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A date with destiny, a place in history? – politicalbetting.com
A date with destiny, a place in history? – politicalbetting.com
Is Rishi Sunak using a crystal ball and the dark arts to select his most propitious General Election date? Maybe. Or perhaps he is using careful polling and political analysis to plot a comeback-kid route victory? Then again, he could be playing the Mr. Micawber strategy – something will turn up. Surely?
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Which means it would be 2 years...
The only thought on Sunak’s mind and the team of highly paid professionals and scientists around him, is to get the best possible election result from this year and situation.They know the only thing that can possibly do this is to win the battle of the campaigns.
Picking the most favourable backdrop of news narrative to campaign in front of is not only top most consideration on the list, it is the only consideration on the list, this longest serving lead table 100% does not come into it.
Do you actually believe this? Do lefty PBers really think Sunak and Tories think in this fictitious way? Are you placing bets believing this?
Silly, pointless header.
But it's not, because Boris got booted out for being very memorably shite at the job. The exact number of days he was very memorably shite is not memorable.
Sorry for the quibble, and thanks much for the interesting table.
On the substance, over two years does look like the only longevity landmark that may appeal to Sunak's ego.
Though I wonder if the long campaign after Boris's departure was so he could sneak above May in the list.
The only relevant question once a PM enters the final year is "If I call an election now, am I confident of winning?" If so, call it, if not wait- even if the situation is likely to worsen.
Hence December 19th, on the basis that even Today's Conservative Party aren't dumb enough to call an election where the campaign will have a Christmas break
I became somewhat politically and in conscious at an early age - about late-70s early-Thatcher. Partly through going to sleep with the radio playing from the age of about 11 (remember Radio Newsreel?), including World Service and sometimes even the foreign service of Radio Moscow.
One very formative experience for me was difficulty in getting to school because Arthur Scargill sent his mob of perhaps 1000-2000 flying thugs down the motorway to intimidate Nottinghamshire workers at Badminton Colliery. I suggest subsequent events including Scargill's campaign to make the NUM subsidise his lifestyle of the rich, and the looting of NUM Funds by a certain MP justify that evaluation (no names for OGH's sake), confirm that he was always a bad 'un - yet I find a belief in some that that behaviour was somehow OK.
I am always reluctant to vote for a party with TU affiliation, because imo politically-driven TUs in the UK are poisonous - and I can point at plenty of examples even after the TU reforms we have had, starting with McClusky and his cabal. I think I have perhaps only voted for Labour twice since - eg Gloria de Piero in 2015. But then much of the time I have only been offered a clown and a deadbeat as candidates, in Dennis Skinner and Geoff Hoon.
I don't buy the thing about "younger generations being more socially conscious" - I think that is a self-delusion that does not stand the test of history, and varies by area of society; I think it's fair to call society more individualistic now, and I am not sure either about "more environmentally conscious". It was the post-hippy or hippy-turned-practical generation that did the hard yards on much of that, and every UK Govt since 1990 that has been seriously building foundations for a greener future. Until Sunak & the current Tory leadership started burning it all down to save his butt.
Nor do I buy the thing about penalising working people to support pensioners, since pensioners have not had significant support - but perhaps I know more pensioners living on the basic pension than others here.
Current Tories? I am at the point of saying that I will never again vote Conservative, which is what I will tell Lee Anderson or his representative should they knock on my door. Translated into practice that is likely to mean 15-20 years (ie current generation of Tories), which is how long that type of resolution tends to last with me.
My reasons for that stance are their lost moral compass plus inability to govern competently in a post-Brexit environment. I'm still happy to support Brexit, as my main motivation is being outside the horrors of EU politics. I'd support single market without being subsumed by the political structures.
So my vote is available for Labour next time, dependent on getting a sane candidate. None has been appointed for Ashfield yet.
Nice, provocative header.
Thanks.
