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Lessons from history – politicalbetting.com
Lessons from history – politicalbetting.com
?? NEW: How likely is a hung parliament?Local elections gave some Tories hope that the election will be close. But when all is said and done, national opinion polls – which give a 21pt Labour lead – are rarely *that* wrongIn today’s @thetimes https://t.co/GQHRHgqvYO pic.twitter.com/4aJILsnQqo
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Edit - my own projected range at the moment is 50 to 150 weighted slightly to the lower figure
Good morning, everyone.
F1: looking forward quite a lot to the next race. Last time, Norris just drove away from Verstappen. I do think Red Bull botched the setup, but that also seems to have occurred in Australia. If the new McLaren can repeat that, it bodes well.
The polls point to a Blair style swing - and of course Starmer is facing not just the Tories but the SNP as well which makes his task rather easier.
But I am dubious. Starmer is no Blair.
If he picks up 100 seats he's done well and will be PM.
PB Tories comfort themselves with the idea that they will soon be back, but it is a fantasy based on delusion and arrogance.
(Congratulations.)
Unfortunately for me it discourages punters from backing NOM and therby helping to top up the PtP Pension Fund, but I guess as a lawyer you have your scruples.
Except that in 1997, most pollsters weren't getting Shy Tory Adjustments right- hence the overshoot comparing the polls with reality. So being 20 points behind in the polls now is worse than being 20 points behind then, because it's more likely to be a real deficit.
And whilst good news for the government (Britain Is Booming, Flights to Rwanda) may have an effect, so may bad news (mortgages going up for another million, Boats unstopped, sudden explosive failure of a public service).
Maybe Rishi should just haul the lectern out Monday and get this over with.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=374452
The counter-example is the SNP, who went for two establishment figures in Yousaf and Swinney instead. They could have easily ended up with a UDI advocate or a Green-style left winger. That's why they are only just behind Labour in a crowded centre-left field.
Basically, something insane has to happen as the electoral consequence of all the insane events since 2019. Only question is what form that insanity takes.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
Though it's not one I have really followed, being in a far away county of which I know little. If Natalie Elphicke has had a metanoia, I'd love to hear about it.
At present I'd suggest she's changed her hat.
I guess if they kept unemployment to 1979 levels rather than Thatcher’s they’d be doing ok,
It could. As unlikely as that seems right now. And that doesn't necessarily have to be due to incompetence or corruption, just events, dear boy, events.
Boun giorno
The interesting question over the next four years will be if anyone articulates a coherent opposition to this. It won’t be the Tories, who will be tearing themselves apart with glee. I would like to think there’s room for an alternative from the centre-left, but Ed Davey is no Charles Kennedy and the more thoughtful elements of Labour have meekly lined up behind Starmer.
Past performance is no guide to the future and it's just as possible Labour get complacent. Labour haven't made massive gains; it's just the Right have split and gone on strike and opposition to the Government has rallied round them. Starmer isn't close to owning the room like Blair did.
Bear in mind we've gone from Tory wipeout to Tory majority to Tory by-election gains to prospective Tory wipeout in barely 5 years.
We have no idea what will happen by 2028 or 2029, and that includes both me and you.
And then there is Starmer himself. A man of few convictions (which is a plus of a sort, I suppose), who changes with the wind and doesn't seem to understand the word "no" , preferring what his immediate audience wants to hear.
I am not saying the Tories are any better, they aren't. But I am really struggling to remember a weaker shadow cabinet. Blair and Cameron both had far more firepower at their disposal.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
Political leaders do not turn down defections.
Any defection.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
1) Accessible to the public so they can check and challenge any inaccuracies in their records;
2) Full record of who has accessed it so we can check who is looking at our info and challenge anyone who has done so for an improper purpose.
3) Criminal prosecutions for any breach of 2.
And two for the ID card:
1) Supersedes all other forms of ID including driving licences, DBS clearances and NI numbers;
2) Does not have to be carried at all times.
If those five criteria are met we can be reasonably confident that our rights are protected and Satan is wondering what the fuck to do with his new ice rink.
NE may not be a good person, and she may have very mixed motives for defecting. But she is legitimately the MP for Dover. And had Starmer spurned her, there would have been people, here and elsewhere, banging on about lah-di-dah Starmer, who does he think he is? Better than the voters of Dover?
But generally, I agree.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/11/welsh-labour-to-hike-council-tax-by-spying-on-homeowners/
Things that may increase house values, home improvements, good schools....
I mean isn't it obvious that houses that the general public are willing to pay more for or worth more so end up in a higher council tax band...
Just a shame it's a revaluation and not a complete redesign of the whole tax system around housing but that could only be done by the UK Government...
The system should confirm I am the person on the card I presented - recording who made the request and when and stop at the point.
The system that contains the information I'm discussing at that time does not need to merged into 1 global system of 500 different data sources, each system should be a self contained data source with a link into the verification API...
Anyhoo, I am not joking, but I have been told the genuine reason why Natalie Elphicke defected.
She's trying to get planning permission to convert a garage into flats that she owns in her constituency but locals have objected to her plans.
The Labour run council can overrule the local objections so defecting to Labour she thinks they will support one of their own.
