I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
You've found a way to link a LLM to an inflatable sex doll and now you are going to retire to your room with a puncture repair kit and some lotion?
Morning all. On reading through the last thread, some thoughts on Thrashergate. I think it was Wulfrun Phil who posted some polling evidence from 2023 locals of GE VI being wider than LE VI. Whilst that is indeed a piece of supporting evidence, some caution needs applying in that the LE question was about an election about to happen (minds made up) and the GE is, as with all opinion polling between terms, about a date far off not yet defined and, as such, it becomes to some extent a measure of dissatisfaction and with more DKs than likely once minds focussed. Differential weighting would also apply given turnout expectations in both type of election which complicates a dual question poll. So, whilst it does suggest support that at a GE the gap might be wider, putting a figure on it you can rely on is too tricky (and admittedly might be more than 7 or 8% as those polls showed as well as less). Reliance on opinion polling cost May dearly - she continued to focus on places she was getting nowhere near whereas Labour were far more canny and reactive to the ground shifting. The 5 million votes just cast give us a good generic overview of where we stand - somewhat worse for the blues than the Thrasher NEV (which is just a projection of votes cast, not a forecast of votes to come) and somewhat better than the current opinion polling average, the art for the party strategists will be defining just where the line is right now. I'd say about a 10 to 12 point lead for Labour if we voted tomorrow. Tactical voting - complicated this time due to boundary changes and imo likely to favour Labour not the LDs as the spectacular opinion poll leads and the seat forecast polls are making Labour look competitive everywhere. Thus we might end up with some (not by any means loads though) seats looking like 1983 - with a big third place vote because the 'tactical' shot was the wrong one
Beneath Thrasher there is the valid bigger picture point that there is little enthusiasm for Labour, and the locals show that people are willing to shop elsewhere when alternatives are available and credible.
But it’s a shame that his analysis seems to have compounded a number of errors. Firstly, assuming no change in Scotland and Wales, when in the former at least all the evidence points to significant change. Secondly, by what they’ve done with the ‘others’ - seven other gains doesn’t seem credibly the result of any UNS model unless it’s a simplistic one that treats voters for the disparate range of other parties as one bloc backing a single candidate, which is obvious nonsense. Otherwise where are these seven other gains in England? Thirdly, by dropping local voters into a national model without any adjustment, when we all know people vote differently in local elections and the LDs in particular pick up local votes thay they never get in a GE.
And the gross error is that, while the national government and national Tory politicians are widely despised, not all voters punish their local councils and councillors accordingly, especially where they’re doing a reasonable job.
The only counter-argument is that Reform didn’t put up many LE candidates but presumably in the Genny Lec will stand everywhere? Thus potentially syphoning off more unhappy Tories. But that could be balanced off by some who are telling pollsters they are Reform voters as a protest but won’t actually carry through.
"when alternatives are available and credible."
They've voted in a load of councillors who, in previous times, would have had their words spoken by an actor.
Didn't get your bin emptied? Blame Netanyahu.
I guess you’ll be outraged that Sir Keir wants to win back those who ‘voted in a load of councillors who, in previous times, would have had their words spoken by an actor’. I mean that virtually makes him a Hamas supporter doesn’t it?
Fear not, there’s a fair chance he’s producing equivocating waffle.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
Putting absinthe on your cornflakes is never a good idea.
Morning all. On reading through the last thread, some thoughts on Thrashergate. I think it was Wulfrun Phil who posted some polling evidence from 2023 locals of GE VI being wider than LE VI. Whilst that is indeed a piece of supporting evidence, some caution needs applying in that the LE question was about an election about to happen (minds made up) and the GE is, as with all opinion polling between terms, about a date far off not yet defined and, as such, it becomes to some extent a measure of dissatisfaction and with more DKs than likely once minds focussed. Differential weighting would also apply given turnout expectations in both type of election which complicates a dual question poll. So, whilst it does suggest support that at a GE the gap might be wider, putting a figure on it you can rely on is too tricky (and admittedly might be more than 7 or 8% as those polls showed as well as less). Reliance on opinion polling cost May dearly - she continued to focus on places she was getting nowhere near whereas Labour were far more canny and reactive to the ground shifting. The 5 million votes just cast give us a good generic overview of where we stand - somewhat worse for the blues than the Thrasher NEV (which is just a projection of votes cast, not a forecast of votes to come) and somewhat better than the current opinion polling average, the art for the party strategists will be defining just where the line is right now. I'd say about a 10 to 12 point lead for Labour if we voted tomorrow. Tactical voting - complicated this time due to boundary changes and imo likely to favour Labour not the LDs as the spectacular opinion poll leads and the seat forecast polls are making Labour look competitive everywhere. Thus we might end up with some (not by any means loads though) seats looking like 1983 - with a big third place vote because the 'tactical' shot was the wrong one
Beneath Thrasher there is the valid bigger picture point that there is little enthusiasm for Labour, and the locals show that people are willing to shop elsewhere when alternatives are available and credible.
But it’s a shame that his analysis seems to have compounded a number of errors. Firstly, assuming no change in Scotland and Wales, when in the former at least all the evidence points to significant change. Secondly, by what they’ve done with the ‘others’ - seven other gains doesn’t seem credibly the result of any UNS model unless it’s a simplistic one that treats voters for the disparate range of other parties as one bloc backing a single candidate, which is obvious nonsense. Otherwise where are these seven other gains in England? Thirdly, by dropping local voters into a national model without any adjustment, when we all know people vote differently in local elections and the LDs in particular pick up local votes thay they never get in a GE.
And the gross error is that, while the national government and national Tory politicians are widely despised, not all voters punish their local councils and councillors accordingly, especially where they’re doing a reasonable job.
The only counter-argument is that Reform didn’t put up many LE candidates but presumably in the Genny Lec will stand everywhere? Thus potentially syphoning off more unhappy Tories. But that could be balanced off by some who are telling pollsters they are Reform voters as a protest but won’t actually carry through.
"when alternatives are available and credible."
They've voted in a load of councillors who, in previous times, would have had their words spoken by an actor.
Didn't get your bin emptied? Blame Netanyahu.
I guess you’ll be outraged that Sir Keir wants to win back those who ‘voted in a load of councillors who, in previous times, would have had their words spoken by an actor’. I mean that virtually makes him a Hamas supporter doesn’t it?
Fear not, there’s a fair chance he’s producing equivocating waffle.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
It doesn't in my car. The real drainer is from 10mph to about 20 (in second and then third) After that the building momentum helps anyway.
Energy required to accelerate a 1200kg car to 13.4 m/s (30mph) ~108,000 J
Energy required to accelerate a 1200kg car to 9m/s (20 mph) ~48,600 J
The real drainer having to stop in the first place. EVs mitigate that somewhat with regenerative braking.
