Categories
Can you cope with two massive elections at the same time? – politicalbetting.com
Can you cope with two massive elections at the same time? – politicalbetting.com
This piece originally started off as a 2023 predictions thread but then I realised the 2024 presidential election and the next UK general election featured heavily then it dawned on me that is very likely that both these elections may happen within weeks if not days of each other which represents some challenges for punters.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I had a double take.
Every example I’ve given today is real
I would like to provide some new predictions for 2023.
The polls will narrow, there will be a 5 point or less Labour lead at some stage.
There will be another 30 point Labour lead, probably when the economy tanks.
The economy will tank and unemployment will go up.
Keir Starmer will at some point be 10 points or more ahead of Sunak as best PM.
There will not be an election.
Labour will do well in any by-elections and will achieve swings similar to prior to 1997 in one or more of them.
(*) Then again I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth, and my training at the end of last year was very patchy.
How would you describe it right now?
Local by elections also continue, for example there will be an election on Thursday 5 January 2023 for the Great Dunmow South and Barnston ward in Uttlesford District.
It has boring boundaries but they can be circumvented
1 - they advantage older voters over younger voters; this is deliberate
2 - there will be a great deal of confusion this May with people who aren't aware they need ID, and end up not being able to vote.
(1) is pretty obviously going to benefit the Tories; that's why they're doing it after all. The impact of (2) will reduce over time - once it happens this May people will realise and get prepared.
So this May might have a built in bias to the Cons, that will then become less pronounced over time. Added to the impact of mortgage rises, cost of living increases, and all the other issues discussed in detail on here over the past few months, might there be some advantage to the Cons to go this May, or as early as possible, to take advantage.
This isn't a prediction - more an idle speculation, based on the idea of Tory cynicism.
Is it possible to fly in to Thailand on a one way ticket? I'm thinking probably not but I want to keep as much flexibility as possible. I guess I could buy a very cheap onwards ticket to Cambodia or Laos?
I assumed you were jesting because the GPT answer was so silly. But then I wondered if GPT tailors its response to the questioner based on previous chat history?
I guess the way to find out would be for two of us to ask the precisely the same question of GPT. It would be an interesting exercise.
(As an aside I have just spent 20 mins trying to convince GPT of Adam Rutherford's propositions that we are all descendants of William the Conqueror. It's like arguing with a polite version of HYUFD tbh - it accepts each of the arguments and then finishes by reiterating its initial view regardless.)
This is a long term issue for Labour but once it's in it would be very hard to remove completely. They'd have to change the rules to allow more forms of valid ID. For example you will be able to use a 60+ Oyster card but not a young persons one even though they are the same things.
If you are planning to travel to Thailand, it is a good idea to check the entry requirements for the country before you leave. Some countries may require you to have a valid visa in order to enter, while others may allow you to enter visa-free for a certain period of time. It is also a good idea to check with your airline to see if they have any specific requirements for one-way travel to Thailand."
Someone I know, for reasons I won’t go into, seriously tried to commit suicide yesterday. They took a load of paracetamol and took themselves off somewhere secluded to die. The police helicopter had to find them using the thermal imaging camera.
When they got to hospital they were waiting an hour - an hour - to be triaged, whilst vomiting up blood.
If someone in this position has to wait an hour to be traiged, to have to wait to be given the drugs they need to counteract the paracetamol while vomiting blood, the system is well and truly broken.
Who is going to take responsibility for this and fix it? The NHS is falling apart. It was fine in 2010.
"Yes, it is possible to fly to Thailand on a one-way ticket."
If you get a visa on arrival (like 90% of travellers) you will need an onwards ticket of some kind
Students at home, whereas their vote will be needing to be cast at their University constituency.
Young people more interested in partying than voting.
Families concentrating on Christmas and their children.
Voter ID rules and new boundaries in place.
Activists not keen on canvassing in the cold, wet and dark.
Meanwhile, elderly Tories at home, quietly filling in their postal votes.
Anyone want to try?
