Prime minister Boris Johnson won a vote of confidence on Monday but his role as Conservative leader was seriously undermined after edging the Tory MPs vote 211-148.
Johnson started off at 1-3 to win the vote with Ladbrokes and he was trading at 1.16 on Betfair at 8pm, one hour before the result was announced.
The 148 votes against was in the band most favoured (100-149) by bookmakers and means over 40 per cent of his own party wanted Johnson gone from Downing Street.
That high figure suggests Johnson still faces a fight to remain in situ and it’s a competitive heat to replace the prime minister whenever he is ousted as the Conservative leader.
Jeremy Hunt and Penny Mordaunt have been the two best-backed movers to become the next Conservative leader in a wide-open market which is 9-2 the field.
Hunt, who led the calls for prime minister Boris Johnson to go, tops the betting. He went head-to-head with Johnson in the 2019 leadership race but came out second best by a distance, losing by 46,656 votes to 92,153 in the battle to replace Theresa May.
Mordaunt, the current minister of state for trade policy, follows hot on the heels of Hunt and is as low as 5-1 to displace Johnson, with Liz Truss seen as the next most likely.
Liz Truss and Tom Tugendhat have been eased to 7-1, while one-time favourite Rishi Sunak has drifted to 9-1.
What a bunch of losers … 
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