Bet on a swift Grexit

‘Will Greece exit the eurozone in 2015?’ Paddy Power was pricing ‘yes’ at 3-to-1 on Tuesday, with 5-to-2 on another Greek general election within the year and 6-to-4 on the more cautious ‘Greece to adopt an official currency other than the euro by the end of 2017.’ I’m no betting man — as I reminded myself after backing a parade of point-to-point losers on Sunday — and I defer to our in-house speculator Freddy Gray, who will offer a wider guide to political bets worth having in the forthcoming Spectator Money (7 March).

But on the Greek card I’m tempted by the longer odds on the shorter timeframe, because this has the feeling of a crisis that’s close to denouement, and because prime minister Tsipras and tieless finance minister Varoufakis are wannabe revolutionaries (‘latter-day Trotskyites’, as Ken Clarke called them) rather than responsible national leaders. The pro-European Clarke says ‘I can’t see how you can sensibly avoid the Greeks defaulting and having to leave the eurozone,’ while former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan — always worth listening to, despite the post-crash fall of his previously godlike reputation — says, ‘It’s just a matter of time before everyone recognises that parting is the best strategy.