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We have the first constituency betting market – politicalbetting.com
We have the first constituency betting market – politicalbetting.com
I have been bemoaning for months about the lack of constituency markets but we do have the first constituency market for the next election, after a fashion.
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Coincidence?
I think not.
Nadhim Zahawi’s lawyer is at risk of facing sanctions for attempting to restrict a critic of the former chancellor with intimidatory warnings.
first time a solicitor has been referred to a tribunal over an alleged ‘Slapp’ — a strategic lawsuit against public participation
A hard working lawyer is persecuted for doing their job, that is the road to fascism.
First they came for the lawyers and I said nothing...
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/08/13/rishi-sunaks-chopper-is-going-to-get-him-into-a-lot-of-trouble/
But that is the interesting part of the next election - because the difference between the Tories winning 200 seats and the Tories win 20 seats will rest as much on external factors as on anything Rishi can do.
Remember that the Brexit party cost the Tories 38 seats where the Labour majority was smaller than their the Brexit party votes and it's that type of impact we don't know yet..
And there is no way that SKS and Labour would be in the current position if Bozo had had a majority of 156 rather than 80..
I met a couple of lawyers involved with New Labour who seemed to have the following thought process -
1) something is arguably just about legal
2) therefore it is legal
3) therefore it is Good.
4) therefore it must be done
5) anyone opposing this is Going Against The Law, and is Evil
And from memory it's not a hard working lawyer doing their job, it was a hard working lawyer implementing something dubious against someone who knew how the game was played so hit back.
Client: Explains their situation/problem
Lawyer: Explains how to get out of said situation/problem
Client: Is that legal?
Lawyer: It is rarely prosecuted
Lawyer feels they have done brilliantly for the client and deserves a nice payday for their hard work.
Now I don't like IR35 but it's required because I know removing it would push a lot of lower pay industries that compete on price into utterly false self-employment methods to save a few pennies.
Sadly because the £100k+ tax trap impacts relatively few people I just don't see anyone trying to reform it because to reform it on a tax neutral basis you probably need to raise the higher rate to 50% from that £100,000 point and that politically looks worse than existing removal...
FWIW I like this idea of getting the client signing a legal document confirming what is in the SLAPP is true and if it turns out they lied they get charged with perjury.
Still obsessed by Brexit.
Economically, it's stupid. I don't want to share too much personal income details on here but I was just below it 3 years ago and now am significantly over it but don't earn much more net than my wife, who's on £96k. My personal allowance is gone and I'm actually on a Z-code.
Sometimes wonder why I bother. I could just work 4-days a week or drop back to a slightly easier job and not really be any worse off.
As Cyclefree said yesterday regarding the latest Post Office witness they should have done the work required to protect their backside and not assumed their client's statement was 100% truthful and accurate.
the perjury solution only works in scenarios where the people involved are actually subject to UK law - many people using SLAPPs can up sticks and move abroad (say to the Isle of Mann in one famous example).
3/1 is very good value.
And as you say the problem becomes one of do I want further career progression (and work 5 days a week) or take time off. I suspect that with the child care changes anyone with children between 1 and 4 will decide that the 4 day week makes more sense...
Danger for tories - triumphalism will piss people off
Danger for Labour - looking like they were desperate for bad news to use as a stick/yebbutism
Ask a serious historian, when was the best time in history to be born, and they'd reply "Yesterday."
F1: wondering how McLaren are going to do all season. While Red Bull did seem to get the setup wrong, that also seemed the case at Australia. Norris just drove away from Verstappen late on.
Bob Blackman will likely hold that seat, based upon:
1. Last week's London results
2. His own personal vote
3. A swing to the Conservatives among Indian voters (Harrow East is one of the most Indian constituencies in the country.) It doesn't hurt that the constituency has a few thousand Jewish voters, too.
Note too, the Conservatives took Harrow Council, in 2022, against the trend.
2022 locals gave Cons an advantage here of around 25% at constituency level, when Labour were 5% ahead on GE VI, and that figure is significantly more than for Uxbridge. I'd be favouring the Tories for a hypothetical by-election hold here, let alone a GE hold.
The Harrow & Brent constituency have Labour around a 5 point win in the assembly elections overall, so little doubt a sizeable Con advantage in the Harrow part.
3/1 looks decent.
The economy has already grown faster than the OECD predicted for the entire year.
Growth of 2 - 2.5% is the norm, unless it gets depressed by events like Covid, and Ukraine. That is good news in due course for Kier Starmer, but I won't begrudge him that.
Staff shortages make implementing requirements in the Baroness Casey’s review and bringing down sex assault all but impossible
...
...the Met said a third of its officers will have under four years of service next year as it struggles with low pay, high workloads and plummeting application numbers.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/metropolitan-police-funding-crisis-casey-review-not-fit-to-serve-b1156549.html
There was a similar issue of Annual Allowance charges affecting a lot of my colleagues a few years back causing people to cut hours or retire early.
Sorting it out in a financially neutral way, such as starting the higher rate at £100 000 and restoring the personal allowance, as well as some of the child related* cliff edges would be a good thing.
