Ming, Chris and Betting
So it was Ming wot won it in the Lib Dem leadership election.
At the start of the contest this is the result that I expected, though not ruling out a strong challenge from Simon Hughes.
Then everything went wobbly in the middle mainly because of betting activity creating a position of favourite for Chris Huhne. This has been extensively discussed on the very interesting Political Betting site.
I suspect this is the first time that political betting has created so much media attention for a particular candidate. I don’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of betting though I have a good teacher who I turn to for advice. But it does seem clear to me that the odds for Huhne and Campbell were way out in terms of their real positions and so presumably some people have lost money.
Whether this is the Huhne backers who apparently placed several thousand pounds worth of bets to create their candidate’s lead position or not I don’t know. Maybe they were clever enough in their betting strategies to both achieve their objective (though short of a win for their man) and cover their losses.
I’m not convinced Richard. There was an early swing to Chris when he announced that he was standing. he was then clearly third for a period. His odds then shortened when the personal stuff about Simon hit the headlines. He only really went ahead when the first YouGov poll results leaked out, followed by the second which confirmed the trend – the only actual polls of members in the contest. I suspect the change in odds was more down to reliance on YouGov in political betting circles – particularly after their success in predicting the Tory outcome – than any ‘fixing’. It also seemed to be the case that a lot less money was being spent towards the end.