Coronation Street: Countdown to Makerfield

But first, we're not gonna give it completely short shrift, but shorter shrift to the two Scottish by-elections.

Let's just take the high road quickly with Neil Channing and Wilko Jani.

Arbroath and Brottie Ferry, as we're reliably informed is the correct pronunciation.

As Stephen Gethins, you remember, stood down there because he is now an MSP, and you can't be a Westminster MP and an MSP at the same time.

And in the, uh, Scottish Parliament elections, the same thing happened to Stephen Flynn, so he stood down from Aberdeen South.

So Arbroath and Brottie Ferry and Aberdeen South, before we get to Makerfield, Neil, let us deal with these because we wanna make sure we have comprehensively covered this week's by-elections.

Yeah, so, um, the-- [sighs] you know, actually, I find it, as a, as a total by-election geek, I'm finding it quite slightly sad that we're getting Super Thursday, three by-elections in a day, and these two Scottish ones are, are kind of a little bit, uh, ignored really.

The, the bookies haven't really come up with too many special bets, and Arbroath and Brottie Ferry, uh, I think a lot of people would say from a betting point of view, it- it's turned out to be a little bit disappointing.

I mean, back in January, uh, we had a, we had a More in Common, uh, MRP poll showing that Reform were on 36 and the SNP on 34.

So you might have thought this would turn out to be a really interesting, uh, by-election, but MRPs in Scotland are notoriously unreliable.

Um, I had a look on Electoral Calculus.

They, they say that it's 87% that the SNP will win.

Uh, they use a lot of demographic stuff that they get from the census, uh, and they talk about tribe, and the tribe in this constituency is described as strong left.

Uh, they voted only 42% to leave in the EU referendum.

Average age is 52.6. We know the national average is 49.6. Um, and, uh, homeowners are, are 70% against the national average of 64.

So it's, it's possibly a slightly sort of upmarket left-wing constituency, 97% white.

Uh, and the betting here, uh, really opened up around about 10/1 on the SNP.

Uh, Labour did open up sort of about 16/1.

It's been hard to lay them.

They're, on, on Betfair they're about, uh, 50/1 now really, uh, with the Tories at 66/1.

So it is just a match between the SNP and Reform.

Uh, Reform have traded at, uh, I think at one stage you could have got 16/1.

Uh, they're now roughly 7/1.

And, and of course, you know, the SNP, it hasn't been all smooth sailing for them nationally, uh, with, with all the, uh, the, the various stuff to do with Peter Murrell.

Um, but I think we can safely say that the SNP are gonna win this one and at 10/1 on, uh, if you like that sort of thing, I wouldn't totally put you off.