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Johnson’s mayoral rule changes make a CON London victory more likely – politicalbetting.com
Johnson’s mayoral rule changes make a CON London victory more likely – politicalbetting.com
Speculation has already started about whether the Tories have a chance of regaining power in London.
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The solstice is not the beginning of the season temperature-wise, its a few weeks after the start of the season, which is why meteorological science has moved on from astronomical dates.
Of course if you're the kind of person who wants to measure the temperature in Farenheit, you might want to stick with the solstice, as that's how it was defined when you were a kid and why should anything ever change?
I'd maybe add another week of autumn, say winter begins late November rather than early November. Other than that its a pretty good shout.
Wineer 1st round 2nd round
2021 53.1 Lab 55.2
2016 55.8 Lab 56.8
2012 52.2 Con 51.5
2008 53.9 Con 53.2
So the change would have advantaged the Conservative candidate in all cases, but in no cases by more than a couple of points, in three cases by one percentage point or less and never by enough to change the result. We don't know how, if at all, people's voting habits will be affected by the change, but is they won't be because vanishingly few will notice and those that would probably wouldn't vote Conservative anyway.
“When fighters start suffocating & jump out of the dugout, Russians throw grenades from drones and launch a ‘meat grinder’ at the moment of evacuation"
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1700328921932222468
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1700268754423435460
Were Johnson's voting system changes just in London, or across the country in all Mayoral elections?
There are plenty of things they did just in London, such as expecting the car scrappage scheme to be covered from Mayoral funds, whilst elsewhere the Govt have contributed.
Not on PB.
1 - Being a Trump and Liz Truss as PM enthusiast.
2 - Scrapping ULEZ,
3 - Spend an extra £200m on the Met Police.
4 - "Extending as long as necessary" Mayor Sadiq's free school meals policy, which is funded by a finite windfall. Will require extra continuing revenue.
5 - 'Build more houses in the right places', but high density traditional not high rise. I have no idea what that even means in the context of London, and her previous NIMBY leanings.
6 - Rather strange interventions in local planning applications, again questionable wrt the Mayor's powers.
7 - Do a bundle of things that are entirely outside the powers of the Mayor, including building cycle tracks through Royal Parks and retaining 20mph speed limits on non-major roads, which are controlled by Boroughs.
8 - Move the "dangerous" Notting Hill Carnival somewhere else.
2 & 3 alone mean she will need to find an extra £0.5 - £1 billion from somewhere. Where from?
I'd love to hear about a rational platform, but to me she's currently the Dazed and Confused candidate.
Indeed, the job might well suit his skills.
The Tories are desperately trying to make ULEZ an issue, but it’s a core vote strategy. It won’t add much beyond it.
https://twitter.com/shockproofbeats/status/1567968956937375745?t=VkBL6C8e_s9sNQlsawRDoA&s=19
“I am entirely confident that we can win the next election, you had a sense of that just a couple of months ago in Uxbridge,” he said. “In that by-election, when voters were confronted with an actual choice between us and the Labour Party on an issue of substance, what did they do? They voted for us."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-fired-up-to-win-next-election-2fpgcmg8q
On topic- I wonder if the rule change is more about the provincial mayoralities, where the third party is strong enough that, once their second preferences are included, the result can flip.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23881410/fired-up-rishi-sunak-next-general-election-win/
Or what Neil Kinnock said in public/private in the run up to 1992
In both cases, private polling had told them what was going to happen.
It’s part of the “truths that can never be stated” in politics.
I don’t know how it works there internally but I guess it’s a group of long standing party members who simply just don’t live in the real world so they have a group of other like minded weirdos who put their names forward and they seem like good choices as it’s all they know.
CCHQ needs to bring in a wide range of new people from all backgrounds to make a panel for selections and someone like cyclefree to dig deep into any candidate before their name is put on any list.
Archer (selected but had to stand down)
Norris
Johnson
Goldsmith
Bailey
Hall
It's not a great set of standard bearers for what ought to be a high profile job with a lot of freedom to do what you like.
The reality is the question itself is inane, as we all no.
When I’m PM I will outlaw idiot journos yelling questions in Downing Street, or worse, plague them when they get home themselves ‘Are you going to do th3 washing tonight?’, ‘Why haven’t you prune the roses yet?’, etc
How many advisers have quit no. 10 over the last few years? Feels like a lot.
Then again, he’s hardly going to come out and say ‘that’s it lads, we’re more fucked than a horse in the Hebrides’ is he?
But, two points.
Firstly, the Lib Dems are showing their usual lack of imagination, wedded to a grand strategy that has been tried for 40 years and consistently delivers tactical wins and strategic defeats, preferring to concentrate on meaningless district by-elections at the expense of the big picture.
