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Analysing yesterday’s by-elections – politicalbetting.com
Analysing yesterday’s by-election – politicalbetting.com
"As every football fan knows, you don't win the league by a good result in February."Sir Keir Starmer says that despite Labour's victories in the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections, "we've got to fight for every vote". pic.twitter.com/Qz2iDv3O1B
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Which is more important to you: mocking astrology or getting laid?
The swing in Wellingborough would however see the Tories near wiped out and facing the trouncing polls showed they were heading for before Truss resigned. He will hope that was down to local factors and the Tory candidate being Mr Bone's former mistress and current partner. Despite Mrs Bone signing her nomination form as a loyal Tory I suspect she will not be too displeased at the result the voters gave her ex husband's lover!
On Topic, Rishi's problem is that he is having to do early term unpopular stuff (cut spending, raise taxes) as the countdown clock ticks towards the next election. Even if he were a political genius, that wouldn't be easy.
And, bless him, he isn't.
Surely some mistake? Putting a native swing of 15.6% into Electoral Calculus (i.e. Labour share up 15.6 and Tory share down 15.6) and I get a Labour majority of 254. What vote shares did you use for the prediction? Have I misunderstood something?
Fani Willis’ Strange, Furious Testimony May Have Blown Up Her Case Against Trump
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/fani-willis-testimony-conflict-trump-georgia.html
...Willis managed to put forth a set of fairly plausible rebuttals to claims that she violated any formal rules or misrepresented herself to the court. And yet none of her protestations could possibly inspire confidence in a skeptic that she should continue to lead this prosecution. Anyone bringing criminal charges against Trump is bound to face withering scrutiny of their professional and private lives; they must conduct themselves unimpeachably to avoid even a hint of bias or corruption. By failing to disclose her relationship to the court in the first instance, Willis did not live up to that standard. The consequences—for her case, for accountability, for American democracy—are already devastating..
..If this episode ends with McAfee disqualifying Willis from the prosecution, it will be a spectacular self-own and severely damage one of the most important efforts to hold Trump accountable for his attacks on democracy. The evidence against Trump, including a recorded conversation in which he tried to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the precise number of votes he needed to steal the election, is incredibly damning. None of it may matter, though, if Willis is disqualified. Yes, the bar is high for removal here: The defendants need to prove that Willis benefited personally from prosecuting them, or can be reasonably seen to have done so, in a way that will prejudice the case against Trump and his co-defendants. McAfee, a Republican appointee and Federalist Society member, conducted himself with great integrity on Thursday and did not tip his hand. It seems safe to say that the prosecution is already losing credibility in the court of public opinion.
If Willis is removed from the case, things get infinitely easier for Trump. Should McAfee disqualify her, it will be up to Republican Pete Skandalakis—the director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia—to select another prosecutor to take the case. While prominent state Democrats view him as “fair-minded,” there are already indications that Skandalakis may allow politics to interfere with his legal duties..
..Put simply, it would be extraordinarily easy for Skandalakis to make this case go away until November and beyond...
But probably I'm just harbouring the last remnants of a completely unjustified faith in human intelligence.
We, the Kremlin, would like to open a window for anyone concerned by his death to discuss matters.
19 April - Stansted to Santiago de Compostela
13 May - Biarritz to Stansted
For a grand total of £71.39
I have to fly Ryanair, but still.. I think it'll cost me about the same to get to Stansted and back by train
I'm planning to walk from Santiago to Saint Jean Pied de Port (about 500 miles, I expect) in twenty days, then to get a bus to San Sebastian for a couple of nights and lots of great food, then the last night in Biarritz
I'm only going to book the first night's stay
“Trump continues to side with Putin over our allies and our military service members,” she added.
Yet there is only one alternative government: Labour. And in almost every respect in which I think the government are wrong, Labour are or have been just as wrong or are wronger. Labour aren't going to invest in infrastructure in the north or grow the economy or control immigration or fight back against the lunatic fringes of woke or make our lives more pleasant in any way. The worst and most inept and most disastrous thing this government has done - lockdown - Labour were urging them to do more and harder.
So while I've no motivation for more of the current shit, voting Conservative might be the only way to stop what looks to me like an even worse option. That's the only reason I can see the Cons might still get votes.
Labour might, I suppose, possibly build more houses. That's one respect in which they might be an improvement.
(For the record, I'm still undecided on who to vote for.)
https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1758526405527421275
"Rishi Sunak has been warned by leading One Nation group Conservatives it would be “politically disastrous” to veer further to the right after two heavy byelection losses to Labour.
The prime minister faces a dilemma over his future strategy as the byelection defeats in Kingswood and Wellingborough showed his party lost votes to a victorious Labour on the left and insurgent Reform UK on the right.