But yes, our esteemed doctor is confusing the instantaneous mpg calculation on his dashboard with energy demand. The former is a composite of energy demand and velocity - and is if course higher at lower speeds.
"There is a howling at the moon element at this. The ULEZ formers want to impose their rights to kill people with toxic air - what about the rights of the people being killed or damaged? The 20 mph formers want to kill more pedestrians - what about the rights of the people who don’t want to be killed?"
By that rationale any train or car should be motionless lest they crush someone's foot.
It's perfectly legitimate to advocate a lower speed limit in the name of safety, and equally valid to comment on the economic/personal cost of slower travel times. One side isn't devilish, and the other is most certainly not holy.
The fuss over 20mph in Wales is just weird though. Large swathes of London have been 20mph for a fair while now. You rapidly get used to it.
London is densely packed and has much public transport. A 20mph limit gets you to where you want to go quickly. Wales is more spread out and much more hilly, and the public transport has deteriorated to the occasional bus and a taxi service that isn't up to South-East-England standards (at least away from the cities). 20mph throughout doesn't work.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
They really believe this nonsense don't they? In the face of all the evidence to the contrary, the Tory right want to have another stab at Trussonomics.
As Private Frazer would tell them: 'you're all dooomed'
"There is a howling at the moon element at this. The ULEZ formers want to impose their rights to kill people with toxic air - what about the rights of the people being killed or damaged? The 20 mph formers want to kill more pedestrians - what about the rights of the people who don’t want to be killed?"
By that rationale any train or car should be motionless lest they crush someone's foot.
It's perfectly legitimate to advocate a lower speed limit in the name of safety, and equally valid to comment on the economic/personal cost of slower travel times. One side isn't devilish, and the other is most certainly not holy.
The fuss over 20mph in Wales is just weird though. Large swathes of London have been 20mph for a fair while now. You rapidly get used to it.
London is densely packed and has much public transport. A 20mph limit gets you to where you want to go quickly. Wales is more spread out and much more hilly, and the public transport has deteriorated to the occasional bus and a taxi service that isn't up to South-East-England standards (at least away from the cities). 20mph throughout doesn't work.
It isn’t 20mph throughout though is it? Nothing like it.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
I just checked back - on May 2nd, so polling day itself, well before the ramping got going on the 3rd, you posted your own prediction that Hall would win. So you were one of the first! You then excitedly posted every shortening of Hall’s odds on Betfair, ramping up the excitement when there wasn’t a shred of evidence to back it up.
It’s frightening, isn’t it? And surely, surely Lord Denning’s, appalling remarks in the Birmingham six case should be well known all student lawyers.
Mm, quite so. An interesting header. No idea how they teach student lawyers, but case studies of failures and disasters seem to be very much par for the course in engineering and aeronautics. Yet we learn that "the history of miscarriages of justice is not a topic much taught to aspiring or practising lawyers".
Good point. Engineering and aeronautics courses spend an awful lot of time discussing some of the most monumental screwups of their profession - which is why we have fewer planes falling out of the sky and fewer structures collapsing then ever before - because everyone makes a point of learning from all of those mistakes, and there are many regulations written in blood.
Some humility from the lawyers would go a long way - but lawyers don’t seem to do humility, certainly not any of those who worked for the Post Office.
Indeed. They were the most popular lectures on my course.
What you designed as a static structure will have dynamic loads Your roof might end up 3x heavier if it snows Brittle things eventually fail way below their nominal strength Check what is on paper is what was built
etc etc
There must be an equivalent for miscarriages of justice.
Snow is a real bugger for building design, a lot of collapses are still caused by unusual amounts of the white stuff falling out of the sky and settling on the roof.
Same with low temperatures making materials brittle and more prone to failure - ask the crew of the Challenger space shuttle about that one, that was a great case study in institutional failings and what pilots now call get-there-itis, where the pressure to conduct an activity becomes overwhelming, long after the common sense decision to avoid it departed the room. Definitely some equivalents there to the Post Office, as they kept up the prosecutions long after they knew the Horizon system was faulty.
I find the social structure of the these events fascinating. As Herman Kahn observed, when a problem gets big enough, the person raising the issue becomes the problem.
The Horizon system was apparently fixable and at not incredible cost (despite the incompetence of the project as a whole) - according the IT expert who reviewed the project and raised an early alarm. A few bits needed re-writing. But.
Face. The Horizon system had been sold, inside the Post Office, as the Big Leap. Bonuses conferred, promotions made. Too many Proper People would be made to look ridiculous. And Proper People can never be made to look ridiculous.
So instead of quietly fixing the problem, a spiral of coverup and failure.
Among other things, the Proper People made this hundreds of times worse *for themselves*
Indeed. The software problem was relatively easy to fix, point of sale systems have been running millions of transactions through per day for decades, and this one wasn’t a whole load different.
But it became an institutional problem, because it started to produce exactly the result the senior management was expecting, an increase in incidents of fraud that led to opportunities to prosecute SPMs, and because that was exactly what the new system was doing, there was a huge amount of institutional inertia required to be overcome, to admit there were system issues which made the prosecutions unreliable and unwise to continue.
If they’d taken a step back, stopped the rollout and prosecutions, and fixed the software first, then we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Because, as you say, it’s primarily a human failure rather than a systems failure, and those reporting the software issues became the problem in the way of the prosecutions, so everyone stuck their fingers in their ears and pretended nothing was wrong.
It’s frightening, isn’t it? And surely, surely Lord Denning’s, appalling remarks in the Birmingham six case should be well known all student lawyers.
Mm, quite so. An interesting header. No idea how they teach student lawyers, but case studies of failures and disasters seem to be very much par for the course in engineering and aeronautics. Yet we learn that "the history of miscarriages of justice is not a topic much taught to aspiring or practising lawyers".
Good point. Engineering and aeronautics courses spend an awful lot of time discussing some of the most monumental screwups of their profession - which is why we have fewer planes falling out of the sky and fewer structures collapsing then ever before - because everyone makes a point of learning from all of those mistakes, and there are many regulations written in blood.
Some humility from the lawyers would go a long way - but lawyers don’t seem to do humility, certainly not any of those who worked for the Post Office.
Indeed. They were the most popular lectures on my course.
What you designed as a static structure will have dynamic loads Your roof might end up 3x heavier if it snows Brittle things eventually fail way below their nominal strength Check what is on paper is what was built
etc etc
There must be an equivalent for miscarriages of justice.
Snow is a real bugger for building design, a lot of collapses are still caused by unusual amounts of the white stuff falling out of the sky and settling on the roof.
