Political betting is an enjoyable part of Parliament

I missed a number of opportunities when I served as an MP, but none of them was as potentially lucrative as the missed chance to bet against myself in the 2015 general election.

I knew from before the start of the year that my 12,500 majority was a goner. I thought everyone knew it. My staff certainly did, because I had told them, in a tearful meeting, that they had my permission to start looking for alternative employment. But somehow, for at least a few days, the bookies did not know what I knew. 

Idly surfing the web one day, I noticed that my SNP opponent’s chances of replacing me as the MP for Glasgow South had been calculated by more than one online bookie at 8/1 against. The opportunity to pick up some free money without barely lifting a finger should have been an obvious one, yet I refrained. 

In truth, it didn’t cross my mind at the time to place a grand or two on my opponent and enjoy my winnings as a modest consolation for the imminent end to my parliamentary career.

A few days – and a few horrific opinion poll surveys later – the bookies realised their mistake and the odds on a nationalist landslide in Scotland were suitably adjusted. 

Now 15 people, including one former Conservative MP, have been charged with gambling offences in connection with the date of the last general election. The claim is that they may have used confidential information – specifically advance knowledge of the date of the election – to place bets.

Betting on political developments is just one of those things in which MPs often indulge, and despite the news of these criminal charges, it is an entirely enjoyable, usually harmless, though occasionally disreputable, practice. 

The Commons, in days gone by, even had an unofficial “bookie” (as did many workplaces; one newspaper in Glasgow had a full-time bookie officially employed as a compositor but who spent all his time taking bets on sporting events from colleagues). 

Ian Mikardo, the Left-wing MP for Reading and then Poplar, was the man to approach if you wanted a flutter on anything, whether sporting or political. He is rumoured to have cleaned up following Margaret Thatcher’s leadership challenge to Ted Heath in 1975.

Charles Kennedy, the then president of the Liberal Democrats and future party leader, won an impressive £2500 by betting that his party would win only two seats in that year’s European Parliament elections. It is thought he donated the cash to party coffers. 

A few years later, Labour MP Frank Roy got into hot water by betting that his friend and parliamentary colleague, Michael Martin, the Springburn MP, would be elected Speaker in 2000. 

Initially, the bookies naively gave Martin odds of 20-1 against, a misjudgement that Roy and, reportedly, many other MPs, took advantage of. They knew how the system worked and that Martin was popular among Labour backbenchers at a time when their party enjoyed a 180 majority in the Commons.

MPs enjoy political betting more than sports betting, partly because so many of them know so little about sports (except to be able to tweet Saturday afternoon photos of themselves at football matches in their constituencies) and because they do have a genuine insight that occasionally gives them an advantage that the public and sometimes even the bookies don’t possess. 

Brandishing your winnings in the tearoom is known to increase colleagues’ respect for an MP’s political judgement.

Without wishing to comment on the current action against the 15 people named today, betting on the date of the election is entirely permissible, otherwise the bookies wouldn’t offer odds on possible dates. But doing so with confidential knowledge is akin to insider trading. 

Perhaps the latest round of moral judgmentalism will result in demands for the Fixed Term Parliament Act to be resuscitated: it is only because the prime minister’s right to call an election at a time of his own choosing has been restored that speculation as to the date has again become the subject of much speculation.

In fact the only change that needs to happen is that next time round, Labour MPs, and particularly those close to the prime minister, should stay away from the bookies. Even if they have no inside knowledge, the appearance of corruption is every bit as bad as the reality.  

But if you want a tip, consider a wee flutter on Thursday May 4 2028. You can buy me a pint if you win.