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So the bookmakers and popular opinion agree that Gordon Brown and his Labour Party are bulloxed in the next election, no matter when the presumably lame duck prime minister decides to call for one.

In September of this year, the Guardian reported the Conservatives holding a 17-point lead over Labour. Even more disturbing is the Liberals’ closing in to within five points of Labour, thereby further strengthening the third party, which could well post its most successful general election since its re-formation in the late 1980s.

So how badly will Labour fare? The current tabulation of the three major parties’ parliamentarians stands at Labour 213, Conservative 192, and Liberal Democrat 71. The Bet 365 table for each looks as follows:

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Conservative Party
0-324 seats: 9/4
325-349 seats: 4/1
350-374 seats: 10/3
375-399 seats: 5/1
400 or more seats: 11/4

Labour Party
0-174 seats: 5/2
175-199 seats: 16/5
200-224 seats: 9/4
225-249 seats: 13/2
250 or more seats: 7/2

Liberal Democrats
0-39 seats: 5/1
40-49 seats: 12/5
50-59 seats: 12/5
60-69 seats: 4/1
70 or more seats: 3/1

Talk about your cold, hard slaps in the face. It’s nigh impossible to imagine that, during Tony Blair’s tenure, the Liberal Democrats would have been *expected* to grab one-quarter of the votes in an upcoming general election; that the Labour majority would be an odds-on favorite to shed *at least* 40 seats; or that the Tories would be reckoned for a 70 percent increase in popularity.

Most likely, the landslide won’t be as dramatic as current popular opinion polls show, as voters tend to respond more radically in pre-election opinion polls than when actually pressed to go in there and, you know, depress the voting lever. On the other hand, short of publicly staging an orphanage fire from which Brown rescues a few dozen children singlehandedly, there’s no way that 7/2 on the Labourites taking 250 seats is gonna happen – Is this a sucker bet posted by Bet 365 bookmakers or are hopeful moderate lefties betting with their hearts instead of their heads?

As for actually betting this thing, the surest wager would seem to be on the Liberal Democrats taking 70 or more seats; Live Bets Direct would also hedge on the Tories landing 324 seats or fewer (seriously, folks, this ain’t the avaricious 80s anymore and David Cameron is no Margaret Thatcher). The only question remaining then, is what range the losers – sorry, the Labour Party – lands in. By our numbers, though, we’re liking that 16/5 line for 175-199 seats.

All told, then, three evenly-divided bets on these numbers would land a winning punter a return rate of 14/5: not shabby under any political administration, no matter how badly it conspires to bugger up the British economy further.