Same with low temperatures making materials brittle and more prone to failure - ask the crew of the Challenger space shuttle about that one, that was a great case study in institutional failings and what pilots now call get-there-itis, where the pressure to conduct an activity becomes overwhelming, long after the common sense decision to avoid it departed the room. Definitely some equivalents there to the Post Office, as they kept up the prosecutions long after they knew the Horizon system was faulty.
It's beginning to look as though they knew that from the start - and didn't care.
It does start to seem like that, although as we have seen in other industries the common sense solution can quickly disappear when up against an institutional need to get things done, and many otherwise good people can be talked into going along with that poor decision for a whole variety of reasons.
The decision to launch Challenger on that very cold morning being one of those, against the advice of key suppliers, with previous delays mounting up, threatening to derail the whole Shuttle programme if they didn’t get on and launch her quickly. Of course, the end result was a very much derailed Shuttle programme, and seven dead astronauts.
The Challenger comparison is absolutely relevant here. Justice was of no relevance if it hampened the job to be done.
It's easy to get bogged down in the detail of the Inquiry, but the biggest and simplest observation is blindingly obvious to anybody who has followed it. The Post Office didn't give a shit about the Subpostmasters, and with little exception, it still doesn't.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
"Mainstream"?
Given how far off the reservation the Conservatives have wandered, Frosty probably is what passes for mainstream now.
Bear in mind that Rishi Sunak (basically a transistorised Peter Lilley politically) gets grief for being a wet centrist. Objectively, that's nuts.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
Lord Denning also came out with this racist crap in 1982 in questioning whether all citizens were fit to serve on juries:
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
How many elections has he run in?
We are now in the age of the high profile ‘activist’, those too lazy, rich or fearful to actually take the risk of becoming involved in grubby politics. Frosty, Rowling, Hannan etc. Even Farage looks like he may run scared of the ballot box.
It’s frightening, isn’t it? And surely, surely Lord Denning’s, appalling remarks in the Birmingham six case should be well known all student lawyers.
Mm, quite so. An interesting header. No idea how they teach student lawyers, but case studies of failures and disasters seem to be very much par for the course in engineering and aeronautics. Yet we learn that "the history of miscarriages of justice is not a topic much taught to aspiring or practising lawyers".
My impression from the outside is that lawyers are taught how to win, how to argue a weak case. It's one reason why we've ended up with so many of the legal profession in our politics at the moment.
Because even a guilty criminal should have legal representation there's an acceptance of being on the "wrong" side of a case, and this necessarily blurs the moral boundaries when it comes to breaking rules on things like disclosure in pursuit of the imperative to win the case.
If lawyer training went too hard into questions of the morally of what they should do, then you'd find it a lot harder to find legal representation for murderers, rapists and the like.
The wider question is, as with politics, whether this is a flaw in the British fondness for the adversarial system of justice. Watching a TV series like Spiral shows the French system in operation, which probably has different weaknesses, but does illustrate that there are alternative ways of doing things. Do other systems have so many miscarriages?
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Try reading 'The Day The Dam Broke' by James Thurber.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
Lord Denning also came out with this racist crap in 1982:
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
So basically, they were like the English aristocracy?
It’s frightening, isn’t it? And surely, surely Lord Denning’s, appalling remarks in the Birmingham six case should be well known all student lawyers.
Mm, quite so. An interesting header. No idea how they teach student lawyers, but case studies of failures and disasters seem to be very much par for the course in engineering and aeronautics. Yet we learn that "the history of miscarriages of justice is not a topic much taught to aspiring or practising lawyers".
Good point. Engineering and aeronautics courses spend an awful lot of time discussing some of the most monumental screwups of their profession - which is why we have fewer planes falling out of the sky and fewer structures collapsing then ever before - because everyone makes a point of learning from all of those mistakes, and there are many regulations written in blood.
Some humility from the lawyers would go a long way - but lawyers don’t seem to do humility, certainly not any of those who worked for the Post Office.
Indeed. They were the most popular lectures on my course.
What you designed as a static structure will have dynamic loads Your roof might end up 3x heavier if it snows Brittle things eventually fail way below their nominal strength Check what is on paper is what was built
etc etc
There must be an equivalent for miscarriages of justice.
Snow is a real bugger for building design, a lot of collapses are still caused by unusual amounts of the white stuff falling out of the sky and settling on the roof.
Same with low temperatures making materials brittle and more prone to failure - ask the crew of the Challenger space shuttle about that one, that was a great case study in institutional failings and what pilots now call get-there-itis, where the pressure to conduct an activity becomes overwhelming, long after the common sense decision to avoid it departed the room. Definitely some equivalents there to the Post Office, as they kept up the prosecutions long after they knew the Horizon system was faulty.
It's beginning to look as though they knew that from the start - and didn't care.
It does start to seem like that, although as we have seen in other industries the common sense solution can quickly disappear when up against an institutional need to get things done, and many otherwise good people can be talked into going along with that poor decision for a whole variety of reasons.
The decision to launch Challenger on that very cold morning being one of those, against the advice of key suppliers, with previous delays mounting up, threatening to derail the whole Shuttle programme if they didn’t get on and launch her quickly. Of course, the end result was a very much derailed Shuttle programme, and seven dead astronauts.
The Challenger comparison is absolutely relevant here. Justice was of no relevance if it hampened the job to be done.
It's easy to get bogged down in the detail of the Inquiry, but the biggest and simplest observation is blindingly obvious to anybody who has followed it. The Post Office didn't give a shit about the Subpostmasters, and with little exception, it still doesn't.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
You've found a way to link a LLM to an inflatable sex doll and now you are going to retire to your room with a puncture repair kit and some lotion?
No. I suspect he's actually a bit behind the times with this new panic about how if you pop a pluke in the triangle demarcated by the bridge of your nose and the corners of your mouth* it will infallibly lead to a brain-rotting infection.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
Lord Denning also came out with this racist crap in 1982:
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
So basically, they were like the English aristocracy?
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
You've found a way to link a LLM to an inflatable sex doll and now you are going to retire to your room with a puncture repair kit and some lotion?
Just a little joke. Probably…
I actually think the biggest story no one is taking about is the grinding Russian advance in Ukraine. Especially in the air
“Kharkiv is suffering terrorist attack after terrorist attack, every day. If this was happening in any European or American or Australian or Canadian city, it would be stopped. Ukraine can’t stop this without air defences and Putin is exploiting Western weakness. It has to stop.”
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
You've found a way to link a LLM to an inflatable sex doll and now you are going to retire to your room with a puncture repair kit and some lotion?
No. I suspect he's actually a bit behind the times with this new panic about how if you pop a pluke in the triangle demarcated by the bridge of your nose and the corners of your mouth* it will infallibly lead to a brain-rotting infection.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
Lord Denning also came out with this racist crap in 1982:
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
So basically, they were like the English aristocracy?
