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Lessons from history – politicalbetting.com
Lessons from history – politicalbetting.com
In 1872, Mr Benjamin Disraeli (as he then was) made one of his famous savage attacks on the Liberal Party. In it, he famously characterised Gladstone’s cabinet as ‘a range of exhausted volcanoes.’
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The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter, according to US media and an investor in the firm. He tweeted "the bird is freed," in an apparent reference to the deal closing. A number of top executives, including the boss, Parag Agrawal, have reportedly been fired. It brings to a close a saga that saw Twitter go to court to hold the billionaire to the terms of a takeover deal that he had tried to escape. Twitter has not yet confirmed the takeover, but an early investor in the company told the BBC that the deal had been completed."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63402338
Keep watching that Tory vote share, if they can’t break 30 during this honeymoon the writings on the wall.
And then the enigmatic question mark on the end, asking us, is this a header from a freelance history teacher? or from a grumpy mound of magma, with too much time on its hands? 🙂
But…
Start spangled gamblers podcast discussion on the regulatory position re: prediction markets;
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/star-spangled-gamblers/id1437934639
~40mins in
… what a load of bullshit! They’re trying to present political betting as some kind of altruistic act. It’s not. It’s just degenerate gambling at heart. Whether it should be allowed or not should be a question of whether it corrupts the political system.
In the British experience, there isn’t much evidence of that to date. But I think we’re just one scandal away from it being banned over here.
I’m pretty sure if the yanks give it the green light, there will soon be scandals. And they’re more likely to be exposed.
Your Labour party have very big leads and the LESSONS FROM HISTORY is right. This will not end well for the Conservatives.
When will that election be? January 2025 is unlikely because campaigning over Christmas and New Year is unthinkable and will they really want to go for an autumn election at a time of austerity? It is not like the Brexit one when your Boris wanted to get something done (aka shit on the British).
So 18 months. Spring 2024.
Except I think it could be sooner. As the shine comes off Sunak and the wear and tear continues so the discontented factions will end their phoney peace. All hell will break out again. Maybe not next month. Maybe not at Christmas. But it will. The moment things start going badly as is inevitable, and the shine fades from the public eye, the knives will be out for the guy who stabbed their hero in the back and front.
Next year is not off the cards. Most likely spring 2024 but don't rule out 2023.
The biggest thing holding it back is the now inevitable electoral disaster facing the Conservatives.
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
I think the exhaustion we are seeing in British politics is perhaps symptomatic of western politics in general. But I don't know if it really matters all that much. The bigger story is in Foreign affairs, in Ukraine and with the reinvigoration of NATO. That is something that the tories really can take credit for. Particularly given where we may have been were Corbyn to have won in 2019.
This tends to mean that "competent managerialism" is the best we can hope for.
However, I disagree that "competent managerialism" won't work for Starmer against Sunak.
Sunak has already shown his weakness on that front, and his Party (after a decade in power) are beyond management. His reputation for competence and management, such as it is, will more likely erode over time, rather than enhance.
This poll may give us hope that it may not be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-34IOpjos0
I said to TSE it might be five whole posts before we went off topic and it was!
Firstly, Neil Hamilton was never a cabinet minister (nor attending cabinet).
Secondly, Gordon Brown's final cabinet had three members of the Lords, not seven (there were three more attending cabinet, but not members of it). You say "one of the few from the House of Commons" was Bob Ainsworth... he was actually one of 21.
The broad thrust of the article has some sense in it, but the inaccuracies don't particularly help.
Once that happens, no amount of "success" changes the outcome. It becomes a settled attitude. The only thing that can prevent it is a profound fear of change (c.f. 1992)
So, for example, the budget process. The system used in Ireland is worth looking at. There they have a summer economic statement where the various economic forecasts are laid out, and the room for manoeuvre for the government, in terms of money available for policy decisions, or required to be raised by policy decisions is specified. There's then a period where an open debate over priorities can be had, with all sorts of organisations external to the Dail able to contribute. And then the government announces its budget.
I think it's a structure which is more open, allows more people from outside professional politics and government to contribute to the debate, and it's set out the right way round. The economic forecasts come first, which helps dispel any suspicion that they might be tweaked to fit the policy decisions. It should make it harder for poor politicians, like Truss and Kwarteng, to make a complete horlicks of the economy.
Citizens' assemblies are another thing that have been used in Ireland to essentially provide outside help to Irish politicians so that they can make progress on difficult and contentious topics.
If you have these mechanisms so that governance of the country is not solely in the hands of the most popular of two party leaders (and their best mates), then you are less reliant on having an exceptionally gifted leader in the right place at the right time.
There is a reason for this. It was actually dictated using audio software as an experiment. I didn’t have a lot of time to check it (which goes some way to explaining the other inaccuracies) so a fair number still seem to be in.
It’s interesting to note that it really struggles to distinguish words that don’t even sound that similar. So Liz Truss can’t attest to the job insecurity as I wanted her to. And Attlee somehow became atlee (whatever that is).
