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Can Sunak and the Tories sink any lower? – politicalbetting.com
Can Sunak and the Tories sink any lower? – politicalbetting.com
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Also, as a founder of The Royal Society For The Protection Of The Reputation Of Domestick Comestibles, please do not compare failed politicians to lard or lettuce.
With either ingredient, you can make food to feed the hungry, create joy… whereas making failed politicians into anything other than after diner speakers is frowned upon.
But thats it. The country is broken, the real economy is knackered and people have made their minds up.
George Osborne on Political Currency suggested that Sunak do a big reshuffle. Remove all those leaving parliament and promote the people who would be the ongoing government.
Let us have Matt Vickers as Secretary of State for Health, brandishing a Parmo with his cheeky grin and thumbs up. That's got to be the election-saving strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMSrq7d9RIQ
Oh, and Trump's "Save America" PAC has spent $5.6m on Trump's legal fees in February.
The PAC only raised $5m last month.
This issue is really biting into the Republican's ability to raise funds. Biden and the Democrats have double the money on hand of Trump and the Democrats. Both small and large donors are reluctant to fund Trump's lawyers. Trump having recently filled the Republican National Committee with his MAGA faithful, it is now an extension of his own bank account. This is robbing down-ticket Republican's of funding for their own campaigns. Given the Republican majority in the House is currently down to 2, he could be handing the House to the Democrats in November.
The Trusstershambles didn't seem to do that much damage to the Conservative reputation. It was gradually getting worse before her and carried on doing so after her.
Meanwhile Sunak has gone from being a lot better regarded than his party to being seen as almost exactly as dreadful.
It's not the lead singer- it's the backing group and the song. I suppose you could put someone like Mordaunt or Badenoch in and run while are still shiny(ish) and new(ish). But without a deeper and more difficult rethink of what the Conservatives are for, what's the point?
People and types I know would normally hold the blue line are looking a bit sheepish but are not defensive.
The conservative anti net zero story isn’t cutting through but once it does I’m expecting small c conservatives to lose what little enthusiasm they have left for conservative policy.
What attraction is there for a leader that uses helicopters and jets while the rivers stink? Not a lot from people that care for their country.
🚨Our new voting intention just shared with @JPonpolitics @TimesRadio sees the Conservatives hit a new low.
🌳 Conservative 25% (-2)
🌹Labour 43% (+1)
🔶Lib Dems 11% (+1)
🟣Reform 11% (+1)
💚Green 5% (-1)
Lab lead 18, highest under our current methodology
N=2027, 19-20/3
MiC do have an interesting way of tackling the DKs as discussed in my header in December.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/12/02/sweet-swingbacks-baadasssss-song/
Opinium allocate DKs their previous allegiance, Kantar and MIC try to force a choice out of the DKs, so all 3 attempt to address swingback. So all favour the Tories more than typical pollsters as 2019 Tories are overrepresented as DKs.
It really is quite difficult to see how the Tories reverse their relentless decline. It looks like the DKs are making up their minds, and it is not benefiting the Tories.
Greens bid to take down the Union flag from Glasgow City Chambers on seven key Royal occasions including the King’s birthday.
https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1771080194104656050
Then I clicked the story and well the Scottish Greens are traitors and should be proscribed.
Outrage as Greens bid to take down the Union flag from Glasgow City Chambers... And fly the Cuban, Palestinian, French and other flags instead
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13225845/Greens-bid-Union-flag-Glasgow-City-Chambers-fly-Cuban-Palestine-Pride-flags.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68632621
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
The only reason it won't be 12th December or 23rd January is if the government finally collapses utterly - which is increasingly possible...
I prefer to use the term tax minimisation strategies.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
HMRC say it is fine
The police say it is fine
The story isn't Rayner. Its the Tory press. The old adage "there's no smoke without fire" doesn't apply when the press are burning stuff to make the smoke then reporting on smoke.
I pay tax
You minimise tax
He dodges tax
For a politician its better to be in the first person.