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
No, it isn’t unfathomable. Protect The System. Because once the delicate belief in the system is shattered… well you can get all kinds of problems. Trump is exactly an example of such.
At the end of the Plebgate fandango, it was quietly said that to actually prosecute every policeman who’d lied (or considered to lie) would have damaged public confidence in the police.
When Tony Blair & Co were caught retailing peerages, prosecution was judged not to be in The Public Interest. Because everyone does it and it would undermine public trust in government.
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
How many elections has he run in?
Man not facing elections calls for mainstream attractive cuts to things like the NHS.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYOR24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows
We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available
The gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released is unusable for prediction. I assume exit polls are the exception, but even then it's a risk.
We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem
During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering.
Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Interesting article suggesting why the European tech sector is so far behind the US.
https://klinger.io/posts/eu-acc … The US has its state Delaware as de facto standard for legal entities for startups. When people say US Inc, they mean Delaware Inc. This might sound like a small thing, but it has a lot of implications. With one fundament on which you can start establishing other standards on top of it. Eg you can create standard documents like the YC SAFE or even software like AngelList on top of that. “Well, we have similar documents for German GmbHs as well…” Let me stop you right here. I invest globally. To invest in the EU I need to understand 30+ legal systems to make sure I am not tricked over by the small print, get lawyers and figure out if I need a notary. After that i need 10-20 emails each funding round to satisfy whatever random fun fact local countries came up now. In the US I receive an email with a document signing link to a standard SAFE and can sign with one click. I don’t need to check the fine-print. I (and the founder) don’t need to involve lawyers. “But if the deal is good enough it’s worth the effort…” That’s not the reality of early stage investing…
San Francisco probably has more venture capital than does the entire EU.
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
This case has very disturbing parallels with the Lucy Letby case. I have no view on her guilt or innocence, but you have a powerful state run corporation with careers and reputations to protect and pretty much complete control of all the evidence against a powerless employee and, in this case, de facto control of the investigation and prosecution (I understand the role of the police and CPS but it was a doctor who initially fingered her). Add that the consequences of it wasn't her are much graver than in the PO case and that doctors have a high degree of credibility with the public including jurors. And I am no lawyer but I can't imagine what could ever justify a principal witness against her giving evidence anonymously. Surely natural justice requires that if you want the state to lock someone in a cupboard for the rest of their lives you say who you are?
A small point on the Letby case which is indicative. The defence called no expert evidence in rebuttal. This will not be for want of trying on the part of her defence team, and the world has no shortage of expert witnesses of very high quality. This non barking dog is extremely interesting, as the sequence of events and deaths gives a strong sense of requiring an explanation consistent with Letby's innocence.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Not to mention both national and London specific polls.
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
Redfield and Wilton are polling "in the so-called ‘Blue Wall’ of affluent, southern constituencies where the party has traditionally won, but where its support has been slipping in recent years". These are Remain-orientated constituencies, but with a selection bias towards including ones where the Lib Dems are the main challenger, the threshold for inclusion is either that LDs are within 15,000 votes of the Tories or that Labour is within 10,000 votes of the Tories, so a higher bar for Labour.
The picture from the polling is still one of Labour going forward strongly since 2019 and of the LDs going backwards. The LDs vote share has been below their 2019 vote share in every single one of the R&W polls to date. So while McFadden is of course ramping Labour, I think he is justified in his comments.
Latest R&W Blue Wall polling (28/4/24) with change since GE 2019:
My husband, who has been campaigning for a proper West Coast Cycle Path round here for ages, met the author for the book and is quoted in the Lake District section. Our dog also features!
It is one of those improvements which would make life so much nicer in a number of ways and yet every authority you encounter to try and get something done is in "computer says no" mode. The only one who has helped at all - and has been effective - is the MP for Barrow, Simon Fell, and he is likely to lose his seat.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
Fair point, but I discard the opinion-polls after the voting stops as no longer relevant. And given that "...what we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata...claims from postal verifications...and some turnout data", you can see the problem.
We know all this now because we are wise after event. It's how we cope at the time that's important. I went off the rails in France22 and somebody who I will not name[1] went off the rails in POTUS16 when early Florida results were good for Clinton. It's important to know why so we can avoid it in future.
[1] other than to point out he rhymes with Smobert Rithson. Don't ban me...
This morning’s briefings by the Tory right coupled with Sunak’s weakness mean this government could still cause more damage to the fabric society before they’re shuttled off the scene.
Up to 8 months of tax and spending cuts, rowing back on green targets and performative rabble rousing before the end comes.
I have just seen the most incredible thing. It will hit public consciousness in about a week or two. Its world changing because it’s REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
My husband, who has been campaigning for a proper West Coast Cycle Path round here for ages, met the author for the book and is quoted in the Lake District section. Our dog also features!
It is one of those improvements which would make life so much nicer in a number of ways and yet every authority you encounter to try and get something done is in "computer says no" mode. The only one who has helped at all - and has been effective - is the MP for Barrow, Simon Fell, and he is likely to lose his seat.
Aptly named for a Cumbria MP - though he really ought to be representing one of the eastern constituencies.
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Save this post.
Wow - John Hayes, MP for South Holland and the Deepings! He has increased his voteshare in each of the past six general elections.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
It may well be unfathomable. But it is surprisingly common.
People believing what they want to be true and allowing that to determine their facts is all too prevalent.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
"Mainstream"?
Given how far off the reservation the Conservatives have wandered, Frosty probably is what passes for mainstream now.
Bear in mind that Rishi Sunak (basically a transistorised Peter Lilley politically) gets grief for being a wet centrist. Objectively, that's nuts.
Those speaking of a Civil Service and Foreign Office "blob" don't seem to have noticed Frosts high flying career. It's almost as if the CS is not a conspiracy of lefties.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Not to mention both national and London specific polls.
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
The threshold for a polling failure is a mean absolute error of about three percent, but it wibbles around depending on whether you measure two, three, four or even five parties, with pollsters selecting the version that flatters them.
Elections in "the modern era" (2010-present?) that exceeded this threshold included Scottish Indy 2014 (the canary in the coalmine), UKGE2015, Brexit 2016, UKGE2017. I haven't worked out the mean absolute error for London Mayoral 24 and so cannot say.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
No, it’s that Russia used to be The Vanguard Of Socialism. The hard left throughout the West accepted from day one of the USSR its right to rule anything touched by the Russian Empire. See the Polish independence in the 20s. They see everything up to the Baltics as Fake Countries.
That’s one group.
