A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Can't quite workout if he hit the amount at 2:59 or 3:01 but he's hit the £25,000 target.
I suspect the full £150,000 will be sorted by the end of the month
That was quick…
Not really - a lot of people are very annoyed with the way the Labour nominations played out because Jamie should have been one of the options except Labour's NEC vetoed him on dubious grounds.
And that was before Kim McGuinness was found to have published racist tweets...
Can easily see Jamie being North East Mayor but he'll have work winning the County Durham and South of Tyne votes.
I reckon he will get the full £150k by tomorrow especially as he has said anything over that goes to NE Foodbanks
'So: prediction time. I currently expect Labour to end up with 40-44 per cent of the vote, while the Tories win 31-35 per cent. If the result falls within those ranges, Labour will be the largest party, and has a 50-50 chance of securing an overall majority. However, these should be regarded like medium-term economic forecasts, subject to revision—and just as likely to be as wrong as the Bank of England’s recent inflation forecasts. Like economic forecasts, I shall be updating my predictions as the election draw near.'
Whether it's the great Kellner or somebody on here I'm never that bowled over by the above sort of thing. It's not a prediction at all. It's an artful way of discussing the election in a way that sounds authoritative and carries almost no risk of being wrong. You just keep updating your 'prediction' in line with the polls, caveated with the relevant error margins, and end up where almost everyone else is, never having gone anywhere exciting on the route there.
Not the way. Not for punditry and definitely not for betting. The way is to decide which of 2 camps you're in. Is this a sweeping change election where the Tories get their asses handed to them by the voters and the only question is the size of the Labour majority? Or is it a more workmanlike affair where the new boundaries, swingback, traditional distrust of Labour on the economy, lack of enthusiasm for them ('Starmer no Blair'), shy tories, tory campaigning prowess plus their media attack dogs, etc etc, where these factors combine to limit the Labour win to something wafer thin or to largest party in a hung parliament?
You have to jump one way or the other and you have to do this now (and be right obviously!) in order to secure big betting value. I've done this fwiw. I've jumped and where I've landed is slap bang in the 1st camp. Clear Labour win. Outright majority nailed on. More chance of a landslide than of a hung parliament.
Wishful thinking.
Starmer had a mare this weekend. If he can't think on his feet during a campaign he will shed the lead Theresa May style. The Conservatives' LauraK owned him yesterday. Blair was much better with Sophie Ridge.
I don't think so, Pete, because the bias I always have to fight in myself is the other way. The inclination to bet in a manner that will create profit if what I don't want to happen happens. The old 'emotional hedge'. Route to the poorhouse.
And Sunak's no Blair either, is he? In fact the only Blair is Blair.
Do you remember the shock on the morning of Friday 10th April 1992? That sick pit in your stomach when you realised another 5 years of Conservative Governments was in view. I do, so I am bracing myself this time.
And this next Conservative Government of controlled decline will be so much worse without the constraints of the EU to keep it in check. We will come out of it with the most illiberal and populist administration we have ever seen in the UK, and somewhere around mid 2027 the reigns will be taken over by Badenoch, Braverman or Jenrick. Brace, brace!
This is quite a revealing comment. You were quite happy with the EU as it enforced constraints on the UK that would not be democratically voted for by the UK. Surely that is highly illiberal?
I think you will find that across Europe there are much more populist and illiberal elected governments than in the UK.
By being signed up to EU some of the more illiberal populist nonsense that Braverman (in her dreams it would seem) might like to adopt into law would have been unavailable.
Reintroducing capital punishment for taxi- driver nonces or strafing the boats might get a cynical vote or two, but it would have been frowned upon by Brussels. Good old Brussels!
But, with respect, that answer is revealing of the problem so deeply embedded within what likes to see itself as the liberal centre-left that it doesn't even recognise what others can clearly see.
You're not making the case against these policies on their merits but would rather rely on external constraints to prevent their implementation. You assume that they're so self-evidently right that this isn't needed and yet also recognise that a popularly-elected government might want to do so anyway: there's a huge disconnect there. Inevitably, that situation also makes that external constraint unpopular, leading to a wider crisis of legitimacy for it and leaving the field free for the populist right to dominate.
All because you won't get down and engage in the debate in the first place.
With a (now) sixty plus majority, Suella can do what the hell she likes (so long as the courts can be cowed into submission). Take Rwanda. It wasn't in the 2019 manifesto, but she is going for it anyway. And if it falls at the ECHR what will she do? Take a parliamentary vote to leave the ECHR. I don't remember seeing that in the 2019 manifesto.
But on your wider point, "All because you won't get down and engage in the debate in the first place". If a policy panders to the basest idiosyncrasies of the most intolerant voters. "I'll support the strafing of boats because I don't like foreigners" we would normally expect our sovereign elected officers to have the intellect and calm reflection to filter out these base thoughts. But we have Lee Anderson. I'll try to engage with him, but I can't promise a positive outcome.
It's not a question of engaging with Lee Anderson; it's a question of engaging with the public and explaining from first principles why Lee Anderson is wrong. Enough of the hand-wringing: get involved - it's not someone else's* job. You can't just impose policies; you have to win the public over to them.
* Collectively. Outsourcing restraint to external agencies, particularly foreign agencies, is too easily seen as winning by cheating and enables the populist right (and, in other ways, populist left) to undermine their legitimacy.
FPT
I’m really struggling to find a way that Starmer is further left than Sunak. Fiscal reality means he cannot borrow, tax or spend more. He’s said this bluntly
He might - might - be more pro-EU but he seems so terrified of Brexit I doubt he will make any serious moves
His adoption of the “horribly Tory” two child policy means he’s very much in the Sunak zone on welfare. Wes Streeting’s announcement that we most not worship the NHS - it’s not an idol - means we might actually get more “market oriented” reform there than with the Tories
Ergo, Starmer could end up further right than Sunak, in government. Bit like that centrist El Salvador fella who turned into Franco (and is now enormously popular)
Fiscal reality does not mean he cannot tax more.
Now, he may say he is not going to do that but I cannot see how he avoids it. If he taxes the wealthy more, the usual suspects will bleat but ordinary Joe and Jane won't mind overly much.
It's Starmer's only route to making a difference, given he's not about to rejoin the EU.
We’ve already become a pretty high tax government under the Tories, so as to pay for our insane debt. Starmer might be able to nudge it a little more but I can’t see him moving dramatically. Wealth taxes are a disaster as Hollande discovered
Starmer has basically zero room to maneuver
Not quite true.
Labour have the option of a much closer, smoother import-export relationship with the EU, which is a strongly pro-growth position.
The swivel-eyed nutters in the Tory Party make this near impossible for Sunak.
So there's a key point of difference there (although you are right about the general fiscal limitations on Sir Keir).
How is he going to get these much smoother trading relations? Without ceding something dramatic?
He'll wait a bit, before conceding something dramatic sounding. It won't be dramatic really, because the Johnson-Frost approach was to grab loads of freedoms it's not practical to use. Sell it right, and it might even be popular. Talking of which,
This is just utterly ridiculous now. Remain ahead of Leave 55-31, and nearly a fifth of Leavers would vote Remain. You can't run a country like this.
