WORLD : Bookies Not Betting on Thatcher

LONDON — Bookmakers have stopped taking bets on whether Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher will win the next election because most gamblers believe that it is inevitable she will be ousted as leader of the Conservative Party, experts said today.

Leading bookmakers said the street barometer of Thatcher’s sliding political fortunes showed that she was bad for business and so the account had been closed.

“We were ending up with a totally one-sided book and that is not good business,” said Graham Sharpe of William Hill. “All we were doing was leaving ourselves open to a large liability.”

Opinion polls show Thatcher is lagging by a range of 19 to 28 points behind the opposition Labor Party in dissatisfaction attributed to high interest rates, a new tax scheme and repugnance of her leadership style, which critics call autocratic and geared to the rich.