Leadership election

The nomination period for the leadership election has closed and we have four candidates:

David Campbell Bannerman MEP & Head of Policy
	Tim Congdon CBE Former Professor of Economics & UKIP PPC
Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of EFD Group & former Leader
	Winston McKenzie Youth worker & former boxer

Jason Smith pulled out a few days ago, saving his energies for a future battle and Gerard Batten pulled out a week or so ago and is backing Tim Congdon.

If this was a website competition DCB would be the winner, Farage a close second, Congdon a disappointing third and McKenzie on nil points as he doesn't have one.  But it's not a website competition, it's a leadership competition.

So far it's looking like a two-horse race between DCB and Farage.  DCB is turning out to be a surprisingly strong candidate and can easily match Farage's support amongst UKIP's online community but if the last leadership election taught us anything it's that the views of the online community don't really represent the views of the majority of the party.

Smarkets think it's a foregone conclusion but they've got 6 candidates listed, only two of which are in the running so I'd take their prediction with a pinch of salt!

Outcome	Odds	Potential Win
Nigel Farage	85%	£10 wins £11
Other	40%	£10 wins £25
David Campbell Bannerman	19%	£10 wins £52
Gerard Batten	9%	£10 wins £111
Christopher Monckton	8%	£10 wins £125
Marta Andreasen	7.69%	£10 wins £130
John Bufton	2.4%	£10 wins £416

It's going to be a tight result - a lot tighter than Smarkets reckon - but my money is on Farage.