Quite amusing - it's AI generated and he's like Frodo Baggins in only having nine fingers. He is short one ring finger, which is perhaps why he doesn't feel bound by his marriage.
Or perhaps he's praying for a miracle.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-ai-praying-photo-b2307178.html
He had his chance. If he had governed well he could have pulled this back. Instead he listened to the numbskulls around him and spent all his time electioneering, hunting wedge issues and trying to appear anti-woke (whatever that is supposed to mean). So out of touch with both the British people and the nation's needs that he has only himself to blame.
A usually acute poster here questioned why any Reform UK voter would end up in Labour's column. Mr Sunak is reason number one. Most Reform types I know are not fans of Starmer but they actively despise Mr Sunak
You can call me MISTER BIG
The PM has enormous power and the position carries great privileges. Not the least of these would be contacts. There would also be quite simply valuable inside knowledge about how things work, and what things are being done, not all of them public knowledge. Kissinger wrote about this in The White House Years. HK exploited his contacts ruthlessly after leaving the White House, and although their value depreciated quickly they certainly enabled him to earn a few dollars before they became worthless.
Sunak will be in a similar position, albeit on a smaller scale (and I'm not talking about physical height). He will presumably be going back into business. Just think how many Boards and Worthy Institutions would pay good money to have his words of wisdom available exclusively to them. The longer he hangs on, the more he knows, the more his stock is worth.
I don't think he would hang on wholly for the purpose of longevity, but I do believe it would be a factor. If the polls remain bad, he can pass over May perfectly plausibly, knowing that another five months in the gig will do his personal prospects no harm at all.
As for the Tory Party, I doubt he gives a monkey's about it. His two predecessors certainly didn't. It chose him to extract the Party from the deep brown stuff which was threatening to subsume it, not because they liked the guy. The date probably won't make much difference anyway. Unless something very strange happens Tory prospects look bleak whatever date he chooses, so why not suit himself?
He'll go early if the opportunity is there, but otherwise he will be very happy to wait, until October at least.
Thanks Ben, for a thought-provoking piece, based on a perfectly plausible assumption.
As someone who complains regulary about generational unfairness (and "in between" the generations) I would be quite happy to see pension credit increasing faster than it has done to support poorer pensioners as long as richer and middle income pensioners pay more.
Though of course the bigger thing there is the US election. Not sure how you calculate whether that helps or hinders. Trump is so loathed here that leaning into a Trump victory and trying to tie yourselves to that is unlikely to be a good move. But Biden winning would be ridden on by Labour.
Ultimately, some may decide they are so screwed that trivial considerations do come into it. If they skip May and are still screwed by late summer you might as well string out your premiership a few weeks longer.
Nancy Pelosi: Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza "is Mr. Putin's message... Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see... "
A tragicomedy about the danger of a lack of self-discipline.
It could be the light-hearted counter to the full three part tragic drama of Donald Trump.
Though another fun header can be the very opposite, can’t it, about political history without self serving clinging on. through such black mirrors we could be even closer to the actual considerations going on, maybe?
Lord Finkelstein, who advised John Major, has argued 97 was a heavier defeat for hanging on till the bitter end. Learning from history, what can you see in those remaining months that can lead to worse or better results for your party? MarqueeMark seemed to agree with this, Dura Ace and Peter the Punter actually believes Sunak doesn’t care how many seats he leaves the Conservatives with?
The current Spanish government called one early whilst behind in polls, did that surprise you? they had seemed like moving towards end of their time in power, yet did better than expected, the result surprise you? What if they had waited - like everyone always does, apparently?
Now the what if. what if previous UK governments hadn’t waited, but called those elections that never were? Autumn 2007? Autumn 1978? and it worked for them like it did in Spain last year? Better results for the government, maybe leading to different political history altogether, like Lady Thatcher never became Primeminister at all?
what is the science and reason to waiting every single time? Or, instead, looking into the remaining months, what do you see there specifically to help you have a great campaign - for a government it’s getting attention off yourself and onto your opponents, the threat of the new, tap into the universal truth: who really wants change when it’s not absolutely necessary?
