Betting Opens On Owen Paterson’s North Shropshire Constituency

Owen Paterson has quit as MP for North Shropshire over sleaze allegations that threatened to consume Boris Johnson’s Conservative government – but the Tories are still favourites with the best betting sites to reclaim the constituency.

The North Shropshire by-election odds were drawn up just hours after Paterson confirmed he was stepping down from frontline politics following allegations he broke lobbying rules.

The 65-year-old had initially earned the backing of Downing Street over suggestions he lobbied for two companies who pay him as a £100,000-a-year consultant. So strong was the backing that Boris Johnson sought to rewrite the rules over how Parliament investigates and punishes wrongdoing by MPs.

However, following a national outcry over the situation and a cross-party condemnation of the vote carried to pass legislation that would have torn up the Parliamentary Standards rulebook, Johnson backed down.

Paterson is understood to have heard that he had lost the backing of Downing Street while in a supermarket.

North Shropshire Betting

Labour – vocal in its disdain over how the government has handled the issue, which includes Johnson seeking to retroactively rewrite the rules regarding parliamentary standards – will likely target the North Shropshire seat.

Yet despite the controversy and No 10’s subsequent climbdown, the Conservatives seemingly have an 80% chance of successfully defending the vacated seat.

That is according to political betting sites, whose odds suggest Labour wield as little as 10% chance of winning Paterson’s former constituency.

And despite the sleaze allegations this is perhaps not a surprise. North Shropshire has voted Tory in every election since its establishment in 1983. In fact, only Paterson and his predecessor Conservative John Biffen have held the seat. And so the likelihood of it flipping red at a by-election is slim indeed.

No Impact On Tory Odds

The U-turn is just one of many that has come under Johnson’s reign as PM – from refusing to offer free meals to school children in poverty during holidays, to urging people to ignore Covid back in January 2020.

In recent weeks a fuel crisis, skyrocketing energy bills, a HGV driver shortage and trade wrangling with the EU has done nothing to dent the Conservatives’ polling ratings. They remain the highest-polling party in the country, with a four-point lead over Labour.

What’s more, while the country and its media has voiced its fury at how the government tried to rewrite the rule books to suit their own MP, the odds on a Conservative majority at the next UK election have held steady.

The markets price the Tories at around 1/2 to win the most seats come 2024 – odds that haven’t significantly shifted for months. Evidently, despite numerous governmental issues, the country is still behind Johnson.