Chancellor Philip Hammond is looking so grey he makes John Major look like a carnival parade dancer. If the lifeblood has been sucked out of him, it could be that the Association of British Bloodsuckers, aka Bookmakers, (ABB) has got their teeth into him.

The Treasury has claimed that betting shops with FOBTs, the favoured cash money laundering device for drug dealers, are “proven low -risk”. The ABB “evidence” to support this is that the bookies train their staff…

So, employees, often female, often working alone, often on minimal wage or not much more, often part-time and often young must be super-human multi-taskers. They can intervene to prevent problem gambling, monitor self-exclusion schemes, detect money-laundering and run a betting shop to make money! They can even have a lunch break whilst cleaning the toilets!

Now the Daily Mail claims that a “Whitehall source” says that the Treasury will kill the FOBT review. Tracey Crouch at DCMS tweeted that this was “fake news”. So, it could have been a fake leak by Treasury to see what they could get away with.

If Treasury does prevent the FOBT stake reduction to £2, then Mr. Hammond will be a Zombie Chancellor, having provided Labour with yet more political ammunition to help them win the next election.

Content produced and sponsored by Stop the FOBTS.