Then there are those who see Russia as a strong, united culture. A hard land, where men are Hard. And sheep are nervous…. It’s not that they like Putin, you see. But he is Soooo Stroooong. And those war crimes are just evidence of the Hardness of Russian Real Men.
As opposed to the desire of Zelensky to build a European Metrosexual state.
Lord Frosts recipe for reviving tory fortunes in Telegraph:
"we tilt to more attractive mainstream conservative policies – tougher on migration and the ECHR, more tax cuts, more spending cuts, deregulation, proper planning reform, fracking and a serious assault on the burden of net zero, rolling back diversity and inclusion..."
They really believe this nonsense don't they? In the face of all the evidence to the contrary, the Tory right want to have another stab at Trussonomics.
As Private Frazer would tell them: 'you're all dooomed'
Given that apparently we've got to put up with this lot for quite a while now, the outpourings and ravings will probably get more extreme as they struggle in the polls, helping the opposition parties.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Save this post.
Wow - John Hayes, MP for South Holland and the Deepings! He has increased his voteshare in each of the past six general elections.
The Tory Party as a whole has done that, so probably many Tory MPs have.
What goes up eventually comes down though and it looks like the past six will be reversed in one motion, and maybe then some too, at the next election.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
I like Nick a lot but he seems to be as dodgy on the foreign policy stuff as my old mate Jezza
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
Yet despite all that the Sunak Tory voteshare of 25% was still higher than the 23% Brown Labour got in the 2009 local elections. The last locals before a general election saw a change of government.
The Tories also lost under 500 seats whereas in 1996, the last locals elections before the 1997 Labour landslide, the Major led Tories lost over 600 seats
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
Fair point, but I discard the opinion-polls after the voting stops as no longer relevant. And given that "...what we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata...claims from postal verifications...and some turnout data", you can see the problem.
We know all this now because we are wise after event. It's how we cope at the time that's important. I went off the rails in France22 and somebody who I will not name[1] went off the rails in POTUS16 when early Florida results were good for Clinton. It's important to know why so we can avoid it in future.
[1] other than to point out he rhymes with Smobert Rithson. Don't ban me...
Yes, but the national VI was data. The by-election result and the stacks of Tory losses already chalked up by the Friday were data. The polls taken in London specifically on the mayoral election were data. The lack of any significant wobble or negative feedback from the Khan campaign was data. So there was tons of data.
What we had were snippets of groundless rumour, in a situation where some with money on the outcome had self-interest to paint the race as close, as did the Tory establishment hoping to damp down any rebellion on the Friday/Saturday.
The lessons to learn are, don't believe any nonsense coming out between polls close and a count, but also be alive to the possibility of trading bets because others aren't so astute.
I am no longer confident about my July bet, Rishi is going to let this run and run isn't he?
No shit Sherlock.
You want a July election because you want the Tories to lose and Labour in Downing Street.
What possible reason has Rishi got to call an election?
It'll be January 2025.
I want an election ASAP but I also thought Rishi would call one because he might conclude it would only get worse. For what it is worth, I still believe that is right - but I no longer trust he will make the right call.
I am no longer confident about my July bet, Rishi is going to let this run and run isn't he?
No shit Sherlock.
You want a July election because you want the Tories to lose and Labour in Downing Street.
What possible reason has Rishi got to call an election?
It'll be January 2025.
Nah, he has no incentive to go early, it's true, Bart, but he's not daft enough to have an election campaign running through Christmas and the New Year. His own people would stop that.
Redfield and Wilton are polling "in the so-called ‘Blue Wall’ of affluent, southern constituencies where the party has traditionally won, but where its support has been slipping in recent years". These are Remain-orientated constituencies, but with a selection bias towards including ones where the Lib Dems are the main challenger, the threshold for inclusion is either that LDs are within 15,000 votes of the Tories or that Labour is within 10,000 votes of the Tories, so a higher bar for Labour.
The picture from the polling is still one of Labour going forward strongly since 2019 and of the LDs going backwards. The LDs vote share has been below their 2019 vote share in every single one of the R&W polls to date. So while McFadden is of course ramping Labour, I think he is justified in his comments.
Latest R&W Blue Wall polling (28/4/24) with change since GE 2019:
Ironically that could save a few Tory seats in areas like Surrey or Oxfordshire or Chelsea and Fulham where the LDs were second last time if Labour is up at their expense
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Save this post.
Wow - John Hayes, MP for South Holland and the Deepings! He has increased his voteshare in each of the past six general elections.
The Tory Party as a whole has done that, so probably many Tory MPs have.
What goes up eventually comes down though and it looks like the past six will be reversed in one motion, and maybe then some too, at the next election.
Wow - so it has. That's an amazing statistic.
Hayes probably still stands out though. 1997: 49.3%; 2019: 75.9%
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Not to mention both national and London specific polls.
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
The actual lead turned out to be, what, 11.1%? That's easily within the MoE for the Savanta and R+W polls.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
This is a lot of words to say that no-one wants the job now as it will be available to all survivors with no blame attached for the 2024 GE in a few months time.
The problem with these elections was that if they did OK Sunak would survive, and if they didn't all the others would wait, so Sunak woudl survive.
The surprise he could pull is just resign now without warning. Unlikely.
… This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further…
I wonder what every sensible person in the land would say to Lord Denning today ?
The arrogant old pillock.
I'd say that statement might well be the most terrifying thing said by a public figure in the last few decades. The mindset it reveals is unfathomable.
Lord Denning also came out with this racist crap in 1982 in questioning whether all citizens were fit to serve on juries:
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
He does seem to have been a pretty loathsome guy in many respects. Very pally with Thatch, unsurprisingly.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
Yes please find the actual posts so we can judge if you are putting words into Nick Palmer's mouth that he didn't actually say.
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
Isn't that the post Musky Baby reacted to (and consequently spread it to a much wider audience)?
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Not to mention both national and London specific polls.
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
The actual lead turned out to be, what, 11.1%? That's easily within the MoE for the Savanta and R+W polls.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
For some unaccountable reason this reminds me of my current reading: the Franklin expedition. Marching hundreds of miles south from where their ships Terror and Erebus were stuck in the ice. Shedding corpses and skeletons, and latterly eating each other, all over the Arctic, and the last few dying in and around a ship's boat dragged all the way.
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
Isn't that the post Musky Baby reacted to (and consequently spread it to a much wider audience)?
Yes. I said this is why it is totally unacceptable that Musk is allowed to own Twitter.
Thanks, Cyclefree, an interesting read as always. It got me thinking about lawyers. Do I expect them to have higher ethical standards than the average person? Part of me does. Like doctors and chartered accountants they're meant to have a loyalty to something higher than their own interests The roll call of heroic lawyers in fiction is long. It's as long as that for doctors and much longer than for chartered accountants. Yet in truth I can't say that the lawyers I've known (numerous) have lived up to this. Perhaps that's because they've been of the corporate 'city' variety rather than anything like Rumpole or Atticus Finch. Lawyers rather like the PO ones in other words. People engaged in a well paid white-collar career rather than a profession.
