UK Politics / Chicken Dinner / 15 May 2009 / Leave a comment

Chicken Dinner explain why you should be on the lookout for long shots in the betting as the next election approaches...Meanwhile, the price on the PM leaving before then has shortened...

"People just aint no good/ I think that's well understood," crooned Nick Cave a decade or so ago, a sentiment which Parliament has pathetically failed to disprove this week. Such is the lack of contrition coming from MPs of all stripes that it is now understood beyond all reasonable doubt, that people, especially elected people, are no good at all.

Prior to the Telegraph's revelations, MPs, let us recall, earnt a living pronouncing on what is right and what is not right, and what is fair and what is unfair, yet they seem to be struggling massively with these simple distinctions in facing up to their own apparently bottomless appetite for expenses. Either they made a mistake because they were too busy or they were acting within the rules. Not surprisingly, these weaselly interpretations have failed to rally support, not least because they seem to have forgotten that a large section of the voting public is intimately familiar with the dos and don'ts of claiming expenses and is going to require more than a dog-ate-my-homework quality of excuse before it can forgive the moat repairs, soft furnishings and what looks like straightforward theft.

Indeed, so disastrous has the publication of MPs expenses proven, (surely a new word is required to adequately describe the catalogue of products and services required to make a parliamentarian comfortable), that an anonymous shadow minister, quoted in today's Guardian, said: "The whole political class is in trouble. There are no rules. We dont know where this is going to end." The political columnist Michael White has described this as the worst week at Westminster that I can remember.

So, on Gordon Brown's watch we have now witnessed the breaking of the banks, the wrecking of the economy, record disenchantment with the government and now the squandering of the entire elected chambers credibility.

These last two points have helped Labour plummet to all-time lows in opinion polls a YouGov poll in the Sun today on voters intentions in the forthcoming European elections has Labour at a humiliating 19%, the same as UKIP. The fact that the Tories are held in equal contempt over the mass-expense fiddle has seen them fall from 37% to 28% in just a week, and gives Labour a straw to clutch.

In the same poll for general election intentions, Labour has 22%, the Tories 41%, figures which have kept much of the betting markets moribund, as Labour were on the ropes and reeling well before the scandal broke.

These figures imply that the Tories will emerge from the next election with a 152 seat majority, and the Betfair Party Seats Line market pretty much backs that up, with the Conservatives line at 353-357, Labour at 207.5-212.

More interestingly, Gordon Brown seems to have created, or at least failed to prevent, a combination of forces that could completely redraw the political landscape. Could Labour sink even further? Will there be a judicial clean hands type of investigation into the greedy MPs, as there was in Italy, that could see large numbers of them thrown out in disgrace? Will the economy fail to catch light, leading to enormous social pressures and civil unrest? Will people just not vote?

Taken together, these pressures could create a void at the heart of British politics, with none of the major parties capable of convincing an electorate to vote them in. It would be a once in a lifetime chance for opportunists, and with the political map seemingly haywire, it could be worthwhile to be on the lookout for some long shots in the betting as the election approaches. Remember the late Clement Freud backed himself at 33-1 to win the Isle of Ely seat when he first stood - who's to say there won't be more of that action on offer for outsiders and independents at the next election?

For now, though, the only real activity has been in Betfairs Leader Exit Dates market, with prices for Gordon Brown to go in Apr-Jun 2009 and Jul-Sep 2009 shortening to [5.4] in both cases, in the belief that a new leader is their only hope of salvation. It may be they've hit the iceberg already though, in which case it's not a new captain they need, it's an exit strategy.