If they did concentrate on the big picture, they'd be throwing everything at London. They're currently polling in the mid-teens there in Westminster VI. That's a strong base. They're facing a weak Labour candidate and a Tory who centrists will recoil against. For 100 years, they never won an election bigger than Hampshire County Council (and that in NOC). Then, in 2019, they finished first in the whole of London at the Euro-elections. Their leader is a London MP. He should be their candidate.
But he won't be, which leads to the second point. It's a really good election for an independent to stand in. Livingstone proved in 2000 that an independent with sufficient profile and connection could stand and win. Again, chances are that they won't but in the absence of any quality party candidate, the right one could do it in 2024. Rory Stewart fancied his chances for 2020, before Covid put and end to those ambitions. He'd do well to throw his hat back into the ring for next year.
Still, I don't expect any of those opportunities to be anything but missed.
Note that the first date on which more than 5 Test matches have started in England is June 2nd, and the last date on which more than 5 Test matches have started in England is August 25th (with a 5-day match then scheduled to end on the 29th, unless it was held more than a few decades ago, in which case it would have had a rest day, and the final scheduled day of play would have been the 30th).
Group A - I already predicted NZ beating France and with nobody else in with a chance, these two teams go through in first and second place.
Group B - South Africa will be too strong for Ireland or Scotland. Scotland will give Ireland a tough fight, but Ireland will prevail. SA 1st, Ireland 2nd.
Group C - This is most unpredictable group - Wales will do better than some pundits suggest - with Wales beating Fiji, Fiji beating Australia, Australia beating Wales. It will all come down to points difference and results against Georgia will be crucial. I think final placings will be Wales-Fiji-Oz but you can perm any two from three.
Group D - Argentina are going to beat England in their opener tonight - and Samoa will also beat England sending them home early. Argentina Samoa will be a slog but Argentina should win and top the group, with Samoa in second.
QF1 - France v Ireland - I expect Ireland to keep their perfect RWC record and exit at this stage.
QF2 - South Africa v NZ - this will be closer than their recent meeting at Twickenham, but with same result. NZ on the early flight home.
QF3 - Wales (or Fiji or Oz) v Samoa. Again very unpredictable but think that Samoa's phyicality will edge it (irrespective of who they play)
QF4 - Argentina v Fiji (or Wales or Oz). Argentina to win this one.
SF 1 France v Samoa - Samoans will batter the French early but the French will eventually run rings around them.
SF2 South Africa v Argentina - Another tough match but South Africa to take it.
Final South Africa v France. Too close to call, but I think South Africa will beat France
Parties will do some polling in key seats, and may dig into greater detail on perceptions of them and others than published polls go into. They also canvass so get a broad impression when their vote is a bit softer than published polls suggest. But it simply isn't the case that, for example, Labour high command weren't surprised on the downside in 1992.
Take examples like the US Presidential election in 2016. Hillary Clinton had a seriously well-funded campaign which I am sure was not lacking in data. But their data was clearly as wrong as the published polls, since they wasted the late days of the campaign in states that weren't particularly competitive as it turns out.
The whole "private polling" as a higher grade of polling suggestion is for the birds.
This has wider implications. The voter objection to status quo in the UK is overwhelming. It is hard to think of a time when fewer people thought that then exercise of governance at any level, national, devolved (NI, Scotland anyone?), local (Birmingham?) was any good at all.
Labour will, I think, shortly discover the implications of this very soon after GE 2024.
Being in charge means saying no to people, including people who aren't obviously baddies.
Two thoughts for today.
1. Khan is not “hated”. His mayoralty just doesn’t inspire or interest many people
2. Private polling is just polling. It disent have some magic extra level of accuracy that escapes public polling. This is a polling version of that human tendency to assume the illuminati have access to secret information the rest of us lack.
Being a backbench MP able to spout off on whatever takes his interest is far more to his liking.
I do wonder whether the mistake in tone at Sheffield was a reaction to that knowledge.
(And the only poll testable for accuracy is John Curtice's poll of actuality on election night.)
There is sufficient voodoo in this without the meaningless word 'private'.
See site's raison d'etre.
I won a healthy sum betting on Johnson to win in 2008 following Mike's tips at the time.
Dr. Foxy, Communists being marginalised is an excellent thing for the body politic.
In that sense, no doubt Kinnock was prepared for a range of results. But, if he's saying he wasn't surprised that Major won rather comfortably with a margin in the popular vote of 7.5%, as he had access to a higher calibre of polling, I call BS on that.
However, he says he will definitely not be voting for Susan Hall either as she's 'repulsive'. Had the tories of chosen a moderate he would have been very tempted.
Make of this what you will.
A plague on both your houses?
That's about it.
The mayor of London probably has the resources and clout due to London being big and generating loads of cash so that if the mayor wants to do something new it will get a lot of coverage from the media and a lot of study from national parties where another devolved area might not.