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
Leave it up, with the attached community note, so that everyone can see he’s a racist tw@ who can’t get his facts right, and the 99.99% of us who aren’t racist tw@s know to avoid him.
To censor him only makes a martyr of him, and leads to the inevitable question of who should be the censors of the town square, especially when it comes to people standing for elected office.
Better that he is silent and thought to be an idiot, than opens his mouth and removes all doubt.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
I'd rather put an Asian Hornet under my foreskin than indulge in a tedious to and fro about who said what about Ukraine, but if you state that someone has said something it's traditional to back it up with a quote. At least you've slipped in a qualifying 'implied' now.
Thanks, Cyclefree, an interesting read as always. It got me thinking about lawyers. Do I expect them to have higher ethical standards than the average person? Part of me does. Like doctors and chartered accountants they're meant to have a loyalty to something higher than their own interests The roll call of heroic lawyers in fiction is long. It's as long as that for doctors and much longer than for chartered accountants. Yet in truth I can't say that the lawyers I've known (numerous) have lived up to this. Perhaps that's because they've been of the corporate 'city' variety rather than anything like Rumpole or Atticus Finch. Lawyers rather like the PO ones in other words. People engaged in a well paid white-collar career rather than a profession.
You don't expect them to be heroes, Kin, but you kind of expect them to obey the law. The PO's lawyers did not.
Let's see if they get the same treatment as me and thee, if we did likewise.
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
Leave it up, with the attached community note, so that everyone can see he’s a racist tw@ who can’t get his facts right, and the 99.99% of us who aren’t racist tw@s know to avoid him.
To censor him only makes a martyr of him, and leads to the inevitable question of who should be the censors of the town square, especially when it comes to people standing for elected office.
Better that he is silent and thought to be an idiot, than opens his mouth and removes all doubt.
What about the amplification of this content and how many people believed it before the note appeared? I.e. those Musk has provided the Tweet to?
I can agree with your point in principle - but this is the kind of language that radicalises people.
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Save this post.
Wow - John Hayes, MP for South Holland and the Deepings! He has increased his voteshare in each of the past six general elections.
The Tory Party as a whole has done that, so probably many Tory MPs have.
What goes up eventually comes down though and it looks like the past six will be reversed in one motion, and maybe then some too, at the next election.
6 will be unusual, just due to the time span.
For a couple, Jenrick has done 4.
It's about marginal gains happening to be in the right direction, One big jump and it is difficult. Mad Nad did 7 with 2 drops of under 2%, since 1997.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
Good luck with that, the search function seems to be buggered.
Remember, we 'poked' them into this. It isn't Russia's fault; it's ours. The Ukrainians are Nazis and don't exist as a country, and are being led by a dictator.
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
Who on here has said this?
The poked comment, Nick Palmer, a couple of days before Russia's invasion. A staggeringly ill-judged comment, and one that implied Putin's invasion was *our* fault. Ukrainians are Nazi's - implied by various, including Nick and, naturally, our old friend @Dura_Ace. The Ukrainians are being led by a dictator - @Dura_Ace (*) . Ukraine doesn't exist as a country: again, implied by some of those posters.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
Good luck with that, the search function seems to be buggered.
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
'For it is sweet and right to die for inheritance tax cuts.'
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
Not to mention both national and London specific polls.
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
The actual lead turned out to be, what, 11.1%? That's easily within the MoE for the Savanta and R+W polls.
Exactly.
Oh, sorry, I completely misread your post. Apologies!
Redditch has a 16K tory majority. It's council went Labour massively on Thursday.
Middle England.
It is not even on the target list of seats as far as I can see.
a) Different turnout b) Local elections sometimes have opposite results to general elections.
But Hung Parliament is stretching it, yes.
It’s been a bizarre few days for political ‘analysis’, I have commented on the frankly weird and disturbing incessant ramping of Hall on here masquerading as betting insight. But even that was based on initial rumours that Hall could win. She got utterly hammered. I have been away all weekend. Did we ever ascertain from where the initial notion arose?
Sorry, but weren’t you one of them?
No, I said at one stage that my view had been changed by the posts on here - and also said at the time (in the same post) that I was almost certainly being irrational. I was certainly influenced by it. But then, in the past, PB has been a generally good guide on election night. Not this time!
We (well, I) are good at collating data and drawing conclusions, and in POTUS or UKGE elections where there is a constant stream of counted votes we can discuss well. But in the gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released we only have gossip and tittle-tattle and we (well, I) go haywire on a GIGO basis.
In the specific case of LONMAYORAL24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows * We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available * We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem * During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering. * Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?
I don’t believe you can possibly argue that the only data available pointed to a Hall win. All the data pointed to a Khan win, as others including myself maintained throughout. What we had on the third were some snippets of anecdata, that subsequently turned out to be nonsense (as I said at the time, postal votes are verified face down so claims from postal verifications are almost always rubbish), and some turnout data that was hardly dramatic, and probably explained - if explanation is needed - by some normally non-voters getting off their arses in Outer London to vote for Reform.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
Partly it's the difference in brain wiring that correlates a bit with which political instincts. An overfocus on what can go wrong makes socialism attractive, an underfocus does the same for libertarian capitalism. See the way that Blair and Starmer have trod the path to Number Ten- incredibly cautiously. You wouldn't get a Tory doing that; at their best, that optimism one of their attractive features.
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
Not much sunny optimism on ConHome. https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/ … Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
'For it is sweet and right to die for inheritance tax cuts.'
Comments
The rivers and seas that is.
EVs mitigate that somewhat with regenerative braking.
But yes, our esteemed doctor is confusing the instantaneous mpg calculation on his dashboard with energy demand. The former is a composite of energy demand and velocity - and is if course higher at lower speeds.
As Private Frazer would tell them: 'you're all dooomed'
But it became an institutional problem, because it started to produce exactly the result the senior management was expecting, an increase in incidents of fraud that led to opportunities to prosecute SPMs, and because that was exactly what the new system was doing, there was a huge amount of institutional inertia required to be overcome, to admit there were system issues which made the prosecutions unreliable and unwise to continue.
If they’d taken a step back, stopped the rollout and prosecutions, and fixed the software first, then we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Because, as you say, it’s primarily a human failure rather than a systems failure, and those reporting the software issues became the problem in the way of the prosecutions, so everyone stuck their fingers in their ears and pretended nothing was wrong.