I’m sure the timing in leaders minds, and in the team around them, is based on how can we have great campaign.
At least it should be?
And has carrots on offer at 39p per kilo.
Now for those bewailing that 'nothing works', or at least that 'nothing works' in the public sector, might I suggest that a misallocation of funds could be playing a part.
This year the government is going to spend about £1.2 trillion quid:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45814459
About half of that going on Social Protection and Health and almost all of that going to either the old or the poor.
So those who want to increase spending on the courts or the passport office then make a case for spending a little less on the ever demanding oldies and poories.
The problem being that spending money on the courts or the passport office is less of a vote winner.
Asda is not broken?
The nearest is Rwanda, which is notable so far for not having happened. Rishi is just disappointing. He was supposed to represent the return of the grown-ups to Downing Street but with the faux Boris act he has chosen (or that was foist on him by CCHQ) he seems less an adult and more a teenage babysitter.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1751640126155870701
https://twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1751643183694647555
one of the biggest rate limiters to entrepreneurial progress in the uk is cafés closing their doors on weekends at like 3-5pm or not even opening on sunday
in the states you can be working in a cafe like 24/7
on the weekend, builders in sf work
need to start a proper café
Who has lost the classroom.
The tragedy is that he is so disconnected from lived reality that it is easy for him to believe the paper statistics and political spin. Of course services are good - look how much money he is spending. of course the economy is improving - look at the tax cuts. Of course people will appreciate the extra money for infrastructure and councils and childcare.
If Sunak had actually done that. Come in after Truss. Clear the decks. Promote fresh faces, apologise for Truss and try to fix the most obvious things while doing a policy blitz, putting together his manifesto, and going to the country within 6 months, he might have pulled something out of the bag. As it is, like Brown, it's now all bad options.
In both cases you have to think one reason that road wasn't taken is due to the personal risk (pretty large in Sunak's case) that the person in charge would be humiliated by losing after 6 months as PM. While going on for 2 years or so proved the worst of all worlds, as it's not long enough to properly fix anything but long enough for people to remember you're not this new face with new ideas, and blame you for said problems.
Any coffee shop would prefer to rotate the table hourly or even better every 40 minutes or so.
Unless the builders are likely to produce dramatically higher output per hour at the weekend, how would this improve productivity?
(I guess that the economy might benefit as a whole from building work being completed earlier. But if that's the case, then there's clearly a productivity benefitting boost from allowing lots of builders into the country to work.)
But let's go back to the cafe. The people working in the cafe are minimum wage. By closing at 3-5pm and not working Sundays, they will (mathematically and obviously) be boosting productivity of the economy because they won't be dragging productivity stats down by adding low Value Added economic hours.
Agree entirely with your voting intentions - Tories have lost my vote cos they are incompetent/stupid whilst Labour have lost it due to Brexit Referendum 2.
Lib Dems no chance.
I will vote Reform if Nigel takes over otherwise Green or No Vote.
I know a lot of former Tory voters like you or me.
FWIW I think Lee Anderson will retain his seat.
Asda IS broken https://news.sky.com/story/asda-reveals-higher-finance-costs-as-boss-defends-debt-structure-13034077
Misallocation of funds is absolutely right. This isn't "spend more money". it is spend it on things we need and stop wasting it.
Education and healthcare are prime examples. We don't pay enough and make working conditions hell. So people quit and roles can't be filled. So we need expensive temporary cover with money in the pockets of the spivocracy who run the temp agencies. Healthcare which cuts funding for anything preventative (cheap) and then has to do reactive (expensive).
This is 14 years into the experiment of taking only the cost of things into account and not the value. The change of government needs to bring a change in attitude.