*though very legitimate to question why we subsidise child care for people on several multiples of median earnings.
🚨NEW Scottish Westminster VI for
@TheScotsman
📈Labour lead the SNP for first time in a Savanta poll.
🌹LAB 37% (+2)
🎗️SNP 33% (-2)
🌳CON 17% (-2)
🔶LD 7% (+1)
⬜️Other 6% (+1)
1,080 Scottish adults, 3-8 May
(change from 6-11 Oct '23)
Who else is buggering up the economy that we can divert into buggering up the government instead?
The sudden fascination of GDP per head on the BBC is new too. Don't recall that being given as much prominence before.
The last 2 years, however, have been awful with next to no growth at all. The cost of gas and consequential broader inflation really hurt. It will take more than one good quarter to give the Tories anything to boast about.
🚨NEW Holyrood Constituency VI for
@TheScotsman
📈First time Labour have tied the SNP in a Holyrood constituency VI in Savanta polling
🎗️SNP 35% (-2)
🌹LAB 35% (+2)
🌳CON 18% (=)
🔶LD 8% (+2)
⬜️Other 5% (=)
1,080 Scottish adults, 3-8 May
(change from 6-11 Oct '23)
They’re about criminals getting through the vetting process.
Even I've never been tempted by a glass of red so early in the day, but it really does seem to be the way of life here.. two more old guys have come in; they've bought a bottle!
And given that for takeover reasons my current contracts just been binned it’s not a great time to be looking
Brown screwed up private sector pensions, abused fiscal drift horribly (although perhaps not on the same scale as Hunt), announced and reannounced the same spending again and again and spent most of his budgets moving around a few tens of millions towards his latest obsession in economically irrelevant ways other than complicating the tax code (a common failing of almost all Chancellors since Lawson in fairness). Oh, and he sold our gold on the cheap. Its enough of a charge sheet to be getting on with.
Edit he sneaked it in in April 2010 a month before the election but Osborne didn't reverse it.
Though bringing in Forbes is a positive healing move.
The SNP vote is very sticky despite everything.
None of those look particularly appealing although the Harrow one is I assume because it has a very large Indian population. In general Tory outperformance in seats with large Indian (Hindu or Sikh) representation seems like one of the stronger prospects for them in the GE and is born out by recent results.
With a few regulatory changes to encourage more investor risk taking and a change in attitude from the government around rewarding success rather than punishing it I think we could see the FTSE hit 10k+ and a lot of the undervaluation of UK companies disappear.
Annoying as I am very underweight on anything UK given its dire recent performance.
One of the really strange disparities in Scottish polling is that the SNP vote and independence used to be pretty much in lockstep. Independence is still around 48% so a very wide gap has opened up, mainly because people have stopped believing that the SNP will deliver it. But come the election there will be a lot of potential voters that the SNP might hope to fool one more time. Labour should not go back to taking Scotland for granted.
So glad to hear @YvetteCooperMP on @BBCr4today saying she has spoken at length with new Top Socialist Natalie Elphicke about immigration (since Wednesday) too. All totally and completely normal!
They've clearly had nobody (next to Dover) to speak to about this over the last few years....But now it's all about to be cleared up. Hooray.
https://x.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1788824738921357710
I'd roughly totted up the lead numbers for LE22 and estimated the lead based on a lower turnout. Its still Doesn't negate 3/1 being value in my eyes:
Harrow E LE 2022:
Con 18520 (54.2%)
Lab 11861 (34.7)
LD 2694 (7.9)
Grn 665 (1.9)
Ind 328 (1.0)
Ref (0.3)
As ever, DYOR.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/fresh-headache-for-keir-starmer-as-pro-gaza-professor-launches-campaign-against-top-labour-mp/ar-BB1m6u9I?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=6ebaff1e7ed7446fb3257a98252dbb55&ei=13
It makes sense to look at per-head measures in an election year but the trouble is GDP is probably the worst measure to do per capita on: better to look at real household income or consumer spending.
Some very interesting analysis a few days ago, unfortunately I forget who from, showing a quite remarkable switch from household spending to saving. Our savings ratio and national balance sheets are healthier than they've been for years thanks to savings during Covid and higher recent interest rates. We look - and probably need to be if we want to avoid a Japan situation - primed for a big increase in consumer spending. Generally the healthier the private balance sheet the more woeful the public sector one. Again, see Japan.
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Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.
Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
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I don't think this holiday needs any more walking or hills.. Although I'm heading back to Pamplona, which isn't flattest of cities
There I plan to drink wine and eat plenty
London is also why I think the more apocalyptic Tory VI scores are highly unlikely. Mid 20s not high teens. That's still bad enough to see them 'rumped' at low 100s seats on a poor night
My portfolio is fairly equally split between UK and overseas, but over recent years it is the overseas bit that has prospered and UK that has lagged.
As ever it is Remania doing well both geographically and in terms of sectors of the economy. I would caution Sunak against triumphantly choppering in to Blackpool or Stoke proclaiming "you never had it so good".
(Sits huddled in the corner, gently sobbing about humanity...)
Everyone else he has swatted like flies.
A powerful and intelligent woman for our times.