Evil Diaries: Oil in your palm

As I have mentioned here before it is quite pointless betting on politics unless one is an insider. I know this since I took it into my silly little head to back Douglas Hurd to be the Conservative PM in 1990. I took 8/1 at Hills and Hills then obliged me by quoting Hurd at 4/1. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

In the meantime a punter known to me took £50,000 at 6/5 Major.

A few days later, Lady Lamont was round at ours taking tea and I told her what I had bet on. She remarked that “they all knew it was Major right at the start” – Major had then been 50/1.

However, I am a glutton for punishment and reckon that BoJo may be on his way out and that it is time to choose a successor. I was told to back Liz Truss as the next leader of the Conservatives and have done so at 6/1. We’ll see.

Had I been left to guess all by myself I would have chosen Sunak whose wit surpasses his brains and oratory. But as I have said…..

Incidentally people persist in criticising BoJo since he cannot get these immigration problems sorted out. But how should they be sorted out? The critics offer nothing.

*****

REA Holdings (RE.) have disclosed this morning that no less than 19p will be paid on the 9% prefs in 2022. Not bad, eh? This leaves them a buy under 120p. But even more of a bet is RE.’s ordinaries at 110p. After all, the financial position is clearly coming right at long last and it does not take too much imagination to see the share price over 200p. Hurry now before the prunes wake up.