After the results he faced calls from Jacob Rees-Mogg and the New Conservatives’ Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates to “reunite the right” and win back Reform voters, as well as those who stayed at home, to “the Tory family”. Cates and Kruger called for tax cuts, more curbs on immigration and welfare and a willingness to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, as the Reform party took 10-13% of the vote in the two seats.
But Damian Green, the leader of the One Nation caucus of more than 100 Conservative MPs, said it was wrong to believe the Reform and Tory vote could be added together, and called for the party to unite around current policies.
“If we attempt to become the Reform party, we will get the Reform party’s level of support,” he told the Guardian. “It seems politically disastrous to me."
As we used to say in the playground -Fight, Fight!!
Simple mistake to make to repeat the halving required to calculate a swing in the opposite direction.
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1758533282264686832
Tucker Carlson:
"Tucker Carlson, when asked about Alexei Navalny, opposition leaders and journalists in Russia: “Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.”"
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1758515284741173538
This may have been before today's events, but I don't think Carlson or many in the GOP will change their minds.
Dull but competent. Steal Starmer's "Mr Steady" costume, but throw in a small tax cut of some sort as a marker for a brighter post-election future.
It might have been enough. It would at least have limited the size of the coming defeat.
1. A fresh incoming ministerial team who’ve had several years to develop ideas and plans, and will attack their briefs with enthusiasm rather than cynicism.
2. A public mandate and a media (probably) ready to give the benefit of the doubt, which means any sensible plans don’t immediately get scuppered by politics, backbench positioning or opinion polls
The coalition had the same two benefits in 2010 and it meant they were able to get quite a lot of policies through in the first couple of years, for good or bad.
Always worth giving the other lot a go once in a while. It’s like a bowling change when you’re struggling for a wicket.
A pair of shorts, four t-shirts, sets of underwear and pairs of socks, a pack of hikers' wool (never used it before, but apparently great for blister prevention), my umbrella, Minirig speaker, continental adaptor plug with USB ports, a few leads, two USB battery packs, toiletries and one of those Apple luggage trackers so my Mum will know where I am
It needs to fit under the seat in front
There is every indication, stretching back well before the immolation of the green spending pledges to the refusal of Reeves to countenance any measures either to reform the state pension or to shift the burden of taxation from earned incomes to assets, that Labour are just another Conservative Party, almost entirely in hock to Tory voters, Tory interests and Tory ideas. Their offer for the next election will be a commitment to change as little as possible so as not to upset the winners from the existing settlement. A Labour Government is about changing the name plates on office doors and the bums on the seats of ministerial limos and little else.
Well, competence and common sense.
Come to think of it, competence, common sense and humility.
Among the things he lacks are such diverse elements as competence, common sense, humility and the ability to use a contactless card ...
The Opposition is rapidly evolving into an empty vessel whose sole appeal is not being the other lot, and hence we move on swiftly to the concept of Buggins' Turn that you promote. The Labour-Tory-Labour-Tory cycle, moving steadily further rightwards and deeper into poverty and decrepitude with every passing year, is what's going to land us with Suella Braverman (or worse) when Starmer fails to deliver anything of substance and whatever Conservative voters he's able to appease with a programme of unthreatening continuity get bored of him and go home.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/16/sunak-reform-labour-byelection-wellingborough-kingswood
Saved me from abandoning a long hike.
And take up no space on your bag.
If you are a conservative, you should vote Labour currently.
I'm not a conservative, but I'm wondering if the first point is enough for me this time.
In practice it doesn't matter who I vote for, as it won't affect the outcome of the election in my seat, and even if it does, the Tories will have lost so heavily that it still won't matter.
Though I'm not sure I'd want to rely on them in a crisis.
Place your bets.
Among the things he lacks are such diverse elements as competence, common sense, humility, the ability to use a contactless card, and friends.
Also, a sense of the absurd, any clue about how most people live their lives, any inkling that he has any inadequacies ...
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1758529385307488539
"I lived with bodyguards for four years, and I didn't like it, and I wasn’t going to live with bodyguards for the rest of my life"
The rule of law is in the balance at the next election.
But, a class act.
A statesman.
Re-elect.
Best of all, they look moderately smart when you're enjoying your evening beer.
* And if you go on Temu/Aliexpress, you can buy essentially identical knockoffs for about 80% less.
My personal favourite was that the Tory candidate “looked much more like an MP”- which was presumably lost on the good people of Wellingborough, who voted against her by a near-record swing.
SKS does not lack nous. Mrs May did. Hence her unveiling of her (excellent but open to scaremongering) plan to reform social care funding. We saw what happened.
You must judge Starmer Labour on what they do in office. All these tirades about 'no change' are (as always with you) a good read but that's all they are.
He’s right.