I think the difference between the national polls and the local election results should perhaps have less weight, since the collection of seats being voted on had quite a different profile. If I recall the maps from last week, the seats being voted upon were weighted to the South.
It's interesting that the only changes going the other ways (Tories going backwards in the final 2 weeks) were 1 - the post Falklands election in 1983 (the Falklands War effect wearing off?) and 2 - Get Brexit Done / Corbyn.
Do we really want to give the police more powers to harass people because they do not have their papers on them?
The next government will be judged predominantly on its efforts to improve economic security and restore decrepit public services. The fate of a few thousand randoms turning up in leaky dinghies is quite low down the list of voter concerns.
It has also emerged that Ms Elphicke is seeking planning permission to convert a garage she owns in Dover into a two-storey house, and needs the support of the Labour-run local council to overrule objections from neighbours.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/10/sue-gray-faces-questions-role-natalie-elphicke/
The answer, as someone had worked out, was of course that he was already on the DNA database, as are several million others for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with previous criminal events but we were not allowed to tell them that. It does make me wonder, however, what the point of an ID system would be. We already have so many ways of either vouching or having our IDs checked I am really not sure I can see what we get for the cost.
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
The ID card confirms who you are - that by itself should be sufficient for the user to then pull up the driving licence / DBS clearance / NI number from the driving licence / DBS clearance / NI number independently separate database.
A comparison of the polls in the month before an election was called would be more relevant.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
If he believed university educated social liberals was the way forward would be still be as keen on the Red Wall? Because I think there's a danger in his, I believe deliberately and quite ruthlessly, rejecting liberalism.
Firstly almost his entire party is made up of such people. They will go along with Starmer if he wins them an election but after that?
Secondly graduates are a large and increasingly large demographic looking for a political home. Does he really want to repel them.
Thirdly Starmer is a traditionalist not a populist. The Elphicke defection muddies the distinction.
But I don't think Starmer is triangulating or just saying what people want to hear. If anything he's not triangulating enough
Edit, its never a good sign when you have to explain it, is it?
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
If I have my relative regional property price movements over the last 15 years right, it will be somewhat less painful for London etc than would have been the case a few years ago - regional price ratios having tightened up to a degree.
It will be interesting to see how he would seek to repair local authority budgets and services, and over what period of time.
My lesson from 2017 is not about possible polling error, but for the potential for the election campaign to change minds. It is not hard for me to see Starmer having a poor campaign, and for negative online adverts to rally some reluctant Tory voters.
I wonder whether the 15/2 available for no overall majority is now value?
It lies in the gap between 41 Tory losses and 123 Labour gains. That feels like a large landing zone to me.
But, a hung parliament is a very real possibility next time.
The trouble is that the offerings of the two main political parties have been almost precisely the wrong way round.
The elections of 2017 and 2019 were unusually volatile in the months before because Brexit crossed previous party allegiances and completely dominated. This GE is more conventional, and while some volatility is possible there is no sign of it at present, nor an obvious precipitating factor. Some slow drift back to the Tories is probable in the final weeks and months as per 1997, but if anything the trend is away.
It would be pretty weird if there werent quite a few Tory MPs who are now closer to Labour than their own government. That doesn't mean that they are at the heart of Labour, or even have changed their own values, it just is what it is, they no longer believe in this Tory government, whether for reasons of credibility, competence or policy.
I would quite like to see a profile of Labour GE candidates, around backgrounds and experience - eg SPADs and insiders vs people who have experience in jobs and careers outside politics.
Also where they are with All Women Shortlists? Over time the rhetoric shifted from eg "10% of women MPs are not enough" to eg "35% of women MPs are not enough", and now for Labour women have been a majority of Labour MPs since 2019. So I think it's probably time to drop the sex-quota.
I never liked the measure at the time because it was a deliberate and embarrassing gerrymander inserted into a law to declare an activity found to be illegal to be OK.
Even although I was appalled by our entry in the Eurovision and commented that if we got nul points it would be too many (which is exactly what the popular vote gave us) I want our country to do well and if Starmer delivers I will be delighted.
I'd also like Man Utd to do better too but that really is asking for too much.
https://publicaccess.dover.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=RNEJS9FZJFV00&activeTab=summary
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
b) even if they want to change, do they have the people and ideas to do so? Canadian Tories managed it by going YIMBY, but Starmer looks like landing on that space first.
On topic, more or less, as a lifelong Leftist I wouldn’t be happy to be in the same party as Ms Elphicke. On the other hand, she’s entitled to change her mind, always assuming that said ‘change’ isn’t motivated by some base motive, such as influencing the local council!
I don’t think Sir Keir should have gone down to Dover and ‘encouraged’ her, and, come to that, he should have made as much fuss as was made of her floor-crossing.
There are arguments in favour of linking everything up together, including that it’s pretty much impossible to live as an illegal without one, but that brings privacy and abuse problems that need to be thought through and properly debated beforehand. There’s also the issue of scope creep, for example business refusing to accept anything except the ID card or passport as ID, even if it’s not technically compulsory.
(I live in a country with the big database, and can see both sides of the argument, the libertarian in me being against such things, but the pragmatist in me understanding how useful it can make interaction with the State).