It's easy to get bogged down in the detail of the Inquiry, but the biggest and simplest observation is blindingly obvious to anybody who has followed it. The Post Office didn't give a shit about the Subpostmasters, and with little exception, it still doesn't.
Bear in mind that Rishi Sunak (basically a transistorised Peter Lilley politically) gets grief for being a wet centrist. Objectively, that's nuts.
The English are no longer a homogeneous race. They are white and black, coloured and brown. They no longer share the same standards of conduct. Some of them come from countries where bribery and graft are accepted as an integral part of life and where stealing is a virtue so long as you are not found out… They will never accept the word of a policeman against one of their own.
Frosty, Rowling, Hannan etc. Even Farage looks like he may run scared of the ballot box.
Standing on a large lump of wood...
(Harsh?)
Planks are useful.
*precise scope depending on source.
I actually think the biggest story no one is taking about is the grinding Russian advance in Ukraine. Especially in the air
“Kharkiv is suffering terrorist attack after terrorist attack, every day. If this was happening in any European or American or Australian or Canadian city, it would be stopped. Ukraine can’t stop this without air defences and Putin is exploiting Western weakness. It has to stop.”
https://x.com/pictureladyjan/status/1787223068315725900?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
At the end of the Plebgate fandango, it was quietly said that to actually prosecute every policeman who’d lied (or considered to lie) would have damaged public confidence in the police.
When Tony Blair & Co were caught retailing peerages, prosecution was judged not to be in The Public Interest. Because everyone does it and it would undermine public trust in government.
In the specific case of LONMAYOR24 the only info we had was the gossip from various sources, a possible postal vote leak, and the turnout data, all of which were surprisingly favorable for Hall. Given that the only data available suggested a Hall win, the only conclusion was a Hall win. When actual count data came in, it became rapidly obvious that she had lost and PB corrected accordingly.
Lessons to be learned are as follows
- We (well, I) am not good at interpreting low-quality data and should not predict until actual count data is available
- The gap between the end of the election and the vote counts being released is unusable for prediction. I assume exit polls are the exception, but even then it's a risk.
- We are used as a source by Twitter, which is then fed back to us, and we have a feedback loop. So we (well, I), were both cause of and sufferer of the problem
- During the low-quality data period it is possible to manipulate the media and Twitter to swing the odds dramatically in such a way to accrue profit from artificially-created value bets. This offers an interesting possibility for betting engineering.
- Journalists know f*** all. Wait for the count data.
Considering POTUS24 is six months away, these are good lessons to know now, yes?https://klinger.io/posts/eu-acc
… The US has its state Delaware as de facto standard for legal entities for startups.
When people say US Inc, they mean Delaware Inc.
This might sound like a small thing, but it has a lot of implications. With one fundament on which you can start establishing other standards on top of it.
Eg you can create standard documents like the YC SAFE or even software like AngelList on top of that.
“Well, we have similar documents for German GmbHs as well…”
Let me stop you right here.
I invest globally.
To invest in the EU I need to understand 30+ legal systems to make sure I am not tricked over by the small print, get lawyers and figure out if I need a notary. After that i need 10-20 emails each funding round to satisfy whatever random fun fact local countries came up now.
In the US I receive an email with a document signing link to a standard SAFE and can sign with one click. I don’t need to check the fine-print. I (and the founder) don’t need to involve lawyers.
“But if the deal is good enough it’s worth the effort…”
That’s not the reality of early stage investing…
San Francisco probably has more venture capital than does the entire EU.
"A meeting in the last fortnight between the prime minister and two grandees from the party’s right wing – Sir John Hayes and Sir Edward Leigh – saw Mr Sunak being pushed to become more right wing if he wanted to stay as prime minister."
"(...)it was noted that he moved to appease the right ahead of the local elections by pushing through his controversial Rwanda bill to allow deportations of asylum seekers to east Africa. He then authorised the filming of asylum seekers being rounded up into vans, just ahead of polling day."
"On Saturday, Sir John publicly backed the prime minister to keep his job following that particular stunt, and claimed that the images of asylum seekers being rounded up for deportation 'ensured that we held on to seats we would have otherwise lost'.
He said: 'We need half a dozen more headlines like that and then we can win again.'"
John Hayes - now there is someone who understands politics.
As well as rounding up non-white immigrants and throwing them into vans for deportation, there's also the trouble on the campuses. This will grow when Israel assaults Rafah. From the right wing point of view, you therefore get
* the government beginning to turn things around (throwing immigrants into vans)
* a growing problem on the campuses involving "the usual suspects" - non-whites wearing Arab scarves, a few white lefties doing the same, people shouting about "Jenny Cider" or something like that - oh how tiresome - but clearly unBritish types being unBritishly angry and disruptive and requiring an introduction to an iron fist, to put them back where they came from in all senses. "My son worked hard for his degree - now he doesn't know what he'll do, now the exams were cancelled because of the Khamass protests", etc.
* the call for action: want a government that continues to face up to the problem and solves it? Then you're going to have to do something, namely vote Tory.
Imagine, just imagine if they can LINK immigration to trouble-makers on campuses. This is practically an open goal for Tory racists. Most illegal immigrants don't come here on small boats - they come here legally on visas and overstay. And many visa schemes, on paper, involve "education". They could even raid a college or two. They could arrest protestors and, lo and behold, find that one of them is an illegal immigrant - here's a photo of him with a banner saying "Free Gaza" - or in a gang that arranged for student visas for 703 people, 596 of whom have overstayed. Powerful stuff.
They'll probably have to replace Sunak first, but I'm sure that's a solvable problem.
Save this post.
The mystery is how Anabob as one of the very first people to have predicted a Hall win (based on nothing, as far as I can see), almost as soon as polls closed, can now be asking how this ridiculous notion arose?
https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1787089111397855614
In the modern era how wrong have polls ever been?
Take the closest poll for this year - 13% lead for Khan. Has a reputable poll failed for an election by so much?
Redfield and Wilton are polling "in the so-called ‘Blue Wall’ of affluent, southern constituencies where the party has traditionally won, but where its support has been slipping in recent years". These are Remain-orientated constituencies, but with a selection bias towards including ones where the Lib Dems are the main challenger, the threshold for inclusion is either that LDs are within 15,000 votes of the Tories or that Labour is within 10,000 votes of the Tories, so a higher bar for Labour.
The picture from the polling is still one of Labour going forward strongly since 2019 and of the LDs going backwards. The LDs vote share has been below their 2019 vote share in every single one of the R&W polls to date. So while McFadden is of course ramping Labour, I think he is justified in his comments.
Latest R&W Blue Wall polling (28/4/24) with change since GE 2019:
Lab 34% (+13%)
Con 25% (-25%)
LD 23% (-4%)
Ref 11% (+11%)
My husband, who has been campaigning for a proper West Coast Cycle Path round here for ages, met the author for the book and is quoted in the Lake District section. Our dog also features!
