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This looks better for Starmer than Sunak – politicalbetting.com
This looks better for Starmer than Sunak – politicalbetting.com
I quite like polling charts like the above one because it does break down a lot of the perceptions about the two leaders who dominate our politics.
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There was a brilliant experiment they did with baseball batters. They got them to face softball pitchers and they not only couldn't really hit it, they literally were swiping at thin air most of the time. Now I am sure if they faced several hours of that they would be dispatching them out the park every time, but the speed / trajectory was so different to facing a normal baseball pitcher their human Hawkeye model was totally broken. It is also why knuckleball pitchers can be incredibly effective even though they are throwing it at half the pace of a normal fast ball.
Starmer looks a couple of stone overweight, and looks as if he buys shirts and suits by the size he was a couple of decades ago.
I think his imposter syndrome shows in his suits. He always wears one, but never really looks comfortable in them.
ETA and the story:
https://www.racingpost.com/news/britain/blow-for-racing-as-gambling-minister-paul-scully-set-to-move-in-government-reshuffle-aq85z5o3X1e1/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11722729/God-non-gendered-Church-England-services.html
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
https://twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1623016385424027648?t=pCbBsz3i037_NHfiFEtxMw&s=19
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/did-you-know-royal-navys-fairey-swordfish-biplane-torpedo-bombers-were-able-to-damage-bismarck-because-its-guns-could-not-target-planes-moving-so-slowly/
The only just got married and had a child, so seems a bit premature.
There are a fair few Koreans in Hollywood, but none I can think of who fit that description.
Currently an utter farce.
The DM are obviously remarkable for their prophecy and their understanding of theology. And to speak of the words of the Bible as inerrant* is also, erm, interesting.
*When translated.
@OpenAI
integration - using a model more powerful than ChatGPT
Lord Pannick KC is set to defend Manchester City FC again, after the Premier League brought more than 100 charges against the football club yesterday.
The leading silk, whose recent instructions include advising Boris Johnson in relation to the Partygate inquiry and acting against the UK Government in the Supreme Court case over the prorogation of Parliament, is widely believed to be one of the best barristers of his generation. He will go head to head with Blackstone Chambers colleague Adam Lewis KC in what is shaping up to be one of the biggest, and most expensive, sports law battles in history.
The Lawyer understands that Pannick typically charges around £5,000 an hour, but has been known to request up to £10,000. If he were paid at the top end of that scale, come the trial when he is working full-time, Pannick could be paid £80,000 a day, or £400,000 a week – the same as Manchester City’s (and the Premier League’s) highest-paid player Kevin De Bruyne. At £5,000 an hour, he would still be paid more than all but seven of the club’s players.
https://www.thelawyer.com/man-city-hires-pannick-as-it-fights-for-premier-league-survival/
ETA I'm not sure about those salary calculations for KDB. Does he really work a 5-day week? The Telegraph, in lifting the story, uses Haaland rather than De Bruyne.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/02/07/manchester-city-hires-lawyer-who-earns-much-erling-haaland-premier/ (£££)
I mean. Being one and eternal, what would be the point of genitalia?
And who designated it?
How long ago was that ?
It’s soon obvious why I enjoyed that one. 😇
The Swordfish were extensively shot up by Bismarck.
The main problem was the heavy AA system (10.5cm guns) weren’t properly integrated into the fire control system, were slow in traverse and elevation. And had reliability problems. The Captain wrote reams on the subject of how rubbish the AA setup was, long before Bismarck sailed on her final voyage.
On returning, after the Civil Service strike, all Treasury mandarins are told they are 100% WFH.
When their laptops don’t connect, Teams fails and their work phone don’t .. work, the IT support line goes to answer phone.
After a massively self worshipping phase, complete with some hardcore crazy toxic masculinity - I mean, what kind of a bro joke is pranking your devoted follower to sacrifice his own son? - he had a midlife crisis.
Hooked up with a much younger married woman, had a son of his own, in dubious circumstances. Mellowed massively, even after the son’s tragic and completely avoidable death.
So they are tied on build a strong economy despite everything the Tories have done, with Sunak at the centre of all that money waste and corruption, lack of growth and tax and borrowing straight jackets?
The TV series that made the above mentioned Hyun Bin famous in Korea - My Name Is Kim Sam-soon - was made in 2005. It looks more like something from the 70s or early 80s in Britain, both in fashions and social attitudes.
So I can well understand why she made the move.
Never a good sign, whenever Governments have done this in the past they've tended to lose and lose big.