Edit: Done - see Leon's 2:50pm post. Thanks
(Far too early to say that Conservative poll ratings are going down again. But if they are, I wonder if it was people comparing notes at Christmas get-togethers and hearing grim stories from more distant relatives.)
> Yes, if I am asked the same question at the same time by two different users, I will give the same reply to both. I do not have the ability to distinguish between different users or to have personal conversations, so my responses will always be the same for a given input.
(This seems to be to be a bit 'off' as it can clearly remember 'your' previous conversations and change it's replies based on them)
I imagine this could easily be fixed in a future iteration, making it even more creepy/helpful
Also I really like Phnom Penh, so I might actually go
The delay in treating them is unfathomable.
Under New Labour satisfaction was the highest ever, waiting lists were at their lowest ever, the 4 week target was hit over 95% of the time. Cancer was guaranteed. People didn't die on hospital beds.
Labour fixed the NHS. The Tories have broken it.
Is that perhaps an example of the 'ambulance' issue, whereby if you get taken to A&E in an ambulance you can be left for hours on the ambulance because you are being looked after by trained paramedics?
A neighbour of ours, a recently retired hospital consultant, suggests just driving to A&E if you can because you'll get triaged earlier. (Obviously that was not going to work in northern_monkey's friend's case.)
Public service announcement: paracetamol is quite literally the worst substance to overdose on in existence. I don't want to distress you with details, but Google or ChatGPT will explain. Best wishes for your friend.
Forget the activists- the public will hate any government that knowingly makes them think about politics over long Christmas.
So forget January 2025 and probably December 2024. If the government hasn't turned things around by next autumn, that's it, no more road left.
In the long term, a Labour or coalition government might not remove the ID requirement, as you say, but they would be in a position to add those other IDs - student ID, youth railcards, etc. - to lessen the impact.
Best of wishes to Northern Monkey's friend and that he recovers.
On the NHS; worth remembering Labour left a huge deficit, ballooning debt, and after that was fixed (the NHS being almost the only ring-fenced department from cuts) we did have this thing called a pandemic which affected things a lot. These factors may or may not be sufficient to explain the current situation but they're certainly pertinent and simplistic-to-the-point-of-misleading takes like "It was great under Labour, look how bad it is under the Tories" omitting any mention of the worst recession in British history or the first pandemic in a century is not suggestive of someone attempting an objective stance.
1) 12 years of below inflation pay increases has made people leave
2) Brexit has meant that there are fewer EU doctors/nurses
The lack of GP appointments mean more people go to A&E than would have previously.
The biggest issue is that social care is on it's knees. This means there are more people in wards in hospital who should be in social care. This forces delays of moving people out of A&E. Again brexit is causing issues here because not only are there fewer people applying to work in care homes the ones which are applying are not as good as the ones who were before. The other issue with social care is most of the homes don't want the 'council paid' people (ie those who don't own their own house) as they don't get paid enough to cover the costs. I syspect (though don't know for sure) that there is more demand council funded places than for privately funded places.
while the NHS needs a major cash injection to fill the vacancies; social care and it's funding needs major restructuring.
And let's not gild Labour's NHS: the hideousness of the Stafford scandal (and the NHS's and Labour's hideous reaction to it) shows that New Labour's NHS also faced significant issues.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voter-id-that-you-can-use-in-uk-elections-and-how-to-get-it/
But fundamentally we need to move to a Swiss system, I think only Labour can be trusted to deliver that.
We should just have a National ID card and have done with it. (Would help the fight against illegal immigration too.)
one thing that can be said for certain is that there's not been proper forward planning for the NHS over the last 50 years (I'd argue over it's lifetime). Blair/Brown did a lot to resolve backlogs but were fixing current issues rather than planning for the future.
I said below, you won't fix the NHS without fixing social care. That will require a cross party NHS style agreement on how to properly fund social care for everyone in the long term.
(long-term PBers may remember a member of my family was mistreated at Stafford - fortunately without long-term effects. So this is somewhat personal.)