Eat, drink, and fornicate, my PB friends
The Next Global War
How Today’s Regional Conflicts Resemble the Ones That Produced World War II
By Hal Brands
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/next-global-war
And Iran is mere months from nukes, and already has the missiles to reach as far as eastern Europe
Might as well get ahead of the curve and flatten Qom
When you open a new public-facing business you need to build a presence and attract people in. But you also have to balance costs and cash flow. Our business is lucky in that it doesn't need to pay rent. Or bills. Or wages. Yet. And we're still needing to balance revenue potential vs costs.
My brother once owned a cafe. Costs killed it after the local school banned kids from going out at lunchtime. And in January 2024 so many businesses have had to cope with huge cost inflation which they can't just recover by putting up prices. That is why they aren't open more - they can't afford to be.
Read up on the SME debt crisis...
https://x.com/haadka/status/1751550117575041408
While speaking to Somalian crowd, US congresswoman Ilhan Omar said
"As Somalis, one day we will go after our missing territories" in reference to Somali inhibited regions in Kenya and Ethiopia.
WW3 is now inevitable. Let’s make the first real move, so they have to break our serve
There was, according to the BBC, a row over umpiring.
Cambodia are apparently 44th and Indonesia 55th in the T20 world rankings.
Ref BBC Sport (Cricket).
Such a short memory, as I know only too well
‘Johnson Variant’, what a prat
What American casualties are these? I haven't heard anything.
I can see attacking US troops being popular amongst some of the more deluded friends of Palestine on here; unfortunately, all it does is create another escalation.
And now we are all being sucked into the ensuing war. And you know what, maybe it’s time. Fuck it. Duke it out. Iran has had it coming. I bet we can do them
US President Joe Biden says the attack took place in north-east Jordan, close to the Syrian border, suggesting the location was a US base called Tower 22, which is just across the border from the much larger US base at al-Tanf, in south-east Syria."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68121694
Otherwise he looks like a kind of mummified Jimmy Carter
Quite careful commentary from a 30-year employee of the DA's office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwis6pkk_Sk
Iran has just hit US troops directly, and killed several and wounded many
Is America a superpower or not? Does it just meekly accept this, or does it take on the mad mullahs in Tehran?
If Biden fails, then Trump will exult and taunt, and Trump will have a point. America was not humiliated when Trump was in charge. It’s an unfair point, to an extent, but it will work
That's your next PM, right there.
For those who think they will get something better than Rishi Sunak. Spoiler alert...
https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1751664293420863554?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
https://x.com/cheguwera/status/1751664299737596178?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
On Lee Anderson, I'd say that Ben Bradley is safer. So if Anderson survives, so will Bradley imo.
I really can't call Ashfield as I can't call the Ashfield Independents. Despite all the slings and arrows, they increased their seats at the last Local Elections. Some of their supporters are extraordinarily loyal.
Two factors are that there has been a lot of housing built in both Ashfield and Mansfield over recent yeas, and both are becoming to some extent commuter towns for Nottingham more than previously (via Robin Hood line light rai partially).
I would not consider Hucknall (southern end of Ashfield Constituency) to be a Nottingham suburb since they are also on the tramway network. Nottingham centric people voting in Ashfield. It is noticeable that house prices there have relatively increased by perhaps 10%+ over a period of years compared to similar housing stick *not* on the tram network.
A third factor is that our District Hospital (Mansfield / Ashfield borders) is now 600 beds and has 3000+ staff, which would probably mainly go against Conservative this time. Many live locally (inexpensive housing), but a small but not tiny number of staff I met whilst in there for 3 weeks last summer commute quite some distance to work there - I met ones coming from both Nottingham and Sheffield.
As for Trump, he'll probably claim they were attacked by Iraq and China and this shows that President Obama is unfit to be re-elected.
https://twitter.com/paddypower/status/1751665832017437147
I agree it's vanishingly unlikely that his motivation is "become the 43rd longest serving Prime Minister in British history". But I'm buggered if I can work out what it actually is.