Do voters in the Red Wall believe the Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (5 February)
No 70% (+7)
Yes 18% (-4)
Don't know 13% (-2)
Changes +/- 23 January
Party Trustworthiness (5 Feb.):
Who do Red Wall voters trust the most on...? (Lab | Con)
NHS (43% | 15%)
Poverty (43% | 15%)
Economy (35% | 24%)
Immigration (31% | 19%)
Ukraine (27% | 29%)
Keir Starmer Red Wall Net Approval Rating (5 February):
Approve: 38% (-1)
Disapprove: 28% (-3)
Net: +10% (+2)
Changes +/- 23 January
So Scully moved so those above him can bring in the intrusive means testing on betting he’s a block not enabler for?
Hatred of the checks unite Mail and Guardian.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10680069/Affordability-checks-rolled-vulnerable-punters-betting-online.html
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/08/gambling-affordability-checks-control-freaks-threat-civil-liberties-reform
Despite that, and maybe if it’s because I have my Christian head on, caring society versus unfettered libertarianism causing harm, but I can see the good in the Tory governments controversial proposal - that is, if someone has an addiction problem, spiralling into debt destruction of their life and one life touches so many others, why would you want to take more money off them?
Please correct me where got this wrong.
Rishi Sunak Red Wall Net Approval Rating (5 Feb.):
Disapprove: 46% (+4)
Approve: 23% (-1)
Net: -23% (-5)
Changes +/- 23 Jan.
At this moment, which of the following do Red Wall voters think would be the better PM for the UK? (5 February)
Keir Starmer 40% (-3)
Rishi Sunak 31% (-2)
Don't Know 29% (+5)
Changes +/- 23 January
Actually God made Adam and Judith, out of clay at about the same time? So maybe God is a mixture of both, made from clay himself and hermaphrodite? The fact Judith and Adam didn’t hit it off as she wouldn’t be subservient to him might indicate important struggle in God himself?
Who knows till God reveals the answer 🤷♀️
Outlaw the bookie’s edge.
The existence of the zero on the roulette wheel is the original sin from which much evil flows.
God made ordinary man, to take the rubbish out, then man+ to do everything else.
Funny old Otherworld.
Why do you need more than that?
The vulnerable should be protected. This protects only the bookmakers.
So if you are still calling it hung, you are calling Tories managing some good swingback?
If "they" really need to ban games for problem gamblers then do it for FOBTs and things like that where the edge isn't a matter of opinion, but is a mathematical certainty. Of course this probably means that the problem gamblers will lose their money even quicker to those taking the other side of their markets, but at least they have a chance...
I’m sure it was on my Vimeo account I watched it. Though can’t find it now.
https://vimeo.com/158378752
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64561868
It’s tragic the Tory government has stooped this low.
I’m generally pretty hot on law and order stuff: violence, sexual crimes, fraud, robbery/burglary etc, the police/criminal justice system should be properly resourced and given enhanced legal backing imo - but this public order bill stinks.
It’s easy, cheap, partisan, grandstanding, performative politics.
Do the hard stuff, properly, please.
That’s what I ask of my government.
He’s a smart guy who spent a long time at a high level inside the system. He must have lots of well thought through ideas for how to get the system working.
Let’s imagine a counter-factual in which a the HoL was elected “mid-term”. If said election had taken place late 2021 the Conservatives would likely have a majority and this bullshit bill would have passed.
Those thrifty b’stards over at money saving expert have figured out a way of scamming money out of yougov!
Serves yougov right for being creepy as fk with their business model. They really need to be regulated if they’re going to do this sort of shite.
It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable open banking scandals become public knowledge, I recon.
Data leakage of highly sensitive info to people who don’t have your best interests at heart…
The problem the Government has had up to now is they have nothing to attack Starmer on. He is just floating around looking moderate and reasonable while the Government screws everything up.
Well this looks like their first big chance. The public do not support roads being blocked stopping people going to work and taking their kids to school. Let alone stopping people getting to hospital appointments and blocking ambulances.
So the Government needs now needs to go on the attack - and get the tabloids to lead with headlines such as "Starmer supports protestors blocking roads / ambulances" etc.
Of course the political elite will hate it - but it's the sort of issue which will cut through with the public. It's a bit like the small boats issue.
Will the regulators 'really' take a stance on this?
Or will corrupt money do the talking?
I fear the latter.
https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/russia-population-historic-decline-emigration-war-plunging-birth-rate-form-perfect-storm/
Russia's population reached "145.1 million on Aug. 1, a fall of 475,500 since the start of the year and down from 148.3 million in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed."
