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Tory Leadership

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2019 11:22 am
by martinkil
Here are a couple of posts I put in the betfair community forum concerning an outside bet for the Tory leadership on Rory Stewart.

Berk or not, the question is whether he can get traction within the contest. After an initial surge down to around 12-1 mark he's back out to 25-1 not helped by the rule changes with his 4 declared supporting MP's. But he's trying a different sort of campaign. Rather then traipsing around westminster begging for votes, he's taken to social media local radio and podcasts to get his message out with lots of small public meetings – he'll talk to anyone, even ISIS!

He's not just talking about Brexit, his two main policy thrusts are two million new homes over 5 years funded via housing bonds and adult social care for those retirees – it will be interesting to see how he intends to fund that.

His strategy is to show his fellow MP's that he can attract the younger slice of the population back to the Tory party and hence make it electable in the future when it's current ageing base has died off.

He's also being very aggressive against “no deal brexit” accusing anyone proposing it as being disingenuous since there is no way it will get through this current parliament. His suggestion for a citizens assembly is interesting, although this has already been done back in September 2017 - http://citizensassembly.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CAB-summary-report.pdf – The point he's making is that we are a divided country and the only way forward is if no-one wins.

There's every chance that he'll be able to scrape together 8 MP to get his name into the fray especially since there is a large rump of Tory moderates still to declare who they will support.

He's currently available at 26 here and 25-1 with many bookmakers. So yes this is very much an outsider bet, but we live in interesting times and although Rory Stewart may well have his eye on the next leadership election stranger things have happened – just look across the Atlantic!!

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2019 11:25 am
by martinkil
Rory Stewart believes he has the 8 MP required to get him on the ballot, which is good news for my modest wager – just had a little more on at 38.0 - https://www.cityam.com/tory-leadership-hopeful-rory-stewart-i-have-enough-mps-support-to-get-to-first-round/

A yougov poll (https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/kfmg0dljim/Internal_190604_ConLeader_w.pdf ) has Rory Stewart in second place behind Boris (19% 7%) just ahead of Javid and Gove (6% 5%). These of course are not MP's, but MP's will be watching and the interesting number is that he actually gets most of his support from Labour and Liberal voters, and lets face it the Tories are going to need someone to replace those Brexit voters who have been leaving the party like rats from a sinking ship.

In another question on the poll only 11% of those polled didn't know enough about Boris to be able to say whether he would make a good prime minister, in the same poll 60% didn't know enough about Rory Stewart to make that assessment, which is why some people are adjusting Stewarts number to be above Boris's. A stretch, but as he becomes better known his actual number will rise. His current task is to hang in there long enough for his momentum to grow.

The thing he has going for him is that the vote is in secret so he may well get more votes than many expect in the first round as some MP's might have an eye on the YouGov poll and will consider having a punt in the early rounds – remember Corbyn's numbers at the start before he was better known. We may well see history repeating itself.

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 9:04 pm
by martinkil
The current Tory leadership rules have been in place since 2001, and there have been 4 contest run under them – 2001, 2003, 2005, 2016. The 2001, 2003, 2005 contests were held when in opposition, the 2016 being held when in power.

In 2001 we stared with 5 candidates, and there were three ballots (a tie in the first ballot caused it to be re-run as the second ballot). One candidate dropping out between the second and third ballots.

In 2003 Michale Howard was unopposed.

In 2005 we started with 4 MP's in the first round and there were only two rounds needed before the membership were involved.

In 2016 there were 5 MP's in the first MPs ballot, Johnson having been shafted by Grove. May gained 50.2% of the vote. Fox finished last and dropped out and Crapp withdrew following scandalous revelations about his private life, both endorsing May and in the second round Grove came last and dropped out. May had gained 60% of the vote and Leadson had only gained 20%. Leadson a few days later withdrew “best interests of the country”.

This time we start with 10 entries with the first ballot on Thursday. Candidates need 16 other MP to vote for them and at this stage I don't see any of the 10 withdrawing before Thursday. With the current levels of declared support at least 6 and maybe even 8 candidates will go through to the second round. The next barrier is 32 for the second round. This will winnow the field down to between 5 and 6.

The next stage is the interesting one depending on the number left and the distribution of votes and which side of the party those vote originate. There are various scenario where horse trading between candidates means some may withdraw and shrink the number of required ballots.

So it's fair to say that 3 4 and 5 are the favoured number of ballots required to narrow down the number of candidates to the final two. With their relative prices at 4 (2.6), 3 (2.78) and 5+ (5.4) then 5+ looks the best value in a very unpredictable market.

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:12 pm
by martinkil
One of the things which appears to have allowed Rory Stewart to squeeze through by the skin of his teeth was an eve of ballot opinion poll from the conservativehome.com web site which had Stewart in second place in their members survey (11.4% to Johnson's 53.6%) ahead of Raab 8.3%, Grove 7.7% and Hunt 6.7%, with Hancock on 1.0%.

Now conservativehome is not the bastion of the Tory's liberal conscience, so for Stewart to get 11% was no mean achievement. I of course mention Hancock poor show because Stewart needs to attract some of Hancocks 20 votes to get over the 33 vote total required to get through the second round. It would help Stewart's chances if Hancocks withdrew before the deadline of 1pm on Friday. No certainty that he would get all his votes but his team will surely spin it that way to try to give a sense of momentum.

Sunday's channel 4 debate will be crucial to his chances of getting through. You can be sure that the remaining 307 Tory MP's will all be watching

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:00 am
by martinkil
Hanccock did drop out as expected and many of his 20 votes look like moving over to Stewart who now has the backing if the deputy leader.

Stewart had attributed his 19 votes in the first round to a second place in the eve of ballot poll at conservativehome.com web site which had Stewart in second place in their members survey (11.4% to Johnson's 53.6%) ahead of Raab 8.3%, Grove 7.7% and Hunt 6.7%, with Hancock on 1.0%.

In the latest one he's consolidated his position in second place (16.3% to Johnson's 54.7%) ahead of Raab 9.5%, Grove 7.1% and Hunt 5.7%, with Javid 5.5.

It will be interesting to see how much support for Hunt switches to Stewart, whether some hard brexit support from Boris switches to Raab to get him over the 33 mark.

Javid is favourite to get fewest votes, and I'd want the other 4 to be within 5 points of each other to convince them that it's worth continuing to the next round to give me any chance of my 5+ rounds to show a profit.

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:19 am
by martinkil
Raab is out, and then there were 5. Not sure if Stewart will survive today's round, but there is still a chance that there will be 5 rounds - it will require no one to voluntarily drop out - voting starts at 3pm

Re: Tory Leadership

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:56 pm
by martinkil
It looks like Stewart fell three out - then there were 4. I've closed my position of the 5+ Ballots with the same profit either way, although it looks like it could go to 5, but I'm happy to have the guaranteed returns.