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Ayrshire hotelier and convicted felon remains the favourite for the White House race in November

Graphic: The Betfair US Presidential market over the last 5 days
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Edit: or first like future president Zuma?
Or possibly second.
3rd, like RFK jnr.
The fastest anyone has built such a factory is probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_Berlin-Brandenburg - which was 3+ years from ground breaking to initial production.
And it's the most liquid political betting market there is, so plenty of opportunities to trade between now and November.
Most of this is due to lies of course. So, even yesterday, he was saying his country had gone to hell and that "millions" of people out of prisons were invading it causing chaos. In the real world violent crime in the US is at a 50 year low. it was last this low in the early 1970s when the population was 100m less. In per capita terms it is astonishingly low.
if this huge wave of immigrants is causing a crime spree where are the crimes?
Trump's inevitable answer is that the FBI statistics are "fake news". Well.
Maybe.
The MAGA line is that this prosecution and the conviction are proof of the conspiracy to steal the election. And even people on the fringes of this believe that.
And it's not just the room temperature IQ crowd - one of the people I know has a PhD in Art History from a UK university. Yet he is fully down with the Orange Baboon.
https://x.com/adambienkov/status/1796468845965910348?s=46
Where is she these days?
https://x.com/AdamBienkov/status/1796468845965910348
@Savanta_UK
🚨NEW Holyrood Constituency VI for @TheScotsman
📈SNP back to holding a narrow lead over Labour
🎗️SNP 35% (=)
🌹LAB 34% (-1)
🌳CON 17% (-1)
🔶LD 8% (=)
⬜️Other 6% (+1)
1,067 Scottish adults, 24-28 May
(change from 3-8 May)
'Ok lads, any way we can keep Branchform going until 2026?'
Cue @Luckyguy1983 to complain about them in the UK.
That is why America is in such a dangerous position
@tomorrowsmps
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43m
🔴 SWANSEA WEST: it looks like Resolution Foundation CEO is being lined up for this seat.
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Wow. Another think tanker parachuting in.
Starmer is brewing a huge problem here imho. All these 'high fliers' he is parachuting in will not want to be backbench vote fodder. They will want to be given worthwhile government jobs and get stuff done. How many experienced MPs hoping for ministerial jobs will now be pushed out of the way for these new kids?
quasi pact with the SNP. But even so, I would be surprised if they were polling less than 4% which leaves very little indeed for Alba or Reform.
(Is this is the sort of thing which a mixture of BBC, UK traditions of academia, the monarchy, and a fairly non politicised judiciary help to preserve thus far on our side of the pond, and which the present government has tried to undermine?)
Sounds insane to think otherwise, but odds on Labour seem to be 9/2 - 4/1 range
I'd expect something similar, but with posts that fit Labour culture more, to keep idle MPs busy.
How is it "a conspiracy to stop him in almost any way, stretching the law to breaking point" when every juror agreed that he was guilty for 34 charges? Not one juror disagreed across all those charges. Are the jurors part of the conspiracy? Or maybe Donald Trump is a lying crook and justice is finally catching up with him.
The House GOP have been waging lawfare against Biden since they took control in 2022.
The aim of taking control of Congress isn't just to pass laws but to launch investigations.
Its perhaps an inevitable part of the separation of powers - a party can have control of one part of government, or part of a part, but cannot do anything constructive with it and so engages in something destructive instead.
The biggest danger for the rest of us is that their talents get muted and wasted by having to lie and distort all the time just to get by.
Look at the choice of candidates for President. Its calamitous. And this at a time of great peril for the western world
It mostly prevents the political differences from breaking out into actual violence, so the system has some benefit, but it's not particularly functional.
Whether it is the B word, independence in Scotland, weird obsessions with other peoples' bits and what they do with them our society is also falling into camps who only speak to others with abuse. We are a long way behind the US but we face similar perils (as do those who bet assuming that these "independents" form a similar and decisive plank of the US electorate which will result in a rational result).
Had two communications so far, an overt election one from Labour and a rather ‘sitting on the fence’ one on a couple of locally significant issues from Dame Priti.
Seems a decent hire to me.
Thank god that the UK Supreme Court has batted away any attempt to establish it's supremacy over Parliament. I'm looking at you, Mr Lawyer In A Kimono.
Let the legislature legislate, the judicial branch judge and the executive execute.