I'm not saying it's time to rejoin, or even for a significant political party to talk about it. Or even the Lib Dems. But you can't be mentally healthy for a country to have a defining political issue that has happened, that is this unpopular, and that just sits there, unremarked.
It's as if an old English sheepdog has done a poo on the carpet and everyone decides to just not talk about it. If there isn't a Theatre of the Absurd play with that plotline, there ought to be.
The comparison with Prohibition that was recently shared here was interesting.
I would also note that polling in Czechia and Slovakia shows most think the split was a mistake, and polling in much of Yugoslavia shows most think the break up of that country was a mistake, but we haven't and we won't see any movement towards re-joining in those cases. I don't know that the same factors apply to the UK and the EU, but I don't know that they don't.
Perhaps it's just me, but trying to reunite Yugoslavia seems like a considerably more difficult task than re-entering the EU.
Of course. And there are parts of the old Yugoslavia that certainly do not mourn its passing, generally those areas that saw most fighting.
What I think neutered the push for Czech/Slovak reunification is that EU membership provides many of the same connections. Likewise, Slovenia and Croatia are both in the EU, with the rest of the former Yugoslav states in the process of applying.
The UK re-joining the EU should be simpler than these other nations reunifying, but maybe their experience shows that it is harder to put the pieces back together than it is to break them in the first place.
A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Yeah you definitely don’t want to touch one of those, if you come across it on the beach. One best left for the bomb squad, or whichever agency deals in hazardous material cleanup in that part of the world.
Can't quite workout if he hit the amount at 2:59 or 3:01 but he's hit the £25,000 target.
I suspect the full £150,000 will be sorted by the end of the month
That was quick…
Not really - a lot of people are very annoyed with the way the Labour nominations played out because Jamie should have been one of the options except Labour's NEC vetoed him on dubious grounds.
And that was before Kim McGuinness was found to have published racist tweets...
Can easily see Jamie being North East Mayor but he'll have work winning the County Durham and South of Tyne votes.
I reckon he will get the full £150k by tomorrow especially as he has said anything over that goes to NE Foodbanks
Hmm, rmeember Dennis Canavan. Sitting MP at Falkirk, got the black spot letter from NuLab when he tried to stand for the MSP seat, so went indy and held it then and till retirement with the highest majorities in Scotland, with abnsolute majorities of those voting.
A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Yeah you definitely don’t want to touch one of those, if you come across it on the beach. One best left for the bomb squad, or whichever agency deals in hazardous material cleanup in that part of the world.
I wouldn’t panic that much.
It’s probably not hydrazine. And if it is, it is probably baked out. And rolling around in seawater should have neutralised any hydrazine anyway.
I just wouldn’t let the kids build sandcastles next to it.
Perhaps the most dangerous outcome for the Tories would be if they actually *held* one of the seats. They might conclude that things weren't as bad as they feared, there's light at the end of the tunnel etc. and decide to go for an Autumn general election. At which point they would be beaten to a pulp.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I think most of us are betting mostly on the markets, where you can trade out. Even then, discussion of value is tangential to trading. A value bet is one where the implied probability from current prices differs from your judged likelihood of outcome. A good trading bet is one where you expect the price to move in particular direction and bet accordingly. Sometimes they coincide - i.e. the market will move because the value will become obvious to others. A be can be value, a good trading bet or both (or neither!).
I've placed several trading bets in the past where either I don't think the odds are value or I have no particular opinion on the odds, but expect movement in a particular position. Two examples: - Covid restrictions - I bet against during a peak of cases, assuming (correctly) that the price would lengthen when cases inevitably subsided - Petrol exceeding £2/litre - I bet against when the first news of falling oil prices was coming through, but hadn't yet fed through to retail (Generally though, even for a trading bet, I look for underlying value unless I'm very confident the market will move in the way I'm expecting)
A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Yeah you definitely don’t want to touch one of those, if you come across it on the beach. One best left for the bomb squad, or whichever agency deals in hazardous material cleanup in that part of the world.
I wouldn’t panic that much.
It’s probably not hydrazine. And if it is, it is probably baked out. And rolling around in seawater should have neutralised any hydrazine anyway.
I just wouldn’t let the kids build sandcastles next to it.
Not been rolling around that much - thjere is a very clear waterline of epifauna, looking like weed at the top and goose barnacles over most of it. I was puzzled by the asymmetry till I realised the uneven damage was probably causing a preferential list to one side. And the buoyancy suggests that a tank remains intact and the interior may be out of contact with seawater.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
The Tories are defending a 20k majority against Labour. That's a scale of majority I don't think Labour's ever overturned at a by-election. True, much of that is down to chance: where by-elections come up, in what circumstances and who the main opponent to the Tories is. And yes, of course it's possible, particularly with the polls as they are now and were in 2019, but an 87% chance of it - 7 shots in 8? No, not that likely.
Perhaps the most dangerous outcome for the Tories would be if they actually *held* one of the seats. They might conclude that things weren't as bad as they feared, there's light at the end of the tunnel etc. and decide to go for an Autumn general election. At which point they would be beaten to a pulp.
I doubt very much that they will go early, but if they do it will be because they have judged (rightly or wrongly) that they will be beaten to an even softer pulp if they delay. Given the economic outlook, that wouldn't be an obviously outlandish view, but in practice politicians generally hold on when things look dire, in the hope that something will turn up (and because the PM won't want to go down in history as having lasted such a short time).
Perhaps the most dangerous outcome for the Tories would be if they actually *held* one of the seats. They might conclude that things weren't as bad as they feared, there's light at the end of the tunnel etc. and decide to go for an Autumn general election. At which point they would be beaten to a pulp.
A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Yeah you definitely don’t want to touch one of those, if you come across it on the beach. One best left for the bomb squad, or whichever agency deals in hazardous material cleanup in that part of the world.
I wouldn’t panic that much.
It’s probably not hydrazine. And if it is, it is probably baked out. And rolling around in seawater should have neutralised any hydrazine anyway.
I just wouldn’t let the kids build sandcastles next to it.
It’s probably not the hypergolic rocket fuel, and even if it is, it’s probably not there any more…
No thanks, I’ll not be going within half a mile of it!
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Yes, that one. They might be used to it; that doesn't mean they'll have come to like it in places like Uxbridge.
Well we got used the existing scheme PDQ. This is merely an expansion of a programme that has been up and running inside the north and south circs for 19 months – a fact that seems to have been lost on many.
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Yes, that one. They might be used to it; that doesn't mean they'll have come to like it in places like Uxbridge.
They will have discovered by then that 85-90% or more of car owners, which is about 1/3 of the population are not affected by it. ie 10-15% of approx 2.6 million people will be affected.
"The Labour party is delighted that local party members have selected Kim McGuinness as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on delivering for working people, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard.
Translation
The Labour Party NEC is delighted to have imposed a Socialist free long list for members to chose from as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on factionalism, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard if they are Socialists. Centrists of course are not held to the same standard and even racist tweets are acceptable as long as they fit within the hierarchy of racism of SKS's Party
What percentage of your posts lack the initialism SKS?
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Only another 300 Nick Ferrari phone-ins on Ulez to go before the elections in that case.
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
It looks like something out of SciFi - it will sell in huge numbers, will make a bucket of profit per vehicle unlike the other EV pickups and once again make a mess of legacy car manufacturers.
