Your reminder the betting markets are frequently wrong – politicalbetting.com
Your reminder the betting markets are frequently wrong – politicalbetting.com
This shows the betting on Betfair overall majority market over the last three and a half a years. We can see a Labour majority traded as low as an 8.3% chance in May 2021, now they are a 91% chance.
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I can't recall a duller election than this one.
Only bit of excitement was when 2 Jags became 2 jabs.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
I would have thought going last would be an advantage as you might be able to tweak a few things in response .
I still can’t believe Labour won’t have anything new in there besides the policies they’ve announced already .
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I think there's much more money to be made this time in betting on 40-50 key constituencies than playing the main market. Hell, even Joe Biden dying inside 10 weeks is considered more likely than Labour falling short.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
VAT has been developed and refined by the EU for decades precisely so that it does not have the regressive effect that any tax linked to spending would ordinarily have. That’s where exemption and zero rating come in. The Labour private schools policy is an example of an exemption that favours those higher up the spectrum, so removing it - for better or worse politically - is consistent with the sort of tinkering that has been done at European level for years.
No tax is perfect but it is mad not to look at one of the real workhorses of the tax system, especially when other sources are giving diminishing returns. VAT and employer NI are two taxes where our rates are lower than a few peers.
https://www.cityam.com/tax-rises-are-coming-and-these-are-the-ones-to-look-out-for/
It is going to be a problem for Labour that almost the only people who’ve done OK under the Tories are the wealthy, and that they tend also to be the most internationally mobile.
Plucking the goose without making it take flight will be a necessary balancing act. Winding up people Casino is not entirely beside the point if that’s how they’re going to govern.
Is he being selfish ? Perhaps; perhaps not.
But again, your judgment of him really doesn’t make any difference.
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
Good thing: 25%
Bad thing: 28%
Neither: 29%
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1796569827886154153
(It’s not as though Ukraine hasn’t also on occasion blundered - everyone does in war - but they do tend to learn from their mistakes.)
Russians are claiming they made a column of armor and began to march forward from Kursk. During the march, they were struck, they say the first and last vehicles were destroyed, and then the middle was systematically destroyed. They say the manner of their march was in the style of 2022, and that the damage was catastrophic. Ukrainians aren't saying this, Russian milbloggers are.
https://x.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1796998318624481346
As for constituency betting, I wouldn't get involved unless I had very good intelligence on the ground as to what was happening and seeing if the tissue I created of the chances matched the bookies' odds.
In 1997, local bookmakers caught a cold when trying to bet without that intelligence - simply applying UNS and hoping that's what happens is another fast route to the poorhouse. Yes, 1/500 Labour to hold East Ham is a pretty safe bet but most of us don't have £5k lying round to pick up another £10.
I think bookmaker intelligence is better now but there are undoubtedly some good bets if you are in the know.
Good thing: 95%
Bad thing: 5%
I compensate for any lack of knowledge by seeking out real value on the markets where the price is at odds with the data.
But if the ANC insist on Ramaphosa staying on they will have to make some petty hefty concessions elsewhere.
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
I've come across people of all backgrounds and sexual preferences with similar attitudes to taxation as CR. Look at Malcolm; he's Scottish.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuneaton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Altrincham and Sale West, Bootle, Bradford West, Bromsgrove, Burton, Cannock Chase, Cheadle, Chesterfield, Coventry North West, Crawley, Derby North, Derby South, East Worthing and Shoreham, Epping Forest, Erewash, Forest of Dean, Gillingham and Rainham, Gosport, Gravesham, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Havant, High Peak, Hove, Hyndburn, Ipswich, Islington North, Lincoln, Macclesfield, New Forest East, New Forest West, North Devon, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oldham West and Royton, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth North, Portsmouth South, Scarborough and Whitby, South Holland and The Deepings, Southampton Itchen, Southampton Test, Spelthorne, St Helens North, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stretford and Urmston, Sunderland Central, Sutton Coldfield, Tooting, Tunbridge Wells, Walthamstow, West Lancashire, West Worcestershire, Wigan, Worcester, Wyre Forest, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Shetland, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Ynys Môn
Four of them are unchanged but with expanded names.
Burton will be Burton & Uttoxeter
Hove will be Hove & Portslade
North Warwickshire will be North Warwickshire & Bedworth
Oldham West & Royton will be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
It predominately hits Tories.
So thats all good.
If you have poor logistics, forming up a large group takes lots of time. Poor roads make this worse, historically.
Which is why when the American Army exploited their complete off road capability in 1991, the military world was a rather astonished. The ability to take the entire army, logistics and all, for a drive in the country was something quite startling.
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
But they're a lot more doubtful as to whether VAT on private schools would be effective way of raising money.
Something very odd going on with the causality nexus of the space-time continuum.
