🏅 Top traders

Bigger sweep for Galloway than I think most were expecting! Anyway, now that’s over you can now start betting on if he retains the seat in the coming general election. The Rochdale seat will still exist, but a small chunk will be pushed into the new seat of Heywood and Middleton North.

Extended close time to midnight as it sounds like no results until 3am, late traders you’re welcome!

Gotta feel bad for the people of Rochdale here. Their choices for MP are truly horrendous.

The comments / required clarifications show what a mess this by election has been

George Galloway is now the favourite to win Rochdale by-election, say bookies

https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/155159/george-galloway-is-now-the-favourite-to-win-rochdale-byelection-say-bookies-after-labour-denounces-candidate

@Noit What a lunatic.

Further clarification: Guy Otten has been disowned by the Green Party, but was too late to be removed from the ballot. If he wins this will be treated as a Green win rather than an independent win, were anyone to add a Green option to this market.

The statement issued by Noit is incorrect. There is no offical Labour candidate on the ballot, if Mr. Ali is elected he will sit as an Independent member of Parliament (citing example Neale Hanvey, was SNP candidate, deselected after the close of nominations, won the seat, readmitted into the SNP after the event)

@HarryHayfield I don’t think anyone would interpret my statement as me trying to overwrite political reality? It was just to maintain the fairness and integrity of this question market. Buyers of LAB pre-headlines were buying YES and NO in Mr Ali, Labour candidate. If I made any decision other than to continue to refer to him as the Labour candidate (and as I understand it, he will appear on the ballot as the Labour candidate as it was too late to withdraw him) then that would mean those buyers would be forced to sell LAB and buy OTHER based on my own arbitrary decision, rather than anything that happened in the political arena. Which I think is unfair, as it’d reward people who are always online rather than those actually following the politics.

I’ve added a bunch of the alternate candidates as this might more go any number of ways. If you want to add any of the independents then please add them in the format “Independent: Full Name”. If not, the odds are a bit skew wiff now so please feel free to adjust your bets!

Clarification: it’s too late for Azhar Ali to be removed as Labour candidate, so he will appear on the ballot as a Labour candidate. If he wins, I will consider this a Labour win even though the party has now preemptively withdrawn the whip from him. I think this is fairest as the candidate has not changed and voters will be voting for a candidate presenting as the Labour candidate.