This train is stopping at EVERY SINGLE STATION en route to krakow. As I stand here, miserable, by the reeking khaki.
It’s a tiny glimpse of what it was like on the cattle trucks to Auschwitz. Except, arguably, WORSE - coz at least those trains went direct and were airier
Please show a photo so we can share your suffering.
If only the Germans had a word for schadenfreude.
I’ve managed to squeeze into a corridor
There seems to be a dead body in the nearest compartment - maybe de-training that would ease the smell and afford you a seat?
Unless, of course, you're going all Jeremy Corbyn on us and there are in fact plenty of seats elsewhere
Politics of “too many young people going to university” a bit surprising. Our Loyal National (more Red Wall) segment among most likely to say too few/right numbers going whereas Established Liberal (Cameronite/Blue Wall) among most likely to say too many young people go to uni.
Presumably a similar mechanism to grammar schools- those who are confident that their children/grandchildren will still get to go like the idea of selective academic education.
Surprisingly not as many people mentioned ULEZ without us prompting. One woman was more worried about the cost of childcare.
99% of the whines I hear about the Ulez-x are not from the people of outer London, the place where I live, but from the bumpkins on PB, who are seemly bizarrely obsessed with a policy that won't affect them (as they are allergic to That London and only visit it when the alternative is death or lifelong poverty).
'So: prediction time. I currently expect Labour to end up with 40-44 per cent of the vote, while the Tories win 31-35 per cent. If the result falls within those ranges, Labour will be the largest party, and has a 50-50 chance of securing an overall majority. However, these should be regarded like medium-term economic forecasts, subject to revision—and just as likely to be as wrong as the Bank of England’s recent inflation forecasts. Like economic forecasts, I shall be updating my predictions as the election draw near.'
Whether it's the great Kellner or somebody on here I'm never that bowled over by the above sort of thing. It's not a prediction at all. It's an artful way of discussing the election in a way that sounds authoritative and carries almost no risk of being wrong. You just keep updating your 'prediction' in line with the polls, caveated with the relevant error margins, and end up where almost everyone else is, never having gone anywhere exciting on the route there.
Not the way. Not for punditry and definitely not for betting. The way is to decide which of 2 camps you're in. Is this a sweeping change election where the Tories get their asses handed to them by the voters and the only question is the size of the Labour majority? Or is it a more workmanlike affair where the new boundaries, swingback, traditional distrust of Labour on the economy, lack of enthusiasm for them ('Starmer no Blair'), shy tories, tory campaigning prowess plus their media attack dogs, etc etc, where these factors combine to limit the Labour win to something wafer thin or to largest party in a hung parliament?
You have to jump one way or the other and you have to do this now (and be right obviously!) in order to secure big betting value. I've done this fwiw. I've jumped and where I've landed is slap bang in the 1st camp. Clear Labour win. Outright majority nailed on. More chance of a landslide than of a hung parliament.
Wishful thinking.
Starmer had a mare this weekend. If he can't think on his feet during a campaign he will shed the lead Theresa May style. The Conservatives' LauraK owned him yesterday. Blair was much better with Sophie Ridge.
I don't think so, Pete, because the bias I always have to fight in myself is the other way. The inclination to bet in a manner that will create profit if what I don't want to happen happens. The old 'emotional hedge'. Route to the poorhouse.
And Sunak's no Blair either, is he? In fact the only Blair is Blair.
Do you remember the shock on the morning of Friday 10th April 1992? That sick pit in your stomach when you realised another 5 years of Conservative Governments was in view. I do, so I am bracing myself this time.
And this next Conservative Government of controlled decline will be so much worse without the constraints of the EU to keep it in check. We will come out of it with the most illiberal and populist administration we have ever seen in the UK, and somewhere around mid 2027 the reigns will be taken over by Badenoch, Braverman or Jenrick. Brace, brace!
This is quite a revealing comment. You were quite happy with the EU as it enforced constraints on the UK that would not be democratically voted for by the UK. Surely that is highly illiberal?
I think you will find that across Europe there are much more populist and illiberal elected governments than in the UK.
By being signed up to EU some of the more illiberal populist nonsense that Braverman (in her dreams it would seem) might like to adopt into law would have been unavailable.
Reintroducing capital punishment for taxi- driver nonces or strafing the boats might get a cynical vote or two, but it would have been frowned upon by Brussels. Good old Brussels!
But, with respect, that answer is revealing of the problem so deeply embedded within what likes to see itself as the liberal centre-left that it doesn't even recognise what others can clearly see.
You're not making the case against these policies on their merits but would rather rely on external constraints to prevent their implementation. You assume that they're so self-evidently right that this isn't needed and yet also recognise that a popularly-elected government might want to do so anyway: there's a huge disconnect there. Inevitably, that situation also makes that external constraint unpopular, leading to a wider crisis of legitimacy for it and leaving the field free for the populist right to dominate.
All because you won't get down and engage in the debate in the first place.
With a (now) sixty plus majority, Suella can do what the hell she likes (so long as the courts can be cowed into submission). Take Rwanda. It wasn't in the 2019 manifesto, but she is going for it anyway. And if it falls at the ECHR what will she do? Take a parliamentary vote to leave the ECHR. I don't remember seeing that in the 2019 manifesto.
But on your wider point, "All because you won't get down and engage in the debate in the first place". If a policy panders to the basest idiosyncrasies of the most intolerant voters. "I'll support the strafing of boats because I don't like foreigners" we would normally expect our sovereign elected officers to have the intellect and calm reflection to filter out these base thoughts. But we have Lee Anderson. I'll try to engage with him, but I can't promise a positive outcome.
It's not a question of engaging with Lee Anderson; it's a question of engaging with the public and explaining from first principles why Lee Anderson is wrong. Enough of the hand-wringing: get involved - it's not someone else's* job. You can't just impose policies; you have to win the public over to them.
* Collectively. Outsourcing restraint to external agencies, particularly foreign agencies, is too easily seen as winning by cheating and enables the populist right (and, in other ways, populist left) to undermine their legitimacy.
FPT
I’m really struggling to find a way that Starmer is further left than Sunak. Fiscal reality means he cannot borrow, tax or spend more. He’s said this bluntly
He might - might - be more pro-EU but he seems so terrified of Brexit I doubt he will make any serious moves
His adoption of the “horribly Tory” two child policy means he’s very much in the Sunak zone on welfare. Wes Streeting’s announcement that we most not worship the NHS - it’s not an idol - means we might actually get more “market oriented” reform there than with the Tories
Ergo, Starmer could end up further right than Sunak, in government. Bit like that centrist El Salvador fella who turned into Franco (and is now enormously popular)
I really don't think so. Team Starmer has 3 priorities. Win the election. Win the election. Win the election. It's almost in the bag but it isn't quite; and the only serious risk is that the traditional attack lines of the Tories and their media enablers (Labour can't be trusted on the economy, Labour are soft on immigration, Labour sneer at traditional values, Labour aren't patriotic, Labour are against aspiration la di da) will again have resonance and be enough to prevent the party turning its polling lead into votes and seats.