WILL they? My sense is that their core support is around 18-20%, comprised of people who:
a) don't pay much attention but reflexively vote Conservative
b) think that however bad the Conservatives are, Labour will be worse
c) actively like their MP or an individual Conservative policy or two
d) think that too big a Labour landslide would be bad
IIRC that was about their nadir in the VI polls during the end of TM's tenure.
I have read the website since around 2015 and have been commenting since partly in a now lost account. Over this time I have drifted away from the 'liberal left' that I used to be part of. Originally I came on to PB because it was 'right leaning' and I was looking for a forum online to try and challenge some of my views as everyone I knew in the 'in person' world had the same or similar politics to me. Over this time my politics started to change as I was becoming concerned about how extreme the 'mainstream' left were becoming after reading books like 'the coddling of the american mind' by Jon Haidt and co. It was in 2018 I came to the view that the left were a bigger problem and threat than the right, and potentially an existential problem for civilisation. These fears were realised with the various excesses of 'woke' from 2020 onwards. I can only hope that the inevitable and belated rise of the 'right woke' will act as a counter balance and we end up back in something resembling common sense. But perhaps the disruption caused by AI will somehow make such political discourse quaint and obsolete.
Sink lower in action? Yes, that too, desperation will see to that.
Can't be clearer than that.
The ball is now in HMRC's court presumably.
As she says CGT and residential status are complicated.
I also think he will go the distance, and use the unusual campaign as at attempt at a wild card.
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/02/29/rayner/
This is a balanced review and lays out the different scenarios. At worst a mistake but why not just say that if it was?
Another friendly article on her tax affairs and her home in the Indy
With a suitable picture showing her with a halo.
We are really blessed.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/angela-rayner-says-questions-about-her-tax-affairs-were-manufactured/ar-BB1kjNOO?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=8ae5c0050f5b40f19bd9a32371121ca6&ei=30
Now get me the RAF on the phone, I need a helicopter to North Yorkshire and pronto!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/22/tesco-accused-of-using-cash-and-carry-arm-booker-to-squeeze-village-stores-out-of-business
Congratulations @MikeSmithson and @TheScreamingEagles and @rcs1000 and everyone else who has contributed for the 20 years.
Mike thank you for all you have done here, I hope your health improves, and enjoy your retirement.
If they had said “no criminal offence not for us” they could do that quickly (and would be right).
But that’s not the same as “it’s fine”
Sort of like saying the Sunak’s were spotted driving at 70 MPH on the motorway but Angela Rayner was only doing 30MPH, the problem is if she was doing the 30MPH in a 20 zone. It doesn’t matter that the Sunak’s were driving faster, they could do that under the law.
Incidentally has Rayner's husband agreed to pay CGT on his home or were they living separate lives after getting married.
At the time she admits she didnt know the rules fully but thought she was in compliance.
She subsequently appointed tax consultants to re-examine it and they say it is fine, perhaps on some technicality or perhaps she simply sold some shares that year that had made a loss to offset the £1,500 that someone without all the facts has estimated.
I am not against all MPs tax and finances being made public, but this carry on over £1,500 when there are others with multi million question marks over their tax handling is silly.
We assume that their progress is largely a threat to the Tories but may it also not help explain why Labour's support is stuck in a narrow band at the low 40s? I think some Labour supporters find the idea of Reform quite attractive.
You avoid
He evades.
BTW Haidt was on Rogan the other day https://youtube.com/watch?v=jOC-RyoBcbQ
In fact, since Rogan’s show went back on Youtube at the beginning of the month, he’s had quite the rota of guests seemingly hand-picked to try and annoy Google’s moderation and demonetisation team, including James Lindsay, Abigail Shrier, Riley Gaines, and Christopher Rufo.
For the bettors among us, his interview with legendary American sports bettor Billy Walters is brilliant.
