In the General Election betting a CON majority drops from a 40%+ chance to a 29% one since MPs returned after the summer recess

In the General Election betting a CON majority drops from a 40%+ chance to a 29% one since MPs returned after the summer recess

What happened when MPs took back control

Until the afternoon of Tuesday September 3rd everything had been going well for Cummings and Johnson. The proroguement of Parliament cutting down the numbers of days before the October Brexit deadline when Johnson and his team would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny had been drastically slashed and all seemed on target.

Then MPs moved to take control of the Commons agenda allowing the Benn bill to go through – a measure designed to tie Johnson’s hands.

We then saw 21 Tory MPs, including several former cabinet members expelled from the party instantly losing the Tory majority.

It is in this context that the betting moved against a Tory majority on the Betfair exchange.

This has been partly down to closer examination of the Commons arithmetic. To win a majority Johnson needs to do better than TMay at GE17 while likely losing a bunch of seats to the SNP and the resurgent LDs.

Where are the Labour seats for the Tories to win to offset the losses and more? This is harder to see

Mike Smithson


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