The strategy (being followed with monomaniacal discipline) is to neutralize all of these attack lines in advance, de-risk the election, leave the Tories with nothing to get their teeth into, force them to run on their record and - sure as eggs - lose. We'll find out how Starmer will govern when he's governing and although there'll be no big scary lurch left it's incredibly unlikely it won't be distinctly left of the Conservative Party, esp this Conservative Party.
So I'm sorry Leon but a Labour government is coming and, no, it won't be like your preferred Tory one. You will notice a change, it won't be to your taste, and you'll have to grin and bear it.
At what point do I say the Tories are going to win? Nowhere
So that was ten minutes of your life wasted. As to how he’s going to be further left, you notably don’t spell it out. Because this is already a left wing government
I suppose he could authorise trans surgeries for kids age 8
Lol, this isn't a left wing government, Leon. C'mon. Only a ridiculously extreme right winger could view them like that - and this is not you so I conclude you're kidding. Chuckle again for the road.
And I was opposing your view that Labour will be to the right of the Tories when they win. I know you're not predicting an actual win for the *real* Tories! Only fools and horses and Mexican Pete are predicting a Tory win at the election (and Pete doesn't really mean it, it's his 'insulate against misery' technique).
But, yes, like you hint, the only way for Labour to blow it would be for Starmer to go toto in a high profile tv interview:
"We have here live in the studio the Labour leader Keir Starmer, the man seeking to be our next Prime Minister."
"It's SIR Keir."
"I do apologize. So Sir Keir, thank you for joining us."
"Sure. But can we make this quick. I'm a busy man."
"Ok, question number one. Perhaps the most important question facing the country today in the eyes of the public. Can a woman have a penis?"
"Yep. Very much so. In fact I prefer it when they do."
Something like this could still derail things. But will it happen? The smart money says not.
Us mere mortals make-do with the suit we got from Debenhams decades ago. On those unfortunate occasions that I have to wear a suit..
You seem to spend a great deal of time and energy explaining on here just how proudly scruffy you are.
What makes you think anyone cares?
Do I? I think the only time I've mentioned it was above, and in response to Miss Free's rather interesting comments on her views.
Can you point out where else I've mentioned it, or is this another of your pointless rando attacks on me?
If the latter, get a life.
You seem to be forever blithering on about your being a sweaty beardy bloke who smells a bit, and runs seven ultra-marathons every weekday.
I recall a recent post where you claimed that women found your scruffiness attractive, which might be true. Who am I to question you?
(Weird like from 'JohnO' by the way)
"I recall a recent post where you claimed that women found your scruffiness attractive,"
You definitely recall incorrectly.
But this is something I believe quite firmly in: judging the value, or worth, of someone by their clothing or appearance is stupid. You have no idea *why* someone might be dishevelled, and judging them solely on that criteria is not good in most situations.
As an example; I used to interview students for placements, and graduates for full-time jobs. Most would turn up in ill-fitting suits, as befits the young. A few would turn up in smartish casuals, because they could not afford a suit.
As I recall, I saw *zero* difference in the capabilities between those who wore suits, and those who did not.
Perhaps the most dangerous outcome for the Tories would be if they actually *held* one of the seats. They might conclude that things weren't as bad as they feared, there's light at the end of the tunnel etc. and decide to go for an Autumn general election. At which point they would be beaten to a pulp.
If they hold one of the seats, it still means they've either lost Selby & Ainsty or Somerton & Frome, both of which have majorities in the ballpark of 20k. That's not exactly election-launching popularity.
This train is stopping at EVERY SINGLE STATION en route to krakow. As I stand here, miserable, by the reeking khaki.
It’s a tiny glimpse of what it was like on the cattle trucks to Auschwitz. Except, arguably, WORSE - coz at least those trains went direct and were airier
Please show a photo so we can share your suffering.
If only the Germans had a word for schadenfreude.
I’ve managed to squeeze into a corridor
There seems to be a dead body in the nearest compartment - maybe de-training that would ease the smell and afford you a seat?
A fuel tank. They often survive re-entry - even a full re-entry from a satellite.
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
Yeah you definitely don’t want to touch one of those, if you come across it on the beach. One best left for the bomb squad, or whichever agency deals in hazardous material cleanup in that part of the world.
I wouldn’t panic that much.
It’s probably not hydrazine. And if it is, it is probably baked out. And rolling around in seawater should have neutralised any hydrazine anyway.
I just wouldn’t let the kids build sandcastles next to it.
Not been rolling around that much - thjere is a very clear waterline of epifauna, looking like weed at the top and goose barnacles over most of it. I was puzzled by the asymmetry till I realised the uneven damage was probably causing a preferential list to one side. And the buoyancy suggests that a tank remains intact and the interior may be out of contact with seawater.
If it’s been floating in the sea, waves will have been breaking over it. If it’s a re-entry, the initial impact will have taken it underwater.
The weed growth suggests it’s been in the sea a long time. The Sun will have baked it out pretty well.
"The Labour party is delighted that local party members have selected Kim McGuinness as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on delivering for working people, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard.
Translation
The Labour Party NEC is delighted to have imposed a Socialist free long list for members to chose from as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on factionalism, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard if they are Socialists. Centrists of course are not held to the same standard and even racist tweets are acceptable as long as they fit within the hierarchy of racism of SKS's Party
What percentage of your posts lack the initialism SKS?
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Yes, that one. They might be used to it; that doesn't mean they'll have come to like it in places like Uxbridge.
Well we got used the existing scheme PDQ. This is merely an expansion of a programme that has been up and running inside the north and south circs for 19 months – a fact that seems to have been lost on many.
The impression you get is of a government, who were intimately involved in both the ability of and imperative for mayors to do this sort of stuff, turning around, washing their hands of it, and pinning it on the mayors, in a wider forces of reaction, green tax shite, culture warrior take on campaigning, despite 13 years where their record is of doing some greening in precisely this manner. In other words it is nakedly facing both ways.
Worse still, locally, the issue hits a small number of people badly, with some mitigations in place - its like would the Tories ever, ever lead on the child and young adult social care system, except by way of culture war.
But the impression is of a Tory party campaigning like it's Halloween night, sewing doubt and putting the absolute Freddie Kruger frighteners on innocent old people with perfectly compliant cars with Smethwick-like single issue glee, like one of those charities whose agents play on fears to swindle the elderly of all their dosh.
Surely, there is a danger not just of the Tories underplaying this issue, but overplaying it in a quite unpleasant way.
"The Labour party is delighted that local party members have selected Kim McGuinness as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on delivering for working people, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard.
Translation
The Labour Party NEC is delighted to have imposed a Socialist free long list for members to chose from as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on factionalism, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard if they are Socialists. Centrists of course are not held to the same standard and even racist tweets are acceptable as long as they fit within the hierarchy of racism of SKS's Party
What percentage of your posts lack the initialism SKS?
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
I would also note that polling in Czechia and Slovakia shows most think the split was a mistake, and polling in much of Yugoslavia shows most think the break up of that country was a mistake, but we haven't and we won't see any movement towards re-joining in those cases. I don't know that the same factors apply to the UK and the EU, but I don't know that they don't.