It’s like me caring about UK politics - I can’t vote and decisions or the choice of government doesn’t affect me on a day to day basis but decisions made by the UK gov will have affects on where I live - Brexit had a knock on effect but we had no say or vote (which is fair enough) and if a gov came in and changed the relationship with Crown dependencies it would have consequences.
So that’s a long winded boring way of saying it’s worth keeping an eye on.
Or being the political figurehead and representative for London's Jewish community.
Morocco earthquake: 632 killed as buildings damaged
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66759069
And, yes, this is a political betting site. I place bets on people and places far away from my location. I made a big sum spread betting on Joe Biden when the market panicked over the Florida results. I've also made money betting on David Cameron, Brexit, and the LibDems to name a few.
The site is at its best when people lay aside their personal wishes and use their heads to judge correctly the way the wind is blowing.
When he did, by chance, end up in an office that brought a semblance of real power, he still preferred to use it as a bully pulpit rather than to address issues which as LotO he really should have but which didn't interest him (or, worse, where the obviously right response was one he emotionally recoiled against), and which as PM he'd have had no choice but to.
And could Corbyn do a worse job with the Met than other mayors have done? A thorough purge may be just the ticket.
Amanda Spielman would be an excellent candidate for Ambassador to Sol.
He said this because he saw the late swing in at least one last minute poll to Major.
Or should that be the late swing against Kinnock? Sheffield was excruciatingly awful.
I'm doubtful that will hold up to next May - campaigns focus the mind on the real choice, and Labour and Conservative have a ground game across much more of the capital than other parties. It might happen, but if the Lib Dem mayoral candidate actually gets close to the 16% he's at in the poll, that'd be very surprising. Similarly, will the Greens hold up at 9% when the Tory candidate is explicitly campaigning for what most Green-inclined voters would see as worsening air quality? Doubt it.
But I would actually contest that he really engages young people all that much. The British Election Study team for instance argued that there was no 'youthquake' in 2017, and youth turnout was down in 2019. There are caveats to making such estimates of course, it is not easily provable, but it still seems a more solid foundation than the counter, which is that young people on twitter and at rallies seem to like Corbyn, which means...nothing. Very political young people adore(d) him, is that sufficient in itself to mean he engages them meaningfully when they still didn't turn out to vote?
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/general-election-2019-turnout/
And since he is so ostracised from mainstream politics thesedays, for good reason, his voice even amplified by being London mayor is not going to carry much weight on anything national, as opposed to regional.
With Clinton, it seemed that she and her advisors were ignoring the polling. Instead they were running the campaign as if it was a triumphal tour of an revived rock band.
Now if he'd said, "Notwithstanding the polls, I think Major will win fairly comfortably" then that's an actual prediction and I'd give him some credit.
I'm not sure. I can't say that I've ever heard them singing like this before in September. I was sitting up in bed with my coffee thinking it sounded strangely like the month of May.
Corbyn may have been a disaster for the Labour Party Nationally but I could see him doing a decent job in the largely ceremonial capacity of Mayor. He's undoubtedly honest, sincere and hard-working on behalf of his constituents. At Council level I could see why he would be liked and respected.
As for the Met, sorting them out would probably be beyond anyone's capabilities. You are talking about decades of decay, and any remedies are sure to be opposed by the powerful Police Federation, once aptly described by Tony Blair as the strongest Trade Union in the Country.
Maybe as a bit of a Union Man himself he might have some luck with them, but if he merely declines to put up with their bullshit he'd be doing alright.
I no longer have a vote in London but Mrs PtP does. i'll have a word with her, if he stands.
Its a distortion that happens in almost every state and country all over the planet. So anyone who takes localised data without taking that into account is on a fool's errand.
London is productive in many things, like finance, but overall its not as much as the data implies if taken without a pinch of salt.
Since then, Boris was effective at making himself Mr London- less so at the knitting. Sadiq is OK at the day to day stuff, but doesn't project himself as Mayor
It may well be Centrist Dad speaking, but there's certainly room for someone like Rory Stewart. But the change in the voting system means a lot of voters will go for the lesser of two likely evils, rather than a candidate they like. For some, that will be Hall because they hate ULEZ. For others, it will be Khan, because Hall really is that awful. A breakout candidate might break out, but more likely, they'll be squashed like a bug.
I think it's out of a desire to believe someone, somewhere, is genuinely on top of things and can predict the way things are going. Sure, sometimes they will, but there are enough examples that parties get surprised positively and negatively by events that it cannot be assumed any private info they have is better.
His exact words iirc were 'But I just wonder. I wonder if when people wake up on Friday they are going to be in for a surprise'. This was after he reported evidence he had heard of a last minute swing back to the Conservatives.
Since he was the main ITV political editor at the time, that's as close a prediction as he was probably allowed to make.
Kudos to Martin Brunson I say.