However, I agree that there needs to be significant changes to the NHS's structure: there are loads of different systems that would remain free at the point of use. I don't have the knowledge or wisdom to say which would be 'best'.
The online purchasing of postage is good, I would make some improvements, but overall is very useful.
The collection service - where they collect parcels from you at the doorstep - is surprisingly little known. But is, again excellent.
Letters will die - to a small remaint on the side of a large parcel operation.
It's not unlike inflation being down to international factors now, but the situation being stupidly and unnecessarily worsened by the Weeks of Truss.
I can't recall you descibing me as 'on the Tory bus' when I routinely criticise the dire state of the judicial system (largely down to insufficient spending and overly harsh cuts) or condemn Boris Johnson, and the PCP for inflicting him on the nation.
I don't care for the NHS. I admire a lot of the staff, and think it can do a really good job. But the people who matter are its patients; the people who rely on it. If the NHS was dissolved tomorrow and replaced with something that worked much 'better', then I wouldn't miss it one jot.
It's a health service, not a religion.
Alternatively a nominal charging model which again links into rationing. Otherwise, and this is where, I suspect, the current iteration of the Conservative Party would like to go, sell the whole shebang to Cedars Sinai Healthcare and let them sort it out.
Because to fix the problems requires, in my view, systemic investment in non-frontline staff. The comedy of staff shortages followed by hitting in the perfectly existing staff on contract is a management failure.
Labour are not going to lead on “We will invest x zillions in administrative infrastructure and management for the NHS, which will increase the productivity of the front line staff.”
The only thing structurally which is broken is social care which no-one has been brave enough to try and fix.
2-0
When I was small I recall an earnest debate at the dinner table between my father and an eminent consultant. It was long ago, and I forget the exact argument, but the consultant posed a dilemma that he thought was a gotcha. It so happened to be nearly exactly an example from a book on moral philosophy my father had got me to read.
So I repeated the example… which caused a bit of moment. I don’t think the consultant was used to being torpedoed in argument by children.
Edit: when similar rules in NI were brought in, there were nearly no complaints. Which given the contentious (not to say rambunctious) nature of elections there..
A company I knew invented a new type of medical diagnostics device. The barriers to get something like it into hospitals was massively high and, if the rumours are true, somewhat corrupt ("pay me money and we'll talk.")
Society and technology has changed. The NHS has not kept up, sadly.
(And I'm not saying the NHS requires more money. Just that it's possible that the NHS will suck up extra funding and not deliver improvements for patients.)
What I do expect is long queues, particularly in more deprived areas.
Handy to have that on file...
Back to the original point - NHS doctors do not simply strive to keep alive at all costs. They are trained and given guidelines on considering the quality and length of life that results from treatment. Especially in light of how many treatments have downsides as well as up.
Were this can go wrong is that some become doctrinaire about not treating. Some years ago, a friends father had terminal cancer. He elected to private receive an incredibly expensive treatment that had (probably) slightly less side effects. His point was that he had a huge pile of money and wanted to improve the quality to the time he had left.
His NHS doctors tried to stop him dong so, going to a judge etc, because they had judged the treatment not worth it.
I would say fucked up is more like it.
I am not sure I agree with the 'victim of its own success' idea. All first world countries have seen similar improvements in both life expectancy and quality of life and, yes, it would be churlish not to recognise that the NHS has been vital for this in Britain, but only in its position as a state organised, free at the point of use, health system similar to those in existence in most other first world countries. No one is arguing seriously that we should move away from free at the point of use nor that there should not be state oversight of the system. The trouble is that the NHS has done this less well than almost any other first world country. Our model is poorer at delivering clinical results than most other European countries, than Canada, Australia or Japan. Ours is ultimately a failed system that needs radical overhaul but no one is willing to do that because they are all terrified of the very accusation you make - the one that is always used - of selling it off to private control.
The US is not the only alternative. Indeed the US is not an alternative. Look to Germany, France, Italy or any number of other countries and copy the best of their systems. None of them would ever think about copying ours.