Friday, November 16, 2007

W-Huhne Will Be Next Leader of the Lib Dems?

Can someone explain to me why Nick Clegg is the clear favourite to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats? As I write on Betfair Clegg is 1/3 while Huhne is 13/4.

There are three reason why I think the race is a lot closer than this.

1) Huhne comes across better than Clegg
2) Huhne already has experience at contesting a leadership election
3) Huhne is reaching out to the left of the party (who make up the majority of the grass roots) on the issue of Trident

In the last Lib Dem leadership election Huhne was favourite on Betfair despite all the polling evidence that Ming Campbell was ahead. There were claims that someone was deliberately keeping Huhne's price down to make him the favourite, the point I guess being that members of the Lib Dem party who are undecided will go with the majority so it seems the winner has the clear backing of the party. Is someone doing the same thing this time for Nick Clegg? I simply cannot believe that Huhne is so far behind.

Update 17/11/07: The political punters blog bible Political Betting has just written a very similar article

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