Dictation software may be the way to go for the future particularly for those with dyslexia but ti has some way to go to get there.
It will be interesting is see if/which companies and ad agencies stop using Twitter.
This is the life of having a media profile, views, public discourse ability and the capacity to know and say something about a lot. It is a huge industry. Some make loads.
Think of the lives and fates of Martin Lewis, Paxman, Nick Robinson, Jessica Elgot, James Forsyth, Peter Oborne, Jim Naughtie, Jonathan Freedland, Robert Chote, Paul Johnson, Torsten Bell, Matthew Parris, Matthew Goodwin, Stephen Bush.
There are hundreds of them, and many of them are outstanding. Radio, TV, podcasts, academia, policy wonk outfits (by the hundred), even print media.
You could assemble from them 10 cabinets of greater ability than our present one, or SKS's.
The single key is that power and fame without political responsibility is loads more fun and lucrative than risking a parliament career.
Basically if you are a Dem in a swing district in a red state you are doing well. If you are a Dem in a swing district in a Blue state you are fucked.
100% classic American suburban swing voter behaviour.
I think though that @ydoethur in his interesting header is wearing his rose tinted specs. Parliament has always had a lot of nonentities, yes-men, careerists and time-servers. It is only the veneer of time that makes previous cabinets such as the 1997 New Labour one look good.
One useful tip from Antifrank is to always put in a weird word, so you can find it easily again via Google. A search for "politicalbetting volcano atlee"will find it in a trice.
Thanks for the article, BTW. To one of your questions about why politicians are of low quality, I'd put more emphasis on ideological purity. For four or five years, Labour selected a load of people who were total incompetents - but were solidly Corbynite. Likewise, as you state the Conservatives have been concerned more about Brexit purity than sane government, and have forced out a load of people who did not think Europe was the source of all the country's ills.
Both parties need to become broader churches.
I'd also argue that some politicians who are widely derided aren't as bad as they are made out. Gove is a classic example of this: he is widely hated, but also one of the better performers.
And finally: we apparently want MPs to be one of us, to 'represent' ourselves. Hence we want a certain number of female MPs, a certain number of BAME MPs, a certain number of state-educated ones. Note 'ability' does not creep into this. Yet we also want them to be 'better' than us. To be the same as us, yet better. It's an impossibility.
Rishi is 42 years old, which is pretty young to be an exhausted volcano and there are several other young members of the cabinet as well. Kemi is also 42. So any exhaustion is surely ideological and intellectual exhaustion rather than age. I think that there is some truth in this. Most Tories have forgotten what they are for. Their sole raison d'etre seems to be that they are better than the other lot, somehow. Looking at the shadow cabinet as a whole, they might even be right, which is a scary thought.
We live in less ideological times. This is not necessarily a bad thing: most ideologies cause serious problems when taken to extreme but it does leave politicians muddling through and stuff comes at them very fast these days. This new government is not going to be any different in that respect.
....this looks more like an Orthodox Synagogue
Politicians have to deal with reality in a unique way. Everyone else turns each issue into a single matter. Poverty? Give them more money. Climate change? Ban stuff and compel other stuff. Houses? Build lots somewhere. Etc.
Politicians have to both deal with problems on both sides of the ledger (taxing as well as spending); and keep a level of public support from public who can both change their minds instantly (Brexit?) and want great public services without paying for them.
Much easier to run the Resolution Foundation or write for the Guardian.
Don't worry about the typos that crept through - their de rigour for a PB header!
'No Olwyn. Use your finger like everybody else'
But here is a question. Who would you have in the cabinet from the current lot ahead of any names member of the 1997 cabinet? Or the 1979 cabinet?
I find it’s a very short list. Possibly in the latter case Mordaunt for Norman St John Stevas, Sunak for Prior and Harper for Howell. Possibly Gove for Joseph. But would you take any of this lot ahead of even mid-ranking ministers like Pym or Gilmour?
For example, while it was indeed an exhausted government, in terms of personnel Major's second administration wasn't dramatically worse than its two immediate predecessors.
It was the absence of a decent working majority which rendered it hopeless.
An ideology of pragmatism and muddling through invariably hides rather than reveals its ideology. But it is there.
This was helped of course by the large number of new seats won in 2010, and the unusual number of retirements from the expenses scandal fall out. Polls would suggest that there will be a massive clear out at the next GE too, with perhaps half the government benches being novice MPs. An opportunity but also a problem.
One thing that we do seem to have lost is the presence of MPs of working class origin, and the non-graduates. Rayner is a rare example, and clearly political marmite (I am a fan). I do think this matters, as too many MPs come through the avenues of student politics, think tank, policy wonk, to MP. Either that or a narrow range of careers, often in financial services, giving a very one dimensional character to Parliament.
Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Australia has had absolutely terrible weather recently, we may be basking in unseasonably warm temperatures at the moment, but in Melbourne temperatures over the coming week will be 8-10 degrees below normal.
