Blair to quit ion two years?

CITY bookmakers are preparing to take bets on the number of months Tony Blair will continue as Prime Minister before handing over to Gordon Brown, following the big loss of Labour seats.

Spread bookies Cantor Index and Sporting Index today indicated they would start by quoting Blair to stay for between 23 and 25 months - only half the likely four-year length of the new Parliament.

David Buik at Cantor said his firm also planned to open a book soon on the identity of Brown's eventual successor as Chancellor, and had Alistair Darling, Transport Secretary in the 2001-2005 administration, pencilled in as early favourite.

Buik said: 'Ed Balls, Brown's former Treasury adviser and a new MP, is another possible candidate, but we are likely to quote him at around 12/1 against.'

Among big winners last night was a punter who made a £750-a-seat downbet on the Labour majority from 80, and another £500-a-seat downbet from 83. Losers included a gambler who made an upbet on Conservative seats from 243, at £300 a seat in February 2004, and looked likely to lose up to £10,000. Former IG Index chairman Stuart Wheeler is thought to have made a modest profit on up-bets on Tory seats.

The bookies may have had the best election result of all with twice as much money waged on this poll as on the 2001 election, and it's largely been a happy outcome for them. Paul Austin at spread-betting firm IG Index believes the rise is down to the growth of internet betting, and new bets offered on the result of individual seats such as Oliver Letwin's Dorset West and George Galloway's Bethnal Green and Bow.

Last night the first exit poll slashed IG Index's spread on the Labour majority from 90 to 68. Within minutes of Putney turning Conservative, IG was taking a flurry of bets with one speculator staking £500 a seat on the Tories getting more than 206.