What chance a Tory/UKIP coalition government?
Published:
Since beginning of Oct @Ladbrokes have cut the odds on a Conservative/UKIP coalition in their next Gov mkt from 20/1 to 14/1 @LadPolitics
— Guy Harding (@GuyHardingSky) October 17, 2014
In actual fact, you could have got 66/1 about a Tory/UKIP coalition just two months ago. Now it’s only 14/1. Is that a good bet?
Post election Government – Latest Odds
- 15/8 Labour Majority
- 4/1 Conservative Majority
- 5/1 Lab/LD Coalition
- 11/2 Cons/LD Coalition
- 7/1 Labour Minority Government
- 8/1 Conservative Minority Government
- 14/1 Cons/UKIP Coalition
- 50/1 Cons/Lab Coalition
- 66/1 Lab/UKIP Coalition
- 100/1 Lab/SNP Coalition
- 100/1 UKIP Majority
- 200/1 LD Majority
I think there are at least two obvious conditions which would have to be met for this to be a possibility
- Conservatives win most seats, but not a majority. In practice, they would probably give minority government a go at anything above 315 seats or so. So I think we’d have to be looking at something between 290 and 315 seats for any Tory led coalition to be a possibility. A fairly narrow range, but not that far off our current Tory seat line of 275.5. Probably around a 3/1 shot at least. If UKIP do spectacularly well, that bottom mark of 290 seats might be lower.
- UKIP win more seats than the Liberal Democrats. I think it’s extremely unlikely that Cameron would go into an arrangement with UKIP instead of the Lib Dems unless he had to. Which he won’t, unless the Liberal Democrats win fewer seats than UKIP. We don’t have a match bet on that, although I think I’d make it about a 5/1 shot.
So, even with just these two minimum conditions, it’s a 3/1 and 5/1 double, which equates to 23/1. Even if those two conditions were met, there are a lot of other possible arrangements which might make more sense.
I think there are probably better ways of backing UKIP to do well in the election than taking the 14/1 here.
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Just to avoid any doubt, here is how Ladbrokes will be deciding on the settlement of this market:
