Betting on politics: Jeremy Corbyn for prime minister

Jeremy Corbyn has had a turbulent year. Defeat in February's Copeland by-election seemed to have vindicated his critics and opened a door to a possible leadership challenge.Then, when Theresa May called an election in April, it looked as though Labour would go down to a landslide defeat. Even after Labour started to bounce back in the polls, people were still taking bets on whether Corbyn would still be leader the day after the election.

After that came election night and the shock result that saw Labour gain seats, denying the Conservatives a majority. Despite the fact that Labour had ended up with fewerseats than it did in 1992, people started to talk about when, not if, he would be prime minister.

Even today, he looks likely to end the year on a high, with even deputy Labour leader Tom Watson joining in a chorus of "Oh Jeremy Corbyn". Meanwhile, Labour leads the Conservatives in opinion polls.

MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

However, if you look beyond the headline figures you'll find that Theresa May still beats Corbyn in terms of who people see as the best prime minister (37% versus 29%). It's likely that when the Conservatives do go to the country they will do so with a new leader, who may be enjoying a honeymoon phase. There's also the small matter of the fact that Corbyn is much less enthusiastic about a soft Brexit than the majority of the LabourParty membership.

I'd therefore recommend that you desist from betting on him to be the next prime minister. Instead, I'm going to recommend that you assume he will remain Labour leader until at least 2019. Specifically, you should take Ladbrokes' odds of 3/1 (25%) on him departing in 2019 and 10/11 (52.4%) on 2020 and beyond, for combined odds of 77.4%. This means that you should put £6.77 of a hypothetical £10 on 2020+ and £3.23 on 2019.