Liz Truss if three to one on and Rishi Sunak three to one against to be our next Prime Minister, that means you’ll get over £4 for a one pound stake if Rishi wins and only £1.31 if Liz wins – a staggering difference of over nine times.
The market is thin but is consistent
The spread between the two had been four times before the debate and exploded as the public reacted to what they saw. For the first time, I watched some of the live stuff but not for long. I wanted a debate, I got a few sound bites and the sight of a public school boy shouting down a small state educated woman, it wasn’t very edifying.
The intellectual stuff was coming from Sunak but Truss seems to have got some blows in to the sola plexus.
The front page of tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph:
‘PM Sunak would be a new Gordon Brown, claims Truss’#TomorrowsPapersToday
Sign up for the Front Page newsletterhttps://t.co/x8AV4Oomry pic.twitter.com/csSxZZQHhi
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 25, 2022
While the Express telegraphed who was on top..
Tuesday’s front page: The great divide… Tax cuts now or later #TomorrowsPapersToday
Also in tomorrow’s paper: Fury as judge rules on tragic Archie despite dad’s collapse https://t.co/RXTHJm0DM6 pic.twitter.com/F9vqfMUfN2
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) July 25, 2022
The Mail has been behind Truss from the first and clearly see her as the new Thatcher.
Mail: Truss vow to curb militant unions #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/dxQMkhXkDM
— George Mann 🫧⚒️🫧 (@sgfmann) July 25, 2022
For the Standard, Sunak is the Tory’s liability
Tomorrows Paper Today 📰
YOU’LL LOSE US THE NEXT ELECTION
🔴 Sunak and Truss scrap in TV debate#Tomorrowspapertoday pic.twitter.com/l70fFsGtVn
— Metro (@MetroUK) July 25, 2022
While the Guardian gloats as it sees the Tories losing the war whoever wins the battle
Truss v Sunak: a sorry spectacle of playground bragging from a party without a purpose | Rafael Behr https://t.co/rlkn7v7TCg
— The Guardian (@guardian) July 25, 2022
Rishi Sunak is not winning this one. Unless Truss gets stupid or unlucky in the next few days, enough votes will have been cast to leave her on top by the middle of August.
Henry We must play some high stakes poker the next time we meet. You cannot draw the conclusion that Liz Truss is nine times as likely as Snake to win the election from those odds. For Liz to have nine times the chance of Snake she would need 90% support among those voters and Snake just 10%
I don’t agree with your analysis; Truss only needs 51% of the 160,000 voters, the market is telling us she is nine times as likely to win as Sunak, not that she’ll win with 90% of the vote. Incidentally , apologies to those who got v1 of the post this morning with some duplicate tweets (now fixed).
Henry
Let’s examine some fair odds in a two horse race
Suppose we have 100 punters each betting £1 on their choice and that there are 75 intending to vote Truss and 25 intending to vote Snake. The winnings available to Snake supporters are £75 and they have staked £25 – fair odds would be three to one (75:25). For Truss supporters £25 available and £75 staked – one to three (25:75)
Now let’s say all the Truss supporters want to bet £2 while the Snake supporters stay at £1 – then we have winning available to them of £25 and they have staked £150 – one to six (25:75) and the fair odds for Snake would, with £150 winnings available and £25 staked, be six to one (150:25)
If the market were telling us that Truss is nine times as likely as Snake to win, then the probabilities would be 90% and 10% respectively. The fact that Truss needs only 51% in immaterial.
The joys of a misspent youth!
Con
Whoever gets the job inflation was hard baked into the system when the printing presses were set in motion. Brexit has damaged growth so this will not get fixed. Standards of living will decline in the run up to the next election and there will be no scope for the usual pre election tax bribe. Let’s face it the U.K. has been in decline since WW2 the last 10 years have only served to accelerate the trend.
As the poor will be hardest hit what odds on civil unrest before the election?
Sunak speaks sense, after spending £500 bln over the last two years on pandemic, taxes need to be raised. This is what Cameron did in 2010, we had some austerity, and he was re-elected in 2015 with a majority. Also, the NHS needs additional funding to deal with the backlog.
Spending even more now will just lead to run away inflation, two digits figures. It is just pouring petrol on fire.
A lot of discussion about growth. Growth does not usually follow low taxes. Growth is the result of investment made in places where there is infrastructure, where there is an educated workforce. This takes time, and it costs money.
it was frightening how totally unable Truss is to defend her policies and articulate them properly. My only reassurance is that the Conservative criminals are nine times less likely to win an election in 2024/5 with Truss as leader.