor Alistair Darling's Edinburgh South West constituency.
But, as has been pointed out often by Mr Murphy, nobody expected him to win the seat in the first place in 1997 and he has held on to it twice since then against expectation. He has also been helped by being made Scottish Secretary giving him a free role to campaign here.
The two Scottish targets also represent their desire to have a "Portillo moment", a top level politician swept away in a wave of change across the country as happened to Michael Portillo and several of his colleagues in 1997.
There are a couple of others down in England too who might be under threat. The most vulnerable in majority is Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne in Birmingham while Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw in Exeter is not safe.

Here are the odds from Ladbrokes:

0 - 6/4
1 - 5/1
2 - 7/1
3 - 8/1
4 - 8/1
5 or more - 2/1

The safe bet is zero, but the interesting bet could be three or four to go, which brings back the best return and also reflects the most likely potential number of casualties.
For guidance here are the cabinet members and their majorities in order of potential vulnerability with the main challenger (second in 2005) in brackets. Scottish seats in bold.

Liam Byrne, Birmingham Hodge Hill - 5,449 (Lib Dems)
Jim Murphy, East Renfrewshire - 6,657 (Cons)
Alistair Darling, Edinburgh South West - 7,242 (Cons)
Ben Bradshaw, Exeter - 7,665 (Cons)
Jack Straw, Blackburn - 8,009 (Cons)
Tessa Jowell, Dulwich and West Norwood - 8,807 (Lib Dems)
John Denham, Southampton Itchen - 9,302 (Cons)
Shaun Woodward, St Helens South - 9,309 (Lib Dems)
Ed Balls, Normanton - 10,002 (Cons)
Alan Johnson, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle - 10,951 (Cons)
Hilary Benn, Leeds Central - 11,866 (Lib Dems)
David Miliband, South Shields - 12,312 (Lib Dems)
Ed Miliband, Doncaster North - 12,656 (Cons)
Peter Hain, Neath - 12,710 (Plaid Cymru)
Douglas Alexander, Paisley and Renfrewshire South - 13,232 (Lib Dems)
Harriet Harman, Camberwell and Peckham - 13,483 (Lib Dems)
Bob Ainsworth, Coventry North East - 14,222 (Cons)
Yvette Cooper, Pontefract and Castleford - 15,246 (Cons)
Andy Burnham, Leigh - 17,272 (Cons)
Gordon Brown, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath - 18,216 (SNP)

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (24) - Scotland at odds with itself

So with the SNP's big show this morning the bookmakers have again been the first to deliver their verdicts on the chances of independence or even a referendum being achieved.

First came Ladbrokes within minutes of the launch of the white paper. It is offering:
2/1 on a referendum on Scottish Independence before 2015
20/1 on Scotland to become independent of the UK before 2015

Paddy Power's odds have just landed offering:
8/1 on Scotland to gain full independence by 2015
7/1 on a referendum on full independence to be held in 2010

The only one of those bets worth even thinking about is independence before 2015 at 20/1 but even then you would probably be wasting your money.
The odds reflect the fact that a referendum will be blocked by the pro-Union parties before 2011 and anything further for the SNP depend on Mr Salmond and his cohorts becoming the biggest party in the 2011 Holyrood election and the Lib Dems agreeing to a referendum and having enough votes between them and the Greens to force one.
It is still possible that in his dotage Alex Salmond may look back to Wendy Alexander's "bring it on!" invitation when his party's popularity was at its height and realise it was the great opportunity missed.

Gerri Peev: Cam is Pol Rogered

APPARENTLY Tory leader David Cameron has been left fizzing over the snap showing him sipping champagne at party conference.

The frontpage of today's Mirror shows the Tory leader brandishing a glass of Pol Roger (a snip at only £140 a bottle) – and pictured next to him is The Scotsman's former political editor Fraser Nelson.

Cameron was papped at the Spectator party by a Mirror photographer, who was wrestled to the ground. The photographer threw his camera to a colleague who managed to make a dash for the exit before the incriminating pic could be wiped.

Now cheeky punters at Ladbrokes have laid bets with odds of 14/1 that Cameron will mention the word champagne in his party conference speech tomorrow.

The bookies think the Tory leader will have an equally gloomy speech to his Shadow Chancellor, offering odds of one to three that he will use the term tough decisions, and 5/2 that he will talk about “austerity”.

He may perhaps like to avoid apeing Nick Clegg in talking about “progressive austerity” though. As one senior Lib Dem said, it sounds like a wasting disease.

Unsurprisingly, punters don't rate the chances of Bercow, Bullingdon or duck island featuring in the speech and price them all at 25/1.