And the bigger picture definitely reveals a “conspiracy” to stop Trump. Take the lab leak hypothesis. One of the reasons it was so vigorously and fraudulently suppressed is because it was associated with Trump and it was felt that if it gained traction it would help Trump in the election
And it might have done - who knows
So democrats put pressure on Facebook and Twitter to silence an entirely plausible theory about the biggest health disaster in global history
You don’t have to be a flat earther to perceive that the left liberal establishment in the USA is out to get Trump. They ARE
And perhaps that is valid - he is a menace to democracy. I can see that argument too
https://abcnews.go.com/538/americans-love-governors/story?id=109382897
Why both parties have become more obsessed with WDC politicians is something worthy of study.
Finding candidates for seats where they might win is more difficult.
My point is there may well be trouble with existing MPs with so many of these types being parachuted in.
It may well be the case that the current media/internet landscape and a working democracy are incompatible, and one or the other will go.
So it is better for Biden now, and the US, and us, and indeed all sentient carbon-based life forms, although he still remains favorite and extreme evidence of some fundamental flaws in the American system.
Overall only a small fraction of voters are likely to change their vote because of it but in a tight election they could be decisive.
'Overall, two-thirds (67%) said a guilty verdict would make no difference to their vote..Roughly 1 in 6 voters (17%) said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump. That was true of a quarter of nonwhites and 1 in 5 voters who make less than $50,000 a year and those under 45.
Small, but perhaps important, percentages of core Trump voter groups also said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty — those who live in small towns (17%), whites without college degrees (14%), those who live in rural areas (11%) and Republicans (10%).
11% of independents said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump.'
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/nx-s1-4974598/trump-verdict-trial-voters-presidential-election
It simply feels wrong. A bad idea
In this case he stupidly committed a number of crimes in silencing a bimbo eruption (TM Bill Clinton). Politicians have silenced bimbos with cash many times before. Probably used campaign cash to do so. The Orange One probably thought that he was just doing the same thing - but he went much further across various lines than he predecessors.
So you have Trump and MAGA screaming that it's unfair "Everyone does this" and the legitimate point that Trump & Co. actually broke the law.
A big part of the MAGA thing is that the political system is corrupt and that Washington is a pile of legalised bribery.
So to the MAGA types, the difference between legalised crime and straight up illegality is just hypocrisy.
Pushing out long standing activists and councillors and in Labour's case even deselecting some leftwing MPs and parachuting in high flyers at the top of their careers with little experience of working for the party who yes will expect to be Ministers sooner rather than later rather than just mere backbenchers.
I seem to remember it didn't work out too well for the Tories. A number of the A list have now defected to Labour or the LDs or went to ChangeUK. One A lister, Louise Mensch, even moved to New York city with her pop manager husband just 2 years after election in 2010 after deciding Cameron was not going to put her in the Cabinet and being backbench MP for Corby and dealing with constituents tedious problems at her constituency surgery was too much of a bore
I'm guessing Labour won't be publicising this particular letter
There's a line between justifiable criticism of a Government and holding it to account on the one side (an integral part of the democratic process) and obstructive negative criticism from minute one (which I'm sure we'll see from the diehard anti-Labour people on Twitter and from a few on here as well I suspect).
Will anyone who didn't vote Labour wish the new Government well? I will - some will, I fear, be in opposition mode before Starmer is back from the Palace. The truth is the Government is your Government too whether you voted for it or not.
(Full disclosure: it did also cross my mind as I wrote it, but the double entendre was not intentional)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFoWw-3XiU&t=1197s
Basically, MPs shot down all the broadcasters' requests except for moving the bald spots and decolletage camera.
(the more accurate un/not selected of Tunbridge Wells doesn't fit so well)
"It cannot be over-emphasised that the purpose of a criminal prosecution is not to obtain a conviction, it is to lay before a jury what the Crown considers to be credible evidence relevant to what is alleged to be a crime. Counsel have a duty to see that all available legal proof of the facts is presented: it should be done firmly and pressed to its legitimate strength, but it must also be done fairly. The role of prosecutor excludes any notion of winning or losing; his function is a matter of public duty than which in civil life there can be none charges with greater responsibility."
In the heat of battle it is not easy to live up to this. Drawing out evidence that helps the accused or raises issues with a Crown witness does not feel natural but it absolutely needs to be done. Making an accused person look foolish or dishonest (as opposed to the usual inept) is particularly hard to resist, at least in my case. But it is the only way that a fair justice system can operate.
So you’d be ok with a Republican DA being elected on the basis of “getting Biden” and then pursuing him ferociously in this year before the election?
You wouldn’t think that was quite provocative?
https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE
Further joy for my friend who works in the London office of a transport consultancy, which happens to be the same building as Labour (Labour moved in after them). I don't think the company or employees are particularly enjoying the attention.