What are the odds?

The bookmakers are always right. We know this because every year they make money rather than lose it. The odds they give are almost always very good indicators of how likely something is to happen.

Which means, by my infallible system, the Tories are going to win the next general election. Ladbrokes have 4/7 on the Tories and 5/4 for Labour, close, but not too close to call. Coral put the odds at 8/13 of a Tory victory, making it ever so slightly more likely.

For Deputy Leader we have the following odds.

Alan Johnson......	7/4
Hilary Benn	2/1
Harriet Harman	9/2
Hazel Blears	7/1
Peter Hain	9/1
Jon Cruddas	10/1

I'm not so sure about this though... Alan Johnson is a good tip but Benn coming second may not be a sure fire thing. He may well be getting a lot of bets placed on him (as the most popular candidate), bringing his odds down, but does the system work in his favour?

Essentially the ballot is split into three houses. Members, unions and MPs/MEPs. We can already start guestimating how the candidates are doing.

A total of 334 nominations have been placed by MPs + 17 MEPs (total 351). Assuming their is no large scale shift among the Parliamentarians this gives us...

Alan Johnson......	73 nominations + 9 MEPs....	23.4%
Hilary Benn	47 nominations + 2 MEPs	14.0%
Harriet Harman	65 nominations + 2 MEPs	19.1%
Hazel Blears	49 nominations + 1 MEP	14.2%
Peter Hain	51 nominations + 1 MEP	14.8%
Jon Cruddas	49 nominations + 2 MEPs	14.5%

In other words two clear front runners among the careerists, Alan Johnson and Harriet Harman.

Next we have the union nominations already in. I believe some unions will be operating on a block system and others will be balloting their members (please correct me if this is wrong) but prior nominations by unions are extremely important.

According to the Labour Party website currently Cruddas has the support of the TGWU and the Socialist Health Association, although Cruddas's blog claims UNITE (T&G plus Amicus, a very significant union indeed) and Peter Hain has ASLEF, BFAWU, and UCATT - none of the other candidates are listed as having any official support from the unions, although Johnson is the former general secretary of the CWU so that might count for something, maybe?

Also let's see what kind of branch support the candidates have (and in brackets I've placed the results of a YouGov survey of Labour Party members).

Hilary Benn has eleven Labour Party branches (36%)
Hazel Blears has three Labour Party branches (9%)
Jon Cruddas has ten Labour Party branches (10%)
Alan Johnson has nine Labour Party branches (19%)
Peter Hain has five Labour Party brances (15%)
Harriet Harman has eleven Labour Party branches (13%)

I'm now going to do a totally unjustified and speculative bit of un-statistics. For unions I'm going to simply give Cruddas, Johnson and Hain a waiting and then apply that to the membership vote. Not scientific at all, tut, but it will have to do.

Candidate	MPs/MEPs	Members	Unions	Total
Alan Johnson......	23.4%	19%	26%	68.4
Hilary Benn	14.0%	36%	18%	68
Harriet Harman	19.1%	13%	6.5%	38.6
Hazel Blears	14.2%	9%	4.5%	27.7
Peter Hain	14.8%	15%	24%	53.8
Jon Cruddas	14.5%	10%	21.5%	46

So, according to the Jim Jay system Alan Johnson will win in a neck and neck race with Benn (despite Benn getting many more votes than Johnson) followed by Hain then Cruddas with the ladies trailing in a poor last. Could happen, but don't mention the transferable ballot - I'm on thin enough ice as it is.