VOTE 24

AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

VOTE 24: Let The Games Begin

It has been a huge year for political betting and the best may be yet to come, writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

September begins, the race for the Tory leadership kicks into a higher gear whilst we also have a first Harris-Trump Presidential Debate in the US too, where the election is getting ever closer. Let’s first turn our attention to the Tory leadership contest – but stay tuned for more on goings on in the US!

⭐ TORY LEADERSHIP BETTING ⭐

🔵 Round 1

The first round of voting has concluded and Priti Patel is out! Here’s reaction from William Kedjanyi:

Round 1 Results:

🔵 Robert Jenrick: 28
🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 22
🔵 James Cleverly: 21
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 17
🔵 Mel Stride: 16
🔵 Priti Patel: 14

Here are the current prices for the leadership election, at 4.45pm:

🔵 Robert Jenrick: 11/10
🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 13/10
🔵 James Cleverly: 15/2
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 8/1
🔵 Mel Stride: 40/1

🔵 A couple of takeaways from the day’s action:

The leadership race has a new and very definite front-runner. More on that below:

PRESS RELEASE: Jenrick new favourite in Tory leadership race after Patel exits



This is still very much up for grabs. The Spectator’s James Heale crunched the numbers:

It shouldn’t be assumed that we know where Patel’s votes go. Whilst she’s on the right of the party, there’s a choice to be made between backing either one of the front-runners in Jenrick or Badenoch whilst James Cleverly – just a vote behind Badenoch in the first round – might well be a likely home for some of those votes too.

🔵 The Inside Track

William was joined by friend of the blog and political punter Adrian Smith to look at the race so far and the dynamics of the first leadership vote, which is fast approaching.

Here are the current prices at 2.40pm:

🔵 Priti Patel: 6/5
🔵 James Cleverly: 13/8
🔵 Mel Stride: 11/4
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 14/1
🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 50/1
🔵 Robert Jenrick: 66/1

🗣️ PMQ’s

With Westminster being back in session, this also meant the return of PMQ’s. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and opposition leader Rishi Sunak went at eachother with much more vigour than their previous meeting, with subjects including the winter fuel allowance, the £22bn budget deficit, partial suspensions of arms licences, and more. Here are some key moments:

🔵 Voting Day

It’s the first round of voting for the Tory leadership contenders, and William Kedjanyi has all the latest from Westminster. Here’s an update on the state of play in our market for the first elimination:

🔵 Meet The Tories

The first round of voting among MPs takes place this Wednesday, reducing the field of candidates from six to four. Here’s a guide to the six contenders, and a video that was recorded last week:

🔵 Kemi Badenoch (MP for Saffron Walden and shadow secretary of state for housing communities and local government)

Long touted by many in the party on the right and described by some as a culture warrior on key issues, Badenoch is the former business secretary who has long been a major contender for this role according to the markets. Has a number of ex-ministerial endorsements, including Laura Trott, Clare Coutinho, Jesse Norman and Andrew Bowie. A strong performer in public polling – she has topped three members polls including two from YouGov, and is competitive in all head to heads.

Endorsements (amongst MP’s) at time of writing: 14

Odds with Star: 6/5

🔵 Robert Jenrick (MP for Newark and former secretary of state for housing and communities)

Has held several ministerial roles but most known for being former immigration minister, who quit Rishi Sunak’s government when it was revealed that a piece of legislation introduced to save the bill did not allow the government to override the international laws that have stopped the government sending asylum seekers to central Africa.

His campaign has been based on the need to win back Reform voters and he’s quickly become a favourite of key figures on the right of the party – he has backing from Ester McVey and Mark Francois – whilst he’s also been on the front foot regarding immigration. His campaign has the most confidence – his allies told HuffPost that he’s “nailed on” to make it to the final two candidates in the race to be the next Tory leader.

Endorsements at time of writing: 17

Odds with Star: 13/8

🔵 James Cleverly (MP for Braintree and shadow home secretary)

The most experienced contender of the six, having been Home Secretary at the point of the election, and also a former foreign secretary, education secretary and party chairman. His time at the head of the party will help with grassroots members and his pitch as the party’s great unifier could help him through the votes this week, although it’s possible that being moved to the Home Office could provide a blow to his aspirations given the party’s struggles with immigration.