It was heart-warming to read the many posts yesterday showing appreciation of OGH and his team. This was no surprise, but I was amazed at the number of comments from Lurkers who had posted seldom, or never before. That's some tribute. To think that in addition to the likes of me droning on publicly there's a small army of silent followers....
Impressive.
The fact that the other house had to be adapted for a disabled family member instantly suggests one reason for occupying both houses for an interim period.
She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house.
And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
Same with views on gender. The two sides are pretty straightforward - why should (how dare) someone police my view of my own gender; and why should someone I consider of the opposite sex be allowed to intrude upon "my" space.
It's where we draw the line that is the debate and you and I are just as at liberty to discuss it as ContraPoints or Matt Walsh.
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
'Betfair Con Seats Market now has >200 seats only a couple of percentage points more likely than <50 seats!
That's a great little market.
I'm green on all bands below 200 seats. Ok, I got on early but even now you can easily cover everything under 150 at zero cost and win a nice amount of it goes well for you.
As she's this generation's John Prescott, it isn't.
That, there, that whole method of no-debate political debate, is how we've created the space for outright liars to flourish in our politics.
One of the reasons I make an effort not to always push my partisan point of view on here is that it's more interesting to find out why people disagree with me, rather than to attempt to construct a logically watertight argument that would force someone else to change their mind, if only they would bow to my undoubted superior intellect.
It would be interesting to see her addresses as listed with the Parliamentary authorities during that time though, that’s potentially the bigger political - rather than legal - story.
If.
Politicians don't tend to get the benefit of that if.
Especially when they're are multiple neighbours saying otherwise.
Curious as to why Rayner would describe herself as a 'landlord' of a house she claims to have been living in:
Now The Times can reveal that Rayner has been accused of introducing herself to a neighbour as “the landlord” during the period she said she was living at the house on Vicarage Road with her children.
Chris Hinett, 64, who still lives on the street, said he only met Rayner once when she intervened in a dispute over a broken window.
“I had never seen her but she was parked up in the street looking at the boy’s house,” he said. “But when she said ‘I’m the landlord’ of the house where the window was broken, I knew why she was there.” Hinett said it was Rayner’s brother, Darren Bowen, who was living in the property.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-rayner-house-tax-row-neighbours-wglbv9h2g
Plenty more of this to come. The BBC immediately turned Emily's mention of, I think prison places, into a headline about a Labour £4 billion extra spending pledge.
Have I got that right?
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/25/abortion-after-rape-laws-bans
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Even if her tax advice is successfully challenged, her claim of ignorance is fairly credible (in a way it wouldn't be for eg Reeves), and all she'd then have to do would be pay any tax owing.
Can't believe so much ink has been wasted on this story. There are far better critiques of Labour.
Vaguely related, I have often thought of two PB thought experiments.
The first is to have us all debating a familiar topic - Brexit, AV, what have you and instead of making our arguments simply use numbers to refer to the points eg Pt 1 = We were always sovereign, etc
The other is for one day (hour?) to have us all argue vehemently the opposite position to our own. @Richard_Tyndall for staying in (now rejoining) the EU, @BartholomewRoberts about the importance of the greenbelt and sanctity of our planning laws and the countryside, etc. Would be vaguely amusing.
Until the thread was sidetracked by a discussion about Transnistrian Cabernet Franc.
But yes, the voters that the Tories are losing now are predominantly moving to ReFuk rather than crossing the floor to Labour, by the looks of things.
Perhaps a bit of informal rent paid here and a maybe bit of tax accidentally dodged there.
It happened before Rayner became an MP.
But its the denial which causes the damage.
But even the Tories won't do that. Even the SAS would shrink from the challenge.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Betting PostF1: not heroic, but backed Perez each way in the race at 14:
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2024/03/australia-pre-qualifying-2024.html
The year they did womens society vs catholic society, on the subject of abortion, was probably the highlight of three years of attending debates.
Sadly it would never happen now, at least not for in-person debates, because social media clips and a lack of context.