It's shameless advertising by a betting agency, but interesting nonetheless.
This just in from Paddy Power: "As Europe moves ever closer to becoming a political superstate former prime minister Tony Blair has been backed into odds-on favourite to land the historic post of being the first president of the EC.
"Blair has been the long time favourite for most of the summer in the race but punters sense some shrewd political manoeuvring on Blair's part, backing him down to just 4/6 from 9/4 over the last few days."
Blair's most likely challenger on 4/1 is said to be the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende.
The odds are:
4/6 Tony Blair, former British prime minister
4/1 Jan Peter Balkenende, Dutch prime minister
11/2 Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg
6/1 Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary general of Nato
8/1 Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium
10/1 Aleksander Kwasniewski, former president of Poland
12/1 José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission
14/1 Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland
16/1 Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor
33/1 Jacques Chirac, former French president
50/1 Bertie Ahern, former taoiseach
100/1 Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister
