The NHS crisis prompted a flurry of bets on a Labour government. I'm still not putting my money on it

Polling suggests that four in 10 Britons intend to vote for the Tories, but punters are still throwing a few quid on high priced outcomes. After all, ‘you never know...’

Could the picture of a sick child left to sleep on a the floor of a Leeds hospital move the election dial late in the day? How about the sickening response of the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who refused to look and instead pocketed the phone of the ITV reporter who tried to show it to him?

Political punters at least appear to have taken note. Oddschecker, the odds aggregator, has reported a flurry of bets on a Labour minority government being the outcome of the general election this morning. You can still get 8-1 with Paddy Power, but elsewhere the odds have been coming in faster than a village cricket team confronted with a thunder storm, with one bookie (Unibet) now as low as 11-2.

The numbers of bets on that outcome rose throughout the morning until at one point they'd reached 59 per cent of the bets taken over the site on that particular market. And on the outcome of the election, as opposed to the identity of the next government, William Hill also told me it had pushed out the odds on a Tory majority to 3-10 from 1-4.

The move reverses the trend of the last five days. When this column ran last week, the price was 1-2. Some 49 per cent of the bets taken by number with William Hill, however, are for no over all majority.

As well as the hospital scandal, and the Conservative activists sharing a pile of fake news in response to it, the dial may also have been moved by Daily Telegraph reporting that Jeremy Corbyn “could win without gaining a single seat” through tactical voting. The report cited a Tory memo and could, obviously, be a plant designed to head off complacency among Tory activists and Tory voters, who tend to be older and might be tempted to stay home rather than braving the rain forecast for Thursday if they feel the result’s already in the bag.

If so, Tory HQ may be guilty of over thinking it. “Hope is a good thing, may be the best of the things. And a good thing never dies,” is the famous quote from the Shawshank Redemption’s brutally put upon prisoner protagonist Andy Dufresne. There hasn’t been much hope for progressive voters in recent days. That report, and the first positive move in the odds for some time, could light a little much needed fire among those who feel that Johnson would be the biggest political disaster to be inflicted on this country since… nope, can’t think of a comparison.

It bears repeating that the Tories are still red hot favourites. Polling suggests that four in 10 Britons intend to vote for them despite the latest evidence of what I might describe as a moral void at the heart of their appalling leader.

At this late stage, a lot of punters may just have decided to throw a few quid at some high priced outcomes because “you never know”. The tumbling price on a Labour/SNP government reflects that. It has come in to 11/1 from 25/1.

At those sort odds it really doesn’t take much money to force a move. To put it in context, 11/1 represents an implied probably of just 8.3 per cent while 25/1 gets you to 3.8 per cent. Either way the price cut isn’t quite as significant as it might look at first blush.

Nonetheless, those searching for a bit more optimism might care to note that while the big money is staked on the Tories, the number has started to favour a more positive outcome. And the number has won the day before, notably in the case of the Trump election in the US and the Brexit referendum.

That said, I’m not feeling optimistic enough to risk any of my own money – much as I’d like to.

Best curiosity of the day surely goes to Paddy Power. Digging into its betting data, it found that female punters heavily favour Jeremy Corbyn (64 per cent) to be named next PM, with nine times as many bets on him than on Boris Johnson (7 per cent). The current PM even lags behind Jo Swinson (14 per cent) and even Nigel Farage (8 per cent), who’s not even standing and so is available at an appropriately high price.

The stats very well reflect Johnson’s fairly awful behaviour towards women, and the horrible things he’s written about them in his columns. Johnson is is three times more popular with male punters (21 per cent), but he’s still behind Corbyn (47 per cent).