Ladbrokes' Robin Hutchinson said: "He's probably hoping his champagne moment will come in May next year".

Too bad he could not wait to put the party into conference....

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (20) - Odd predictions for Glasgow North East

Ladbrokes have just issued their odds for the declared candidates in Glasgow North East. The biggest surprise are the small odds for former Glasgow Airport bomb hero John 'Smeato' Smeaton who has just been announced as the Jury Team candidate.
His odds of 8/1 are much shorter than two of the established parties, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, who admittedly stand a snowflake in Hell's chance of winning the seat. Strange though considering the Jury Team got the least number of votes in the recent European elections.
Ladbrokes spokesman Robin Hutchison explains: "Over-turning a Labour majority of 10,000 will be tough, even for a bloke who set aboot suicide bombers. But if anyone can, Smeato can."
Apparently he may not have said that had he witnessed the press conference launching Smeato as the candidate. I'm told by a colleague it got so out of hand he struggled so much that the Jury Team minders had to step in to cut it short. The event was punctured by long pauses as he struggled to answer basic questions.
Which goes to prove tackling suicide bombers is one thing, tackling hardened Scottish political hacks is an altogether different prospect.

Anyway here are Ladbrokes' odds for Glasgow North East:

Willie Bain (Labour) 4/6
David Kerr (SNP) 5/4
John Smeaton (Jury Team) 8/1
Ruth Davidson (Conservative) 100/1
Eileen Baxendale (Liberal Democrats) 100/1
Tommy Sheridan (Solidarity) 100/1
John Swinburne (Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party) 200/1
Kevin McVey (Scottish Socialist Party) 200/1
Charlie Baillie (BNP) 500/1

David Maddox: The Numbers Game (17)

I've just been handed the odds by one of the SNP's government special advisors (spin doctors) from Ladbrokes on the likelihood of the SNP reaching various targets.

It would be wrong to assume that this has anything to do with the First Minister's well known favourite past time outside eating curries, but no doubt he has taken a punt.

Alex Salmond's target of 20 seats for the SNP is 15/8 with the bookies, but I think a brave punter might look at the generous 9/1 for 26 to 30 seats.

The European election result would have given the SNP 27 or 28 seats in theory, if Electoral Calaculus is to be believed, and I must admit that my own calculation based on the MP expenses scandal fallout and some narrow margins of error could see the SNP win as much as 29 seats.

Here are the odds:

0-5 Seats 33/1

6-10 Seats 8/1

11-15 Seats 2/1

16-20 Seats 15/8

21-25 Seats 4/1

26-30 Seats 9/1

31+ Seats 12/1

David Maddox: The numbers game (11) - Scottish Tory conference special

According to one paper this morning Ladbrokes are only offering 3/1 on the Tories getting seven or more seats in Scotland. The point was alluded to by Annabel Goldie in her longest day speech (it went on a bit, like the famous film) yesterday as proof that the party is on the way back.
Regular readers of the Numbers Game blogs on the Steamie will know that the Electoral Calculus predictions based on current polls, which do not even properly account for local loyalties, has the Tories getting seven seats on the most generous interpretations of the polls. So this is one of those occasions that it is better to hold on to your money.
However, it might be worth getting odds on five seats or more the way things are going, assuming that the SNP are not the only ones to benefit from a Labour collapse North of the border.

Hamish Macdonell - take the short odds

ONE punter has decided that even the short odds from Ladbrokes on the next election are too good to miss.
But given the performance of the markets, maybe it is not such a bad shout. The unnamed gambler has put £9,500 on there being a General Election next year - at 1/5.
Given that the Prime Minister has to call an election by the middle of next year anyway, all the punter is doing is betting that Gordon Brown is too cautious to call a snap election this year which, given his past form, is probably a good bet.
Ladbrokes also offer the Conservative Party at 1/6 to win most seats, with the Labour Party available at 4/1.
The Tories are 4/7 to secure an overall majority.
ends

David Maddox: Shouting the odds on the budget

And here is the latest from our friends at Ladbrokes:
BETTING: Will the second budget be approved by Scottish Parliament? Yes 1/3 No 2/1
Ladbrokes spokesman, Nick Weinberg, said: “There appears to be an appetite for getting things sorted amongst the main Holyrood parties.”
Glad somebody's confident.

Apparently the firm has also seen money for Lord Mandelson (pictured) to be Prime Minister by the end of the year. The Business Secretary is now 66/1, from 100/1, to land the top job, which goes to prove that, even after the lessons of the catastrophic banking collapse, there are still plenty of people out there willing to throw away money.