Endorsements at time of writing: 6

Odds with Star: 12/1

🔵 Tom Tugendhat (MP for Tonbridge and Malling and shadow minister for security)

Regarded highly amongst the One Nation group of moderate Tory MP’s, and perhaps the favoured candidate of the Centre of the Tory Party. Whilst no wing of the Tories remained unscathed at the election, eight of the 24 members of the “One Nation” caucus kept their seats, the five Scottish Conservatives are also on the more moderate wing and if anything the balance of the party went slightly more centrist due to the amount of losses.

That could put him at an advantage in early voting and whilst on paper he’s to the left of the membership as a whole, he’s polled reasonably well – in the last three surveys he’s hit 19, 16, and 15% – and has room to grow. Has the backing of lading party figures in the shape of Damian Green and Steve Baker, but both are ex-MP’s.

Endorsements at time of writing: 6

Odds with Star: 5/1

🔵 Priti Patel (MP for Witham and former home secretary)

A long-time favourite of the membership and arguably the key torch bearer on the right during her time in Government, Patel introduced the infamous Rwanda scheme and found herself with plenty of controversies in her time in Government, notably when she was forced to resign over unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers, businesspeople and senior lobbyists, and also bullying allegations that were upheld against her at the Home Office.

A worry for her is how exposed she is to the voting public – her net approval rating in a recent Ipsos survey was -27, the lowest of any candidate.

Endorsements at time of writing: 5

Odds with Star: 50/1

🔵 Mel Stride (MP for Central Devon and shadow secretary of state for work and pensions)

May be best known as the face or voice – depending on what you do with your mornings – of the Tory Party during the election campaign, racking up seven Today programme appearances over the course of the campaign.

A close ally of Sunak who remained loyal until the end, Stride is widely seen as the outsider given his close association to the Prime Minister and relative lack of profile amongst the party, and he has consistently put up extremely low numbers – he’s reached a high of 4% amongst the surveys so far.


Endorsements at time of writing: 7

Odds with Star: 33/1

🔴 Harris in the Hot-Seat

A lot has happened since my last video update. Here’s a quick-fire update from the US Embassy:

Since the last blog, Kamala Harris has given – partly – her first interview since entering the race. She lined up alongside running mate Tim Walz with CNN’s Dana Bash – you can find the first part of the interview below – and YouTube will hopefully auto-play the rest – but here are some key takeaways.

It looks as if we’ll have a Republican in the Cabinet, if Harris wins. She told CNN that she’d include a Republican and that it would fulfil a promise to be “a President for all Americans.” Harris’s plan to run from the centre regarding many issues has been clear.

Harris isn’t going to make her gender or race be a central part of her approach – or at least she isn’t going to make it her key selling point. She refreshed to engage when sked about Trump’s comments that she’d ‘turned black’, giving the short and sharp answer:

“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”

She also declared that she was the best choice to be president for all Americans, regardless of race and gender.

There may not be a sudden change regarding Biden’s Gaza policy. Some progressives have hopes that a Harris victory might see a different approach to Israel than that of the current administration, especially given Biden’s personal ties and support for Israel, a constant during a long career in Washington.

It was never likely she’d make a big promise so far – but the possibility of arms sales being stopped – as the UK has done just this week – feel very far.

The full Harris policy platform is going to come late in the day. Much of this interview was about defending her current record – including shifts on fracking, the climate, and the border – and Governor Walz doing the same too. She did talk about extending a $6,000 child tax credit to families for first year of a child’s life, and her plans for a $25,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit, but it seems as if we’ll be waiting for more big policy ideas until late in the day.

Harris also isn’t going to run from ‘Bidenomics’, whether she endorses it as a key part of her platform or not. She defended Biden’s economic record including capping prescription drug costs for seniors and cutting child poverty, to an increase in manufacturing jobs and improving supply chains.

WILLIAM KEDJANYI 

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