- Sweetly marginal Millennial/GenZ vibe and wide eyed innocence
- On honeymoon with new husband: aahh, how sweet, we all like young love, makes us all nostalgic, and nostalgia wins votes (which is why “back to square 1” appeals so much)
- It was in Suffolk, not the Seychelles. In winter. Humble, modest, semi-local. Yet bougie enough what with Suffolk coast being quite hipster these days
What’s not to like?
The housing situation is already unsustainable - but, by 2030, the majority of millennials will be less than 20 years from retirement. The time for hoping to buy a home of their own will have passed for many. They'll have pension pots that won't come close to paying for the level of rent they can expect to pay in retirement.
Meanwhile, the boomer generation will be starting to pass away, and the shape of our population pyramid will ensure that their inherited wealth will be concentrated into ever-fewer hands.
Society will have bifurcated into those who've been able to get onto the property ladder, and the vast majority of working age who have no hope of ever doing so. Their experiences of life will be wholly different. The divide between the two is growing already and will be unbridgeable by then.
There'll be no hope, and no reward for ambition. The drag on our country's economy will be humongous.
What are our options - a massive house-building program? some form of catastrophic crash? mass emigration? riots? lynch mobs?
In the next few years, the government is going to have to - whether explicitly or implicitly - pick one.
The French just broke up today so will be flooding the scratchy brown snow-free slopes from Sunday.
He gives the impression of someone who hasn't ever experienced failure before. And, who knows, maybe he hasn't.
It's what's driving his tetchiness, I'm nearly sure of it. The kindest thing anyone could do for him would be to buy him a shock collar, hook it up to his phone, and get Google or Siri to zap him every time he says "well, actually..."
People clearly want to change the government and Sunak/Tories are just an embarrassment, so lets get it out of the way.
Of course, Sunak will hang on until November/December 2024 or January 2025 in the hope that something, anything will turn up... because that's what politicians do when they're staring defeat in the face.
So we've got several more months of the farce to go.
A new start for Wellingborough and not before time.
It's in a good state of repair.
(And at what level would Refuk start to win seats? I know they're extremely unlikely to at the 10%-ish level they're currently polling at, but what about at 15%? Or even 20%?)
No more than 20, I'd bet.
So the same number of effective combatants as most of the other factions. At most. They're not some sort of silent moral majority - if they were, they'd have put their collective foot down long ago.
They're ace. I rarely got blisters when hiking (and never when running), but on the rare occasion I did, Compeeds made the difference between being able to walk comfortably the next day, and agony.
One hint though: don't use them with expensive socks as inners. After a while, the edges of the Compeed can turn up and stick to the sock; this leaves the glue on the sock that I can never get it out again. Easily cured by using a thin pair of socks (or specialist liner socks).
Blair’s party were adding 5000 votes to 92 results in their wins whilst yesterday they added 100 in one and lost 5000 in the other.
Turnouts were 37% compared to 62% in SE Staffs 1996 then 71% in Wirral South 1997
I think that means a likely low turnout in the next GE and room for a surprise 3rd party surge in votes if not seats
Otherwise, it's merely the difference between being able to limp ouchily, and agony.
(I realise that both you and Blanche cover serious distances, so I'm probably outing myself as a complete wuss here. But that's okay, considering that I actually am a complete wuss...)
Hiker's wool is good, too - similar to a compeed, use it at the first sign of any rubbing. Stick a thin layer under the affected area, and it'll turn into a felt-like mat that sticks to your sock as you walk. It's pretty effective, but you have to pick it out of the sock by hand before washing them, otherwise you get bits of fluff over everything else in that wash.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/68303676
Hope for his family's sake it's not as serious as it sounds, but for somebody as committed as Ashwin to pull out of a Test I doubt if it's an ingrowing toenail.
Factoring in the turnout, the Tories were supported by just 9% of the electorate in Wellingborough and 13% in Kingswood. That is in their heartland, where they had well over half the vote at the last election.
That's basically all who are opposed to a Labour win at the next election have got.
Perhaps we should also ask why 25,000 who voted Conservative in Wellingborough in December 2019 didn't do so yesterday or the 19,000 who voted Conservative in Kingswood in December 2019 and didn't do so yesterday?
It can't just be about the Labour vote.
Turnouts this decade range from 24% (Southend West, with no labour or lib dem candidate) to 52.3% (Tiverton & Honiton).
I know that the Tories are trying to push the "unrepresentative results on a low turnout" line, but these were both distinctly middle-of-the-pack.
Towards the end those by-elections literally could have led to the government falling given John Major's non-existent majority, they actually meant something, particularly with the UUP annoyed at the government.
This parliament's by-elections aren't going to trigger a change of government or herald an early election, that's why the swing is important, so last night is comparable to Dudley West.
Six out of the twelve largest Con to Lab by-election swings since 1945 have come in this parliament.