Agreed. The general issue is interesting too. Breaking up tends to be driven by a highly-motivated nationalist minority, with most people reluctant to get engaged unless they absolutely have to in a referendum. When things go wrong, as they usually do, there's normally a substantial number who would like to reverse it. If the split has been followed by actual war (Yugoslavia, Ukraine) with all the atrocities and tragedies that follow, re-merging becomes practically impossible. Where things have been reasonably civilised (Brexit, Czechia/Slovakia) maybe there's potential to reverse it in the long run. Is there any significant body in Czechia or Slovakia who would like to?
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Yes, that one. They might be used to it; that doesn't mean they'll have come to like it in places like Uxbridge.
Well we got used the existing scheme PDQ. This is merely an expansion of a programme that has been up and running inside the north and south circs for 19 months – a fact that seems to have been lost on many.
The impression you get is of a government, who were intimately involved in both the ability of and imperative for mayors to do this sort of stuff, turning around, washing their hands of it, and pinning it on the mayors, in a wider forces of reaction, green tax shite, culture warrior take on campaigning, despite 13 years where their record is of doing some greening in precisely this manner. In other words it is nakedly facing both ways.
Worse still, locally, the issue hits a small number of people badly, with some mitigations in place - its like would the Tories ever, ever lead on the child and young adult social care system, except by way of culture war.
But the impression is of a Tory party campaigning like it's Halloween night, sewing doubt and putting the absolute Freddie Kruger frighteners on innocent old people with perfectly compliant cars with Smethwick-like single issue glee, like one of those charities whose agents play on fears to swindle the elderly of all their dosh.
Surely, there is a danger not just of the Tories underplaying this issue, but overplaying it in a quite unpleasant way.
But it worked, Peter Griffiths won the 1963 by election.
Perhaps they will repeat that campaign slogan come the next election.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is @HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
I think he is on this but I still think Labour will win, just not as well.
Yes. Right issue for the Tories in the seat but wrong election. I think it'll play much better against Labour in the London Assembly vote. Whether it'll play *for* the Tories is another matter, though presumably only Reform offer much alternative on an anti-ULEZ platform?
What Assembly vote? Do you mean the one in May next year? It will have been in force almost a year by then. People will be used to it.
Yes, that one. They might be used to it; that doesn't mean they'll have come to like it in places like Uxbridge.
Well we got used the existing scheme PDQ. This is merely an expansion of a programme that has been up and running inside the north and south circs for 19 months – a fact that seems to have been lost on many.
The impression you get is of a government, who were intimately involved in both the ability of and imperative for mayors to do this sort of stuff, turning around, washing their hands of it, and pinning it on the mayors, in a wider forces of reaction, green tax shite, culture warrior take on campaigning, despite 13 years where their record is of doing some greening in precisely this manner. In other words it is nakedly facing both ways.
Worse still, locally, the issue hits a small number of people badly, with some mitigations in place - its like would the Tories ever, ever lead on the child and young adult social care system, except by way of culture war.
But the impression is of a Tory party campaigning like it's Halloween night, sewing doubt and putting the absolute Freddie Kruger frighteners on innocent old people with perfectly compliant cars with Smethwick-like single issue glee, like one of those charities whose agents play on fears to swindle the elderly of all their dosh.
Surely, there is a danger not just of the Tories underplaying this issue, but overplaying it in a quite unpleasant way.
But it worked, Peter Griffiths won the 1963 by election.
Perhaps they will repeat that campaign slogan come the next election.
I remember Ted "I marched with Mosley, you know" Attwell was very fond of using that slogan in Thurrock.
How on earth do people manage to unearth long gone specific posts from specific people? Is there some sophisticated search function I'm not aware of?
You just search on a term with the vanilla back end. It's actually fairly straightforward. And can provide multiple lolz. The @Leon Truss stuff was classic.
"The Labour party is delighted that local party members have selected Kim McGuinness as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on delivering for working people, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard.
Translation
The Labour Party NEC is delighted to have imposed a Socialist free long list for members to chose from as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on factionalism, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard if they are Socialists. Centrists of course are not held to the same standard and even racist tweets are acceptable as long as they fit within the hierarchy of racism of SKS's Party
What percentage of your posts lack the initialism SKS?
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
Yes, Why are these lying bastards lying to me? is not an unreasonable reaction to official Chinese data. But the forecasts with american data from good ole IBM suggest that it's bloody hot there atm
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
This train is stopping at EVERY SINGLE STATION en route to krakow. As I stand here, miserable, by the reeking khaki.
It’s a tiny glimpse of what it was like on the cattle trucks to Auschwitz. Except, arguably, WORSE - coz at least those trains went direct and were airier
Please show a photo so we can share your suffering.
If only the Germans had a word for schadenfreude.
I’ve managed to squeeze into a corridor
There seems to be a dead body in the nearest compartment - maybe de-training that would ease the smell and afford you a seat?
Actually what you can see is someone is in the middle of swapping out her face via AI for Liz Truss.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
How on earth do people manage to unearth long gone specific posts from specific people? Is there some sophisticated search function I'm not aware of?
You just search on a term with the vanilla back end. It's actually fairly straightforward. And can provide multiple lolz. The @Leon Truss stuff was classic.
Ha yes! I've just done 'muscle to fat ratio' and got a ton of old exchanges between me and an increasingly tetchy sounding Philip Thompson. What a brilliant function.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Ha, yes, quite right - important caveat!
The psychology of this is fascinating. I read a very interesting book recently on how we value what we have to what we might have differently, all illustrated with this sort of notional bet. I can't remember what the book was though.
How on earth do people manage to unearth long gone specific posts from specific people? Is there some sophisticated search function I'm not aware of?
You just search on a term with the vanilla back end. It's actually fairly straightforward. And can provide multiple lolz. The @Leon Truss stuff was classic.
Ha yes! I've just done 'muscle to fat ratio' and got a ton of old exchanges between me and an increasingly tetchy sounding Philip Thompson. What a brilliant function.
LOL.
What have I started? Will we be seeing the 'Guess Bozza's Weight' competition being revived on PB??
"The Labour party is delighted that local party members have selected Kim McGuinness as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on delivering for working people, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard.
Translation
The Labour Party NEC is delighted to have imposed a Socialist free long list for members to chose from as our candidate for the north-east mayoral election next year.
With Keir Starmer as leader, the Labour party is a changed party, relentlessly focused on factionalism, and we make no apologies that Labour candidates are held to the highest standard if they are Socialists. Centrists of course are not held to the same standard and even racist tweets are acceptable as long as they fit within the hierarchy of racism of SKS's Party
What percentage of your posts lack the initialism SKS?
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
Yes, Why are these lying bastards lying to me? is not an unreasonable reaction to official Chinese data. But the forecasts with american data from good ole IBM suggest that it's bloody hot there atm
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
weather.com is broken for me, but I assume it is using GFS. No question that it is hot, and not just there.
I just worry that there's a a bit of a race to show how bad things are climate wise without consideration.
Things are undoubtedly bad, but this is supposed to be a science.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Marginal utility.
One of those massively important concepts that lots of people don't understand.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Why the edit? 2/1 is value.
If you disagree, I would like to play a game with you...
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Ha, yes, quite right - important caveat!
The psychology of this is fascinating. I read a very interesting book recently on how we value what we have to what we might have differently, all illustrated with this sort of notional bet. I can't remember what the book was though.