We have switched to a digital subscription for the time being and could probably have half a dozen for less than the cost of a daily print media delivery.
How do others 'consume' these digital subscriptions - are there any that are formatted like newspapers or are they all like glorified BBC news websites?
I'd really like a paper on an iPad that I could flick through tbh.
Need to hold the cricket world cups in a dry country like England, just sayin'
"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
·
19h
Can any sensible US journalists out there tell me what happened to US media? Do journos not visit countries they write about anymore? Do they not read evidence? How can so many apparently serious journalists like this, at NYT etc think this? What has happened to the media class?
Andrew Sullivan
@sullydish
Replying to
@GoodwinMJ
Matt, you have no idea how bad it is. Total capture by far-left. Almost all op-eds from tiny fringe of UK leftists. Reporting always skewed to prove Brexit was wrong. The bubble is tight af.
3:54 PM · Oct 27, 2022
·Twitter Web App"
https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/1585646144855871490
This isn't a political metaphor or anything, I just thought everybody should know.
The Atlantic one is good, and good value too.
What is 'working class' nowadays? IMV the distinctions are becoming very blurred. For instance, is Owen Jones 'working class' ? If so, why not Rishi Sunak?
Agree totally on non-graduates. I've wittered on about the evils of the 50% university targets in the past; but what we are seeing are increasing number of roles which are closed to non-graduates (*). This is utterly wrong and throws lots of people under the bus - the same effect as the 11+, except later in life.
(*) I am a non-graduate.
Bizarre.
Who'd be a politician? The media puts you under a microscope and is constantly trying to get you fired, job security is poor or woeful for many, and there's a small chance of being subjected to aggression (even, sadly, murder).
You can earn more, without the media dissecting your every move, in greater safety, in many other lines of work.
Increasingly the changing class structure of the UK means that the graduate/non-graduate distinction is the valid division, at least for people under 40 at present.
I know you are not a Rayner fan, but I think her a great example of how education and intelligence are not the same.
So, assuming this is a bad thing, what's causing the problem? Is it our fault for always wanting the shiny new thing, and taking the Kick Them Out thing too far? Or the politicians' fault for creating an express route into Parliament that drops them there underprepared and without Good Old Tory Bottom?
The other thing I would point at is the weakening of smaller-scale politics as a way in, especially local councils with actual powers.
If there is a property crash, the former Chancellor's contrivance could saddle the government with liabilities of up to £23 billion
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/27/george-osbornes-help-buy-scheme-set-bomb-public-finances-ready/ (£££)
The Prime Minister could target energy firms as he tries to raise billions of pounds to balance the books
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/27/rishi-sunak-plans-expand-windfall-tax-grab/ (£££)
John Major's problem was that, increasingly, he became seen by the public not as the leader of the nation, but as the leader of a political party - and a divided one at that. On the then central issue of Europe, it appeared that Mr Major's policies were designed not so much with the national good in mind, but simply to find a way of arbitrating between conflicting Conservative clans.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-blair-s-government-is-suffering-deathly-decay-just-look-at-all-those-pallid-faces-480714.html
Off topic - for all the Braverman fans:
Why Rishi Sunak (and Suella Braverman) will continue to bang on (and on and on) about immigration. Another great graphic from the @FT's @jburnmurdoch: three-quarters of constituencies have 'anti-immigration' majorities, even though Brits as a whole are evenly split on the issue.
https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/1585890729414430721
I think it's very difficult to make a career transition into it at a later age, now, and expect to succeed.
Amongst others ... but I'd rather have the Scotsman and Herald of old, admittedly so last century now.
It loses a whole culture of tens of millions imbibing a culture in common ways every morning. And there is nothing that quite replaces newspaper with writing on it, print coming off on your fingers. But newspapers are in a sense out of date as they are printed and distributed. And of course Guardian online is free (as is much of the FT if you work around).
My compromise is to subscribe to the print edition of the Economist for slower news and comment, and online for the 24 hour cycle.
But the only thing I miss about London days and commuting etc is the immediacy of newsprint, and reading the Times in pre -Murdoch days.
It also shows why the mobilisation has really not helped their war effort at all.
I'm not up-to-date with how well the latest climate models reproduce ENSO, but back in the day it was something they struggled with, so it's interesting to see this La Nina when the general prediction was for a predominance of the positive El Nino phase under warming conditions.
The other seesaw type effect of what has been an exceptionally warm year for Britain is that the Arctic has been quite cool relative to the scorching hot trend of recent years.
After hearing about the conditions many civilians in Ukraine are living in I can only hope that Eastern Europe has a record-breaking winter of warmth. It's hard to prioritise meteorological observations at a time like this, but I hope that as many of their long-term record-keeping stations can keep going as possible.
The way up to national politics from local government does seem to have atrophied in recent years. There is also the counter trend of people leaving Parliament to become city mayors. Burnham, Khan, Johnson, Brazil and Soulsby have all done this in recent times.
A leading article in today's Times:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-seeks-deal-to-curb-channel-migrant-crossings-zrqr7ww3h