Tell Me The Odds!

I wonder what odds you would get for a bet that neither Ed nor Dave will end up as Prime Minister as a result of this election?

Scenario: On Friday we have the result the polls have predicted: a hung parliament, Tories as the largest party (just), Labour second, SNP third, others much smaller. A Labour/SNP deal could form a minority government, but no other sensible arrangement will give anything stable.

At this point, Ed Miliband comes out and makes a statement: He concedes that the Tories are the largest party, he notes that only a deal with the SNP can stop them, but he's sworn not to make such a deal. Therefore, he's going to phone David Cameron to discuss with him how they can make a Tory minority government work, for the good of the country. It's a shame, but he sees no alternative.

At which point someone steps forward, apologises to Ed, but says that the country just can't survive another Tory government. Therefore, for a good of the country, Ed will have to go. And so Ed is removed, someone else becomes Labour leader, that person makes the deal with the SNP (since it wasn't them who ruled it out), and we go forward.

(I won't speculate on who that 'someone' might be. It really wouldn't be fair.)

If not, my money's still on a Tory minority government or even, just perhaps, a Tory/Lib Dem minority coalition (but that's unlikely - if they're already in a minority, why not go it alone?).

#20: "William Shakespeare's Star Wars: The Phantom of Menace", by Ian Doescher (better than the film, though that's not saying a lot...)