Yes you can illustrate some good concepts with betting examples. Re this one, it applies in spades if you're dealing with other people's money not your own. Eg the 'big balls' of high rolling City traders - no, not really. There's more pressure on the cleaners at the bank they work for.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
I did the same train journey 15 years ago. On a train which looks quite similar to the one you are on, except for the fact that a) my betrothed and I had a compartment to ourselves, and b) very few stops. Still took three hours.
Now, I like a train journey. Looking vacantly out of the window of a train is one of life's pleasures. I even enjoy train journeys through Lincolnshire. But I came to the same conclusion as you. One of the least visually stunning corners of Europe.
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
Yes, Why are these lying bastards lying to me? is not an unreasonable reaction to official Chinese data. But the forecasts with american data from good ole IBM suggest that it's bloody hot there atm
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
weather.com is broken for me, but I assume it is using GFS. No question that it is hot, and not just there.
I just worry that there's a a bit of a race to show how bad things are climate wise without consideration.
Things are undoubtedly bad, but this is supposed to be a science.
Guardian is claiming Death Valley is close to the all time global high temp record
I don’t trust this record tho. I am pretty sure somewhere in the Aussie interior has gone way over the 53C record at some point. But there’s no one there to gauge it
For context Australia’s highest ever temperature - 50.3C - was recorded last year in Western Oz ON THE COAST
If it can get that high by the sea - imagine somewhere in a dip 200 miles from Alice Springs
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Why the edit? 2/1 is value.
If you disagree, I would like to play a game with you...
Ha, good spot. Just decided to make it more obvious.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
How do you spend 19 hours on a train through Poland? Last time I was there, I went border-to-border and it only took about 10 hours, and that was with about 2 hours in Warsaw. Although I did end up in Belarus, which probably isn't to be recommended* these days (if it's even possible).
That said, I can't disagree about the countryside.
* The gauge-changing facilities at Brest that you go through are quite interesting, in their own way.
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
Yes, Why are these lying bastards lying to me? is not an unreasonable reaction to official Chinese data. But the forecasts with american data from good ole IBM suggest that it's bloody hot there atm
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
weather.com is broken for me, but I assume it is using GFS. No question that it is hot, and not just there.
I just worry that there's a a bit of a race to show how bad things are climate wise without consideration.
Things are undoubtedly bad, but this is supposed to be a science.
Guardian is claiming Death Valley is close to the all time global high temp record
I don’t trust this record tho. I am pretty sure somewhere in the Aussie interior has gone way over the 53C record at some point. But there’s no one there to gauge it
For context Australia’s highest ever temperature - 50.3C - was recorded last year in Western Oz ON THE COAST
If it can get that high by the sea - imagine somewhere in a dip 200 miles from Alice Springs
Clearly this is a big deal. And yet emotionally, when it's an unremarkable 17 degrees and changeable locally, for the forseeable future, it doesn't feel anything like as apocalyptic as last year.
How on earth do people manage to unearth long gone specific posts from specific people? Is there some sophisticated search function I'm not aware of?
You just search on a term with the vanilla back end. It's actually fairly straightforward. And can provide multiple lolz. The @Leon Truss stuff was classic.
Ha yes! I've just done 'muscle to fat ratio' and got a ton of old exchanges between me and an increasingly tetchy sounding Philip Thompson. What a brilliant function.
LOL.
What have I started? Will we be seeing the 'Guess Bozza's Weight' competition being revived on PB??
- No, don't worry. That went with Phil. New Phil, new me now. More serious. More taciturn.
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
What's wrong with stating facts? It is normal for that area in summer.
I remember driving across the Spanish interior in July 1990 in the back of my parents' Austin Maestro in the days before air conditioning. God it was hot. Every 30 miles or so there'd be a shack by the road at which you could buy several litres of water, which would all have been drunk by the next stop. Never sweated so much in my life.
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
Well of course. Many Córdobans will be here too. There is a strong tradition of people from inland Spain , which for many , many years has baked in the summer, having as much of July and August on the coast to chill. I know it doesn't fit your desire to go all apocalypse now but no-one cares.
Yes. I note Aemet are issuing extreme heat warnings, but what do they know? Why not drop them a line to explain that?
They do that all the time like all other met agencies everywhere. It helps with the funding. They do the same in the winter when it's chilly inland. I'm still chuckling at the idea that 40+ for Cordoba in July is cataclysmic.
Yes. I have been to Córdoba. I am guessing you haven’t been anywhere much beyond the English and Spanish suburbs you have retired respectively from and to. So less of the stab at worldly wisdom, please.
What's your take on China recording an all time record on the same day Las Vegas equals its own? More chuckling?
That Chinese record is a bit odd. There is an automatic weather station but it isn't a national level one, so who knows what the calibration is like.
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
Yes, Why are these lying bastards lying to me? is not an unreasonable reaction to official Chinese data. But the forecasts with american data from good ole IBM suggest that it's bloody hot there atm
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
weather.com is broken for me, but I assume it is using GFS. No question that it is hot, and not just there.
I just worry that there's a a bit of a race to show how bad things are climate wise without consideration.
Things are undoubtedly bad, but this is supposed to be a science.
Guardian is claiming Death Valley is close to the all time global high temp record
I don’t trust this record tho. I am pretty sure somewhere in the Aussie interior has gone way over the 53C record at some point. But there’s no one there to gauge it
For context Australia’s highest ever temperature - 50.3C - was recorded last year in Western Oz ON THE COAST
If it can get that high by the sea - imagine somewhere in a dip 200 miles from Alice Springs
Australia turns out to be bad at dips - Lake Eyre is the lowest point of Australia (15m below sea level) it says here. Danakil is -125m Death Valley -86m Turpan -155m.
There's a lot of silliness about this sort of thing, the Worst Journey bloke (Cherry-Garrard) gets pissed off about people saying to him Oh but we've been in -50 C, it's fine (stepping out of first class on a Trans-Rockies train for 3 minutes and then stepping in again).
Rishi had a great week last week and Starmer hads had an absolute mare. Mick Lynch and Laura Kuennsberg both gave him the Huw Edward's trousers treatment.
Rishi had a great week last week and Starmer hads had an absolute mare. Mick Lynch and Laura Kuennsberg both gave him the Huw Edward's trousers treatment.
Sunak’s a dud.
Don’t misunderestimate lawyer Starmer.
Starmer leads Sunak by 9%.
At this moment, which of the following do Britons think would be the better Prime Minister for the UK? (16 July)
Labour 44% (-4) Conservative 27% (–) Liberal Democrat 13% (+2) Reform UK 8% (+3) Green 4% (–) Scottish National Party 3% (–) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 9 July
Deeply worrying poll for the Tories.
Labour lose 4 and the Tories don’t gain.
I'm sceptical about these RefUK shares. If they really are polling that well then that should show up in the by-elections.
Yes, by-elections have different dynamics but if you're going to vote for a protest party, that's as good an opportunity as any. Tactical vote considerations will matter even more come a GE.
A few people below (e.g. @david_herdson) commented that 87% is too high and 'represents value' for betting against.
From my punting POV I wish to beat windward against these winds.
Unless you are betting on the spreads, where you can trade your position, a fixed price bet against the market is only 'value' if you know something the market doesn't.
