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Monday 14 September 2015 4:27 pm

Jeremy Corbyn odds: Bookies’ tips suggest Labour leader could last just 475 days in the job

By: Lynsey Barber

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After a resounding mandate from the Labour party and its supporters, against the odds, to become leader, it may not last for long.

Jeremy Corbyn is being tipped to spend just 475 days in the role before going from hero to zero. Bookies Sporting Index estimates Corbyn will last less than 18 months, predicting Labour will bring in a new leader on 1 January 2017.

Other bookies are looking similarly unconvinced that he has staying power.

Ladbrokes is currently offering 8/1 odds on him being replaced this year since announcing his shadow cabinet, slipping from 10/1 following his triumph.

The bookie is offering odds of 5/2 on him being replaced in 2016 and 7/2 on it happening in 2017. However, he is the favourite to lead Labour at the next General Election. 

Read more: When did it start to look like Jeremy Corbyn might win?

If he is ditched in that time, he would be the shortest Labour leader – excluding interims – since the 1930s, when Arthur Henderson's third term lasted just 420 days.

John Smith, who led the party from 18 July 1992 until he died in May 1994, chalked up 669 days. 

However, he wouldn't beat the shortest serving opposition leader, Conservative MP Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who notched up just nine months in the role before being ousted by Edward Heath, having lost to Harold Wilson. 

The favourite to next Labour leader – whenever that may be – is Dan Jarvis, the former army major who had been a leadership contender after Ed Miliband's resignation, at 4/1. He did not run, however, and hasn't bagged a spot in Corbyn's cabinet line-up.

David Milliband and Chuka Umunna, fresh from his move to the backbenches, are both equal at 8/1, followed by Sir Keir Stammer and newly minted deputy leader Tom Watson (12/1).

Read more: This is who is in Jeremy Corbyn's new shadow cabinet

Meanwhile, shadow chancellor John McDonnell's odds of becoming the new chancellor of the exchequer stand at a meagre 20/1, behind seven other Labour and Conservative politicians, with business secretary Sajid Javid the frontrunner to take up George Osborne's mantle. 

Corbyn's arrival has certainly ruffled some feathers, with high profile people including shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna, leadership rival Yvette Cooper and Caroline Flint either resigning or ruling themselves out of holding a shadow cabinet role under the North Islington MP. 

Amid rumours that the selection process was like something out of The Thick of It, the names that have emerged as Corbyn's A-team have been met with concern, derision and – in a few cases – blank stares.

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