As you say they will have to put a lot of other things on the table to get Ramaphosa off it.
There are quite a few ways this result could be a disaster for SA given the balance of power could be held by a bunch of economically illiterate, revolutionary LARPing Marxists or the posse of a fragile egomaniac wannabe autocrat. There is a way by which this could finally fulfil the promise of a multiracial SA, but it is narrow and not yet clear if the ANC are mature enough to take it.
Like Andrew Neil he's a walking example that despite having won economically and politically for the last quarter of a century he's still fucked off.
You are standing for office for 5 years.
You have questions to answer about what you'd do. You don't get to not answer them.
Experience doesn't matter if those getting the experience are killed before they can change the procedures.
Time for the £18k earners to pay up under a Labour government?
A company I worked with couldn’t recruit the people they wanted in Hamburg. The jobs are not now in Hamburg. They are where the staff can be retained.
So I agree and it why I’m not voting Tory
Nonetheless as a society we need to ask these questions. Other countries are now competing hard for clever hard working people like @Casino_Royale who pays a LOT of tax. Why should he linger in Britain which does its best to sneer at him and say he a toxic white male?
Any figure she gives will be jumped on .
“Even winning battles isn’t important to you. Is it?” Goto Dengo looks the other way, shamefaced. “Haven’t you guys figured out yet that banzai charges DON’T FUCKING WORK?”
Goto Dengo “All of the people who learned that were killed in banzai charges,”
I tried staying up all night with a friend in 2015, and ended up very drunk and tired for days. My last memory before falling asleep, was Ed Balls losing his seat.
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
https://x.com/kane_blackwell/status/1797194112593973755?s=61
Why do they do this? Why!?
Said we could cope without their taxes.
At 6 figure job levels, the visa stuff is sorted out for you by the company hiring, very often. For example, the big banks in New York. No Green Card lottery. Same for Germany and France.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/02/full-tummy-school-breakfast-labour-plan-pupils
Thursday wake up as normal, check the betting markets, do some PB threads.
Got to bed at 2pm and wake up at 7pm.
Vote at 7.30pm and ask the staff if voting has been brisk.
Then stay up until middayish.
Market assessment of the probability is open to question though. The polling in the EU Ref up to it happening wildly varied from the probabilities implied by the market, and bettors took far too much attention to Farage’s apparent “concession”.
https://x.com/skynews/status/1797212119819022743?s=61
[edit] not strictly true you can go to Bermuda but who wants to live in bloody Bermuda [ edit]
As a sometimes LibDem voter I’m always relieved that the problems of the last 14 years are blamed on the Conservatives, when during the first five of those years we had a Conservative-LibDem Coalition.
Indeed the only time the LibDems get any criticism for those years is when the Post Office scandal is discussed!
It's about what happens next.
Labour will quite rightly get a certain amount of political leeway to make mistakes. They're still going to be judged on outcomes, though.
It just receives outsized attention because the limited number of people who are angry about it are some of the best connected people in the country, and in the media industry in particular.
Fortunately, I have found a lot else on PB to amuse me.
Having said that, the debate on PB is actually partly on the former: for instance events happening *right now* are blamed on Labour policies. And the sort of whining we get from the right wingers that Labour will infallibly be a disaster isn't great given the current situation.
I agree with you that the current structure where the marginal rate goes up and down like a yo yo is bonkers (there is of course another one of these where the NI drops from 12% to 2% and others as well) I think the PA should go up each year and that the PA should be reclaimed from higher earners but it should be done in a smoother way so as not to deter people like you from working.
I think Labour will ultimately drop this policy or amend it dramatically. Reasons are in my mind as follows.
1. It upsets a few people a lot but the majority dont really care
2. It breaks EC law (kids education should not be taxed)
3. It wont raise a lot of money. (Many people will put their kids school through their company and claim back the VAT)
4. Some schools will close and this will look terrible in the press
5. There are technical difficulties with this.
In the UK, the provision of education by an “eligible body” is an “exempt” supply for VAT purposes. This means that goods and services that are closely related to education are also exempt from VAT, such as catering, transport, school trips, and boarding accommodation. So lets say an Oxford College such as New College also runs a choir school. Would it be an eligible or non eligible body?
https://x.com/lewis_goodall/status/1797213249764557027?s=61
One presumes those reasons are ego, attention seeking and a sense of entitlement. Would be mildly positive news for IDS.
The rest of the crap all happened post-2015.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election –
Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jun/02/starmer-sunak-migration-general-election-uk-politics-live-2-june
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
🚨NEW Best PM rating
📈Starmer's biggest lead over Sunak ever in Savanta polling
🌹Starmer 44% (+4)
🌳Sunak 30% (-1)
◻️Don't know 27% (-2)
2,239 UK adults, 24-28 May
(Changes from 17-19 May)
@DPJHodges
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.