It is one of those improvements which would make life so much nicer in a number of ways and yet every authority you encounter to try and get something done is in "computer says no" mode. The only one who has helped at all - and has been effective - is the MP for Barrow, Simon Fell, and he is likely to lose his seat.
https://x.com/youngvulgarian/status/1787404283236728894?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
So say some of the 'appeasers' on here...
We know all this now because we are wise after event. It's how we cope at the time that's important. I went off the rails in France22 and somebody who I will not name[1] went off the rails in POTUS16 when early Florida results were good for Clinton. It's important to know why so we can avoid it in future.
[1] other than to point out he rhymes with Smobert Rithson. Don't ban me...
Up to 8 months of tax and spending cuts, rowing back on green targets and performative rabble rousing before the end comes.
He has increased his voteshare in each of the past six general elections.
How many other MPs have done that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Holland_and_The_Deepings_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
One of the lessons of the last week is to ignore what party sources say, especially when it's not obvious what their basis is for saying it. The "turnout is up/down in the right places" stuff was clearly made up, but we all swallowed it a bit.
What is worth looking at is what the parties are doing. In London, Hall's campaign was obviously low-energy compared with Johnson's wins. That ought to have been a clue that she wasn't on track to win. Similarly, Labour's move of activists from Teesside to the West Midlands was a pretty good indication of where the front line of the election was.
People believing what they want to be true and allowing that to determine their facts is all too prevalent.
Elections in "the modern era" (2010-present?) that exceeded this threshold included Scottish Indy 2014 (the canary in the coalmine), UKGE2015, Brexit 2016, UKGE2017. I haven't worked out the mean absolute error for London Mayoral 24 and so cannot say.
His new "secret move" is to claim that Labour will only be able to govern as a "coalition of chaos".
Has he forgotten that his government is historically unpopular and that Labour wants its voters to turn out?
Is he trying to produce a Labour majority, who thinks like this?
https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/05/goodbyeee/
… Half our council seats – and twelve authorities – gone. Third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Eleven mayoral races lost out of twelve. Due to the lethargic way in which the results were counted, the true extent of the pain has almost been dulled. The more one considers it, the more it seems the anti-Sunak lot stood down too early. Weren’t these the results they were hoping for?
Yet the fight seems to have gone out of the rebels. Jenkyns, Simon Clarke, and Suella Braverman – all persistent Sunak critics – have called for mythical “policy changes”, but not demand an immediate resignation. The hope amongst some is that Sunak can own the coming loss, allowing the right to swoop in post-election. The flaw in their logic is that it relies on keeping their seats.
But it’s hard to see what, say, installing Penny Mordaunt as a boat-stopping, strike-breaking, ocean-going vehicle of electoral salvation might achieve. It would rely on HMS Sword-Carrier not only being able to appease both the party’s left and right, but mimic Johnson in 2019, except without Vote Leave, the benefit of the doubt, or the overwhelming need to Get Brexit Done.
There’s nothing to stop the Prime Minister’s critics from buying ad space in the Telegraph to print “WE TOLD YOU SO” in big friendly letters. But one doesn’t sense the appetite for crowing. As with Blackadder accepting his appalling fate, there is a widespread air of resignation. Our survey and suggests the general assumption is that Sunak going would only make things worse. Our time is up.
The big push can only be avoided for so long. In a year, the Prime Minister has brought the party precisely nowhere. Even those once optimistic that he could be Johnson but competent have lost the appetite. Reboots have rung hollow. We are 20 points behind and commanding under a fifth of the vote. Rwanda is a dud, Farage will return, and the voters are miserable. Why cling on?
There will be no cunning plans. Notwithstanding the ability of Tory MPs to shoot themselves in the foot, it seems that Sunak has done terribly enough to have earnt the right to lead us slowly towards the guns later this year at the head of his denuded infantry. Our former Editor once wrote of our party in a Totentanz – a dance of death. This will be a slow, painful, and hopeless march...
That’s one group.
Then there are those who see Russia as a strong, united culture. A hard land, where men are Hard. And sheep are nervous…. It’s not that they like Putin, you see. But he is Soooo Stroooong. And those war crimes are just evidence of the Hardness of Russian Real Men.
As opposed to the desire of Zelensky to build a European Metrosexual state.
None of the Blasted Heath.
Good enough, or do you want me to find actual posts?
(*) Unsurprisingly, this is currently a thread in pro-Russian propaganda.
What goes up eventually comes down though and it looks like the past six will be reversed in one motion, and maybe then some too, at the next election.
You want a July election because you want the Tories to lose and Labour in Downing Street.
What possible reason has Rishi got to call an election?
It'll be January 2025.
The Tories also lost under 500 seats whereas in 1996, the last locals elections before the 1997 Labour landslide, the Major led Tories lost over 600 seats
https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1786809682574586151
Here we have an Islamophobic Tweet from Lozza with a (large) hint of racism, that is also completely and utterly wrong in nearly all of its claims. Should this be kept up and community noted as it has been (community notes are one of the few things good on Twitter - albeit they were invented by the previous leadership) or removed?
What we had were snippets of groundless rumour, in a situation where some with money on the outcome had self-interest to paint the race as close, as did the Tory establishment hoping to damp down any rebellion on the Friday/Saturday.
The lessons to learn are, don't believe any nonsense coming out between polls close and a count, but also be alive to the possibility of trading bets because others aren't so astute.
Although for a while I thought it would be 2 May 😈
However I now think it will be Oct/Nov. I don't think Rishi will hang on to January. It might be snowy then!
You see some of us can separate the two Bart.
It's Oct or Nov, as always seemed likely.
Hayes probably still stands out though. 1997: 49.3%; 2019: 75.9%
Tories as a whole: 1997: 30.7%; 2019: 43.6%
That's easily within the MoE for the Savanta and R+W polls.
The problem with these elections was that if they did OK Sunak would survive, and if they didn't all the others would wait, so Sunak woudl survive.
The surprise he could pull is just resign now without warning. Unlikely.
To censor him only makes a martyr of him, and leads to the inevitable question of who should be the censors of the town square, especially when it comes to people standing for elected office.
Better that he is silent and thought to be an idiot, than opens his mouth and removes all doubt.
Let's see if they get the same treatment as me and thee, if we did likewise.
I can agree with your point in principle - but this is the kind of language that radicalises people.
For a couple, Jenrick has done 4.
It's about marginal gains happening to be in the right direction, One big jump and it is difficult. Mad Nad did 7 with 2 drops of under 2%, since 1997.
It will be the next one - Penny Mordaunt aka Hammer of the Scots