Political betting

The Fink is rubbishing Mike Smithson's bet over at PoliticalBetting.com that Philip Hammond will be the next Chancellor. PB's Gracious Host has 33-1, apparently.

The Fink reasons that

(i) Darling must stay until the GE

(ii) the Tories must win an overall majority

(iii) Gideon will have to take a job other than Chancellor

(iv) If not Osborne, then Cameron won't want anyone other than Hammond in No 11.

Well, on that basis, Hammond looks like a good each way bet at the very least, and Mike Smithson is lucky to get 33s.

Let's see.

• Darling is as immovable as Mount Nebo, given Brown's terminal weakness.

• The Tories are going to win such a humongous majority at the GE (present poll margins being meaningless - trust me) that Gordon Brown's dazzling gnashers will not long light up the exterior darkness to which he will find himself banished; they will not long survive the terrible gnashing to which they are soon to be subjected. Oh, yes, the Weeping. Forgive me. The sound of the Great Weeping which will accompany the Great Teeth-Gnashing of the soon-to-be Disgraced Former Leader will sound, to the newly-liberated British people, more beautiful than the music of the celestial spheres. The very dogs will sob with joy to hear it. Erm... where was I... ah, yes.

• Osborne can have any job he likes and which brilliant (yes, seriously) young politician would want No 11 at this stage in his career and in the dire circs which the Conservative Chancellor will inherit from the Era of Brown Ruin? As opposed to, say, the title Deputy Prime Minister and Lord of the New Kingdom of Mandelsonia? (But break that kingdom up soonest, Dave, please.)

• And if not Hammond, who else on the front bench might now outrank him on economics, ruling Clarke out?

The key question is what Osborne wants.

Does he want to succeed Brown as Prime Minister of Domestic Policy, with his Treasurer's finger in every governmental pie surreptitiously? I say 'surreptitiously' because the electorate was not told of the arrangement.

Or would he prefer to be the Prime Minister's eminence grise, Dave's Willy (I hesitate to say Dave's Mandy, for various reasons) with the style and title of Deputy Prime Minister, serious power, and a berth above the shiteline on the side of HMS Austerity Economics?

I'm having a small one on Hammond for No 11 and another on Gideon as DPM.