The Mayor has not even filed his Daily Telegraph column yet, but Ladbrokes has announced that he is now the favourite to succeed David Cameron. As the above graph shows, his chances have been steadily increasing as George Osborne overplayed his hand: first, by posing as the heir assumptive, and then by various missteps (like praising Google’s tax deal).
The ‘out’ campaign is still seen as likely to lose the EU Referendum, but the next Tory leader will be selected by a Tory Party membership who will be about 70 per cent for ‘out’. Michael Gove, famously, has very little leadership ambition; Liam Fox won’t stand again and Iain Duncan Smith has had enough of all that to last a lifetime. So Boris Johnson is, now, the most obvious ‘out’ candidate.
SPECTATOR EVENT: EU REFERENDUM – THE BATTLE AHEAD
Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman will be discussing the EU Referendum campaign campaign with pollster Ben Page from Ipsos Mori on Monday 21 March.
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