A 10% chance of winning a political bet does not mean that 1 time in 10 you will win your bet. There is no law of averages. Every time you bet you still only have, according to the market, a 10% chance. When you've lost 9 times in a row, you are no more likely to win the 10th time than 10%.
luv ya
xx
I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that if you think the chances of event x happening are 25%, and the bookies have the odds of that happening as 10-1, you still shouldn't bet because it's still unlikely to happen? If so, I don't agree.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
You are correct. If the chance of something happening is IYO much greater than the odds imply you should bet on it.
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
Yep.
Finance capital, aka the filthy rich always getting a return, will eventually go pop though for the same reason that martingale strategies in the casino don't work. Always bet on value...bet on value...oh dear I had to stake everything and look what happened.
Those who don't already know it may be interested in the Kelly criterion:
Labour 44% (-4) Conservative 27% (–) Liberal Democrat 13% (+2) Reform UK 8% (+3) Green 4% (–) Scottish National Party 3% (–) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 9 July
Deeply worrying poll for the Tories.
Labour lose 4 and the Tories don’t gain.
I'm sceptical about these RefUK shares. If they really are polling that well then that should show up in the by-elections.
Yes, by-elections have different dynamics but if you're going to vote for a protest party, that's as good an opportunity as any. Tactical vote considerations will matter even more come a GE.
Someone could start a book on how many constituencies the Refukers will stand in, or perhaps how many they will get their deposit back in. Can't see them making it to 100 deposits returned. They may not make it to 50. They're not UKIP and they haven't got a big issue the way UKIP had one.
PS Does any psepho-maven here know off the top of their head what UKIP's record was for the number of deposits it received back in a British GE?
Bloomberg reckons more people will gain from higher interest rates than lose. Added to which, average wage rises are on the point of exceeding the rate of inflation.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Except the Masurian lakes, the sandy beaches of the northern coast, Zamosc, the mountainous south, the Białowieża Forest and it's bison, Kampinos National Park, Sudety mountains...
Which is pretty regular for inland Spain any summer. It is many miles from the med where in my zone we are a pleasant 32 degrees, 10 miles inland.
Oh good. If you are comfortable that's the main thing.
What's wrong with stating facts? It is normal for that area in summer.
According to t'internet, the average maximum temperature in Cordoba in July is about 37 C, while the highest recorded temperature is 47 C (in 2021), so 43 C is quite toasty. AIUI, though, one of the aspects of this heatwave that makes it especially difficult to bear is its duration - day after day of very wam weather rather than a brief hot spell.
@HYUFD is tipping the Tories to win Uxbridge because of the Ulez-x.
DYOR etc etc
Is HYUFD considered a reliable tipster? Not, I think, on recent form.
It will be worthy of major bragging rights if it is correct, but it could be as simple as toeing the party line.
As it is, if the party lose all three it is simply as expected, and they have nowhere to go and no plan to get out of it (as they have not managed to achieve the things they claimed they were planning for).
Nice letter from the Tyneside mayor chap. Not too ranty, but still angry, but that that it is clearly only happening because he was barred makes the criticisms of the policy u-turns less cutting, since they would apparently have been fine to just moan about, had he personally not been caught up.
Bloomberg reckons more people will gain from higher interest rates than lose. Added to which, average wage rises are on the point of exceeding the rate of inflation.
We did this last week. Kinabalu and I argued for some time over it. I think our position can be summarised that you only gain from higher interest rates if you do not take into account your capital depreciating away. Which, as kinabalu fairly pointed out, many people do not.
Labour 44% (-4) Conservative 27% (–) Liberal Democrat 13% (+2) Reform UK 8% (+3) Green 4% (–) Scottish National Party 3% (–) Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 9 July
Deeply worrying poll for the Tories.
Labour lose 4 and the Tories don’t gain.
I'm sceptical about these RefUK shares. If they really are polling that well then that should show up in the by-elections.
Yes, by-elections have different dynamics but if you're going to vote for a protest party, that's as good an opportunity as any. Tactical vote considerations will matter even more come a GE.
Someone could start a book on how many constituencies the Refukers will stand in, or perhaps how many they will get their deposit back in.
They’re unlikely to stand anywhere close to a full slate of candidates, for a start that’s £300k in deposits they’ll need to find, so many of their supporters won’t even be able to vote for them in the first place.
Maybe 100 candidates tops, mostly in “Red Wall” areas, with a handful more in key seats such as against the other party leaders and a few other prominent seats.
Perhaps the most dangerous outcome for the Tories would be if they actually *held* one of the seats. They might conclude that things weren't as bad as they feared, there's light at the end of the tunnel etc. and decide to go for an Autumn general election. At which point they would be beaten to a pulp.
Well, that would mean they still acknowledging they think whilst it is not as bad as feared, it is only going to get worse, so it would still be an admission of pessimism.
Comments
You’d want to be careful - Mr Hydrazine is not friend. In theory a re-entry should bake any out, but there have been reports consistent with residual amounts being present, soon after landing.
What I think neutered the push for Czech/Slovak reunification is that EU membership provides many of the same connections. Likewise, Slovenia and Croatia are both in the EU, with the rest of the former Yugoslav states in the process of applying.
The UK re-joining the EU should be simpler than these other nations reunifying, but maybe their experience shows that it is harder to put the pieces back together than it is to break them in the first place.
It’s probably not hydrazine. And if it is, it is probably baked out. And rolling around in seawater should have neutralised any hydrazine anyway.
I just wouldn’t let the kids build sandcastles next to it.
I've placed several trading bets in the past where either I don't think the odds are value or I have no particular opinion on the odds, but expect movement in a particular position. Two examples:
- Covid restrictions - I bet against during a peak of cases, assuming (correctly) that the price would lengthen when cases inevitably subsided
- Petrol exceeding £2/litre - I bet against when the first news of falling oil prices was coming through, but hadn't yet fed through to retail
(Generally though, even for a trading bet, I look for underlying value unless I'm very confident the market will move in the way I'm expecting)
https://twitter.com/Psythor/status/1680949195530813441
No thanks, I’ll not be going within half a mile of it!
The number of potential «domestic» summer tourist destinations for russians is falling. With alarming regularity.
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1680951073572376584
I recall a recent post where you claimed that women found your scruffiness attractive, which might be true. Who am I to question you?
(Weird like from 'JohnO' by the way)
10%
1%
0.1%
?
The location is in the Turpan Depression, China's equivalent of Death Valley, and well below sea level.
But thats in Murica. Doesn't affect us...
Unless, of course, you're going all Jeremy Corbyn on us and there are in fact plenty of seats elsewhere
https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1680860391994191873
Presumably a similar mechanism to grammar schools- those who are confident that their children/grandchildren will still get to go like the idea of selective academic education.
99% of the whines I hear about the Ulez-x are not from the people of outer London, the place where I live, but from the bumpkins on PB, who are seemly bizarrely obsessed with a policy that won't affect them (as they are allergic to That London and only visit it when the alternative is death or lifelong poverty).
And I was opposing your view that Labour will be to the right of the Tories when they win. I know you're not predicting an actual win for the *real* Tories! Only fools and horses and Mexican Pete are predicting a Tory win at the election (and Pete doesn't really mean it, it's his 'insulate against misery' technique).