Many others have similar stories.
The propensity of this Government, and probably if I'm honest any party of power, to restrict freedoms is chilling.
So don't be so sure @MikeL that the public are on the side of the Government, who are the real elite by the way. We all saw what happened when police have too much power. Not to mention the appalling stories emerging now about the corruption, misogyny, violence barely concealed in their ranks.
We need to protect our rights to protest. Period.
Essentially 4 types of population pattern around the world leading up to mid century:
1. Massive growth in sub Saharan Africa especially in working age populations. Have we quite clocked yet that, for example, the West African randstadt from Lagos to Abidjan is going to become the biggest population concentration in the world?
2. Slow peak and then flattening in South Asia, Middle East and Latam with the beginnings of ageing populations
3. Roughly flat to slightly declining populations in those Western and East Asian countries with significant immigration
4. Huge population declines across the rest of Eurasia, especially Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean
People want to retain their freedoms to do what they like. But they are happy curtailing other people’s freedoms.
Just like everyone says they’re happy for “the rich” to be taxed more but will never admit they themselves might be rich. Or they want more house building but not in their backyards and certainly not enough to reduce the value of their property. Etc.
That said I don’t think curtailing the right to protest has much political salience for the Tories. I don’t think anything does anymore actually. People have stopped listening to them in good faith.
Is there a wedge issue that could yet save them? Maybe if Starmer started equivocating on Putin, or promised a home building revolution across the countryside.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64562832
The MP was spear-phished into clicking on a dodgy document link and typing in his email password. Oops. On Friday the 13th, as well. The Russians had first taken control of one of McDonald's staff's accounts, from which to send the dodgy document (although even without this, they could have spoofed its source).
You'd have hoped that MPs (and former heads of MI6) would have more secure email systems, and would be better briefed about not falling for obvious traps, but apparently not. Several days passed before McDonald became suspicious.
There might come a time when Tories want to protest, and they need to remember that.
Seems taking off in freezing fog is OK and it’s landing that’s the problem.
Plus unlike other recent economic growth engines (with the possible exception of India) I could see West Africa starting to compete with the West for media and culture soft power. It has a more globally translatable, less insular or specific pop culture.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
Last night's State of the Union was no exception, even to the extent of deftly handling heckling from the mad fringe of the Republicans.
No way he's not intending to run after that address; "...let me finish the job...".
That’s selling your personal data to YouGov.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Civil liberties is something that administrations in office tend to be more cynical upon.
Doddery or not, for now he still has it.
In a combative moment filled with GOP heckles, Pres. Biden got Republican lawmakers to agree not to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations
https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
(Not that the Republicans will keep any such commitment.)
Ministers are planning on cutting HS2 services and train speeds in an attempt to drive down the cost of the heavily delayed project, it has been reported.
The government is said to be considering cutting the number of trains from 18 to 10 an hour and reducing the trains’ maximum speeds.
The Department for Transport has refused to rule out reducing the frequency and speed of the high-speed rail network, saying that they “do not comment on speculation”.
Pruning HS2 cuts short-term costs but loses bigger long-term benefits. HS2, which the government greenlit in 2012, was initially designed to run services at up to 400 km/h (248 mph). This was reduced to an average of 330 km/h (205 mph) and maximum of 360 km/h once contracts to build new trains were awarded.
It was almost as good as the one David Perdue had as Ossoff said 'it's not just that you're a crook, Senator.'
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
In fact they didn’t mention it very often; but we did!
"Part of the skill of SOTU is crafting lines where the other party either has to stand and cheer, or look like jerks."
Of course it helps when a number of your opponents are indeed jerks.
This has geopolitical implications. The moment of peak Chinese power is approaching. There will be a temptation to use that power to shape the future before the moment passes.
Rafael Behr
This reshuffle will make little difference: the country is going nowhere as the PM leads us further down an economic dead end
The drivers of Brexit can keep revving the rhetorical engines of sovereignty in celebration of their imaginary escape from Europe. That won’t get Britain out of its economic and strategic dead end. Then, eventually, when the passengers are sick of the pointless din, the choking fumes and going nowhere, the gears can be put into reverse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/08/rishi-sunak-reshuffle-conservatives-brexit
...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
As for the protestors blocking roads, they are morons. But the law already provides them to be removed. Which is why they get removed. So the new law isn't needed, a totem for morons to say "eugh Starmer didn't vote for this, now we have him" on GBeebies.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.