But, yes, like you hint, the only way for Labour to blow it would be for Starmer to go toto in a high profile tv interview:
"We have here live in the studio the Labour leader Keir Starmer, the man seeking to be our next Prime Minister."
"It's SIR Keir."
"I do apologize. So Sir Keir, thank you for joining us."
"Sure. But can we make this quick. I'm a busy man."
"Ok, question number one. Perhaps the most important question facing the country today in the eyes of the public. Can a woman have a penis?"
"Yep. Very much so. In fact I prefer it when they do."
Something like this could still derail things. But will it happen? The smart money says not.
You definitely recall incorrectly.
But this is something I believe quite firmly in: judging the value, or worth, of someone by their clothing or appearance is stupid. You have no idea *why* someone might be dishevelled, and judging them solely on that criteria is not good in most situations.
As an example; I used to interview students for placements, and graduates for full-time jobs. Most would turn up in ill-fitting suits, as befits the young. A few would turn up in smartish casuals, because they could not afford a suit.
As I recall, I saw *zero* difference in the capabilities between those who wore suits, and those who did not.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/17/starmer-could-soon-reap-what-ulez-has-sowed/
Something for everyone!
Here are some random snaps:
(Last one is my son, in case anyone was wondering)
JosiasJessop Posts: 34,939
April 24
Some ladies quite like slobs. Hence my success.
QED
The weed growth suggests it’s been in the sea a long time. The Sun will have baked it out pretty well.
Of todays posts 25%
Jamie O Driscoll has his campaign tune sorted.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=elton+john+i'm+still+standing
ability of and imperative for mayors to do this sort of stuff, turning around, washing their hands of it, and pinning it on the mayors, in a wider forces of reaction, green tax shite, culture warrior take on campaigning, despite 13 years where their record is of doing some greening in precisely this manner. In other words it is nakedly facing both ways.
Worse still, locally, the issue hits a small number of people badly, with some mitigations in place - its like would the Tories ever, ever lead on the child and young adult social care system, except by way of culture war.
But the impression is of a Tory party campaigning like it's Halloween night, sewing doubt and putting the absolute Freddie Kruger frighteners on innocent old people with perfectly compliant cars with Smethwick-like single issue glee, like one of those charities whose agents play on fears to swindle the elderly of all their dosh.
Surely, there is a danger not just of the Tories underplaying this issue, but overplaying it in a quite unpleasant way.
And if you place ten bets at 10%, yes, you would expect to win one time in ten, over the course of a sufficiently large number of bets, minus the bookies' overround, assuming the bookies have priced the event correctly.
It's just the same as betting on the roll of a dice. Being offered odds of, say, 33% on rolling a six is good value and worth a bet. The fact that the six is unlikely to come up is not the issue.
If your point is that rolling a non-six five times in a row won't make the sixth roll a six, well I agree. But I don't think that affects value.
Perhaps they will repeat that campaign slogan come the next election.
Either way, who cares.
edit can't make the link work. Search weather.com for Turpan, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12307001/Russian-fighter-jet-crashes-sea-pilot-ejecting-Ukraine-warzone.htm
https://twitter.com/tabouchadi/status/1680956658648842240
But still not beyond what you can afford to lose. Eg, if I pull a coin (not a trick one) from my pocket and I offer you 3/1 against you calling the toss right you should take me up on the offer and suggest a big stake. It's fabulous value for you.
But if I say the stake has to be VERY big, let's say equal to your entire net worth, now you have to turn down this great money-making opportunity because if you lose you're ruined.
This is one of the (many) reasons it's easy to make money if you have loads to start with - and so hard if you don't.
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
The psychology of this is fascinating. I read a very interesting book recently on how we value what we have to what we might have differently, all illustrated with this sort of notional bet. I can't remember what the book was though.
What have I started? Will we be seeing the 'Guess Bozza's Weight' competition being revived on PB??
I just worry that there's a a bit of a race to show how bad things are climate wise without consideration.
Things are undoubtedly bad, but this is supposed to be a science.
One of those massively important concepts that lots of people don't understand.
If you disagree, I would like to play a game with you...
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
Labour leads by 17%.
Westminster VI (16 July):
Labour 44% (-4)
Conservative 27% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+2)
Reform UK 8% (+3)
Green 4% (–)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 9 July
Now, I like a train journey. Looking vacantly out of the window of a train is one of life's pleasures. I even enjoy train journeys through Lincolnshire. But I came to the same conclusion as you. One of the least visually stunning corners of Europe.
Still, the cities at either end are enjoyable.
I don’t trust this record tho. I am pretty sure somewhere in the Aussie interior has gone way over the 53C record at some point. But there’s no one there to gauge it
For context Australia’s highest ever temperature - 50.3C - was recorded last year in Western Oz ON THE COAST
If it can get that high by the sea - imagine somewhere in a dip 200 miles from Alice Springs
https://earthsky.org/earth/australia-ties-its-hottest-temperature-on-record-jan-2022/
Redfield & Wilton
How have Britons' financial situations changed in the last three months? (9 July)
Worsened: 40% (-6)
Stayed the same: 39% (-1)
Improved: 21% (+6)
Changes +/- 2 July
That said, I can't disagree about the countryside.
* The gauge-changing facilities at Brest that you go through are quite interesting, in their own way.
And yet emotionally, when it's an unremarkable 17 degrees and changeable locally, for the forseeable future, it doesn't feel anything like as apocalyptic as last year.
Labour lose 4 and the Tories don’t gain.
There's a lot of silliness about this sort of thing, the Worst Journey bloke (Cherry-Garrard) gets pissed off about people saying to him Oh but we've been in -50 C, it's fine (stepping out of first class on a Trans-Rockies train for 3 minutes and then stepping in again).
Don’t misunderestimate lawyer Starmer.
Starmer leads Sunak by 9%.
At this moment, which of the following do Britons think would be the better Prime Minister for the UK? (16 July)
Keir Starmer 43% (+1)
Rishi Sunak 34% (+2)
Changes +/- 9 July
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voti…
https://twitter.com/redfieldwilton/status/1680973196072239108?s=46
Yes, by-elections have different dynamics but if you're going to vote for a protest party, that's as good an opportunity as any. Tactical vote considerations will matter even more come a GE.
Finance capital, aka the filthy rich always getting a return, will eventually go pop though for the same reason that martingale strategies in the casino don't work. Always bet on value...bet on value...oh dear I had to stake everything and look what happened.
Those who don't already know it may be interested in the Kelly criterion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion
PS Does any psepho-maven here know off the top of their head what UKIP's record was for the number of deposits it received back in a British GE?
https://twitter.com/mish_rahman/status/1680956067465797632
https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/spain/cordoba
As it is, if the party lose all three it is simply as expected, and they have nowhere to go and no plan to get out of it (as they have not managed to achieve the things they claimed they were planning for).
Nice letter from the Tyneside mayor chap. Not too ranty, but still angry, but that that it is clearly only happening because he was barred makes the criticisms of the policy u-turns less cutting, since they would apparently have been fine to just moan about, had he personally not been caught up.
Maybe 100 candidates tops, mostly in “Red Wall” areas, with a handful more in key seats such as against the other party leaders and a few other prominent seats.