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As I’ve written before my betting strategy for GE2015 is to stick with national outcome punts on Labour but go with single constituencies on the Tories. I’m also betting on UKIP and the LDs whenever I spot value. Thus I’m on the purples at 6/1 in Easteigh and the yellows at the same price in Watford.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP6l7F7sR1s
Lab 9186
Con 8310
LDem 6100
Green 1657
Ind 930
Others 512
Wards won Con 3 Lab 3 Lib Dem 3
ITAR-TASS has been busy today celebrating Russian medals won at the Sochi Paralympics: one news release for each of 12 medals won on the opening day. But almost lost within all this cornucopia of joy, is an ominous warning to the Ukraine.
From now on Gazprom will require upfront payments for gas supplies; there will be no discount on supplies; and, the current debt must be cleared. If not, no gas.
Russia will limit or suspend gas supplies to Ukraine in case Ukraine’s energy company Naftigaz Ukrainy makes no advance payment for April gas imports till the end of March.
Under the gas contract between Russia’s Gazprom and Naftogaz of January 19, 2009, the seller may partially or completely suspend the fulfillment of its liabilities in case the buyer does not fulfill its obligations.
In line with the contract, Gazprom is to issue a bill to Naftogaz by March 16 and the latter is to pay it by the end of March. If the bill is not paid, gas supplies may be limited.
On Friday, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told journalists that his company had received no payments from Naftogaz Ukrainy for February’s Russian gas supplies.
“Today, on February 7, was the deadline for payments for February’s gas deliveries to Ukraine,” he said. “Gazprom has received no debt payments. With a discount in the first quarter, Ukraine’s overdue debt for gas has significantly increased, reaching 1.860 billion dollars.”
“This actually means that Ukraine has stopped paying for Russian gas. This contradicts completely provisions of the contract and international trade practice,” Miller said. “We have always fulfilled and we will fulfil our contractual obligations.”
“But we cannot supply gas for free. Either Ukraine clears the debt and pays for current deliveries, or there is a risk to return to the situation in early 2009,” he said, referring to the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, when Gazprom temporarily halted deliveries to Naftogaz.
“We will keep the Russian government informed of the current situation,” he added.
In the brothel of FSU politics, this is a clear case of "no money, no honey".
Perhaps Ed will propose a freeze on Gazprom energy prices?
Labour are supposedly doing better in Northern marginals rather than Southern.Tories seem to have a core vote of 36% in this constituency from 1997-2005 which only marginally went up in 2010.Can Labour pull 10% from the Lib Dems?
"FIRE union leaders “fully expect” Sunderland Central fire station to be closed by May next year.
The fears were raised by Dave Turner, Fire Brigade Union (FBU) North East regional secretary, at a public meeting held by Sunderland Against The Cuts.
He told the meeting: “We are convinced that certain members of the Fire Authority want to drive through cuts deeper and harder than they need to, so they can say they were forced into it by the Coalition Government.
“The Fire Service has become a political pawn."
If you think the national swing/lead will be lower than that then the odds against the Tories in this seat are too long, and hence represent good value...
On this subject, and apologies for going back to the last thread, but David Herdson's otherwise very good article ends with a rather important factual error -
" Are Europe and the US willing to let further divisions happen? A treaty with Kiev would answer that question. As would the lack of one."
The thing is, we already have a treaty with Ukraine - it's called the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, and it involved UK, Russia and USA (with France and China signing on later) provided absolute guarantees for Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to dispose of the nuclear arsenal it had inherited from the Soviet Union, which at the time was the 3rd largest in the world. Ukraine actually invoked the Budapest memorandum at the start of this crisis, only to get responses varying from Putin brazenly saying it wasn't valid anymore to embarrassed silence on the part of the west Europeans.
So to answer David's point - the question has already been asked, and answered. And if you think it hasn't been very carefully noted by every country in the world thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons who might have been dissuaded from doing so by security guarantees (Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, even Japan...), then you're living in dreamland.
- TV licence dodgers could escape criminal charges under radical new plans being considered by the Government.
A BBC spokesman said: "Legislation is a matter for the Government, however changing the law could lead to higher evasion. Just a one per cent increase in evasion would lead to the loss of around £35 million, the equivalent of around 10 BBC Local Radio stations."
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/463771/BBC-fear-increase-in-TV-licence-fee-dodging-amid-Government-plans-to-decriminalise-offence
I dedicate this song to David Herdson:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=La-ife1GT4s
People who don't want to watch SKY shouldn't have to pay for it!
People who don't want to watch the BBC shouldn't have to pay for it!
The thing is, we already have a treaty with Ukraine - it's called the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, and it involved UK, Russia and USA (with France and China signing on later) provided absolute guarantees for Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to dispose of the nuclear arsenal it had inherited from the Soviet Union, which at the time was the 3rd largest in the world. Ukraine actually invoked the Budapest memorandum at the start of this crisis, only to get responses varying from Putin brazenly saying it wasn't valid anymore to embarrassed silence on the part of the west Europeans.
Random
I will respond a post a time on each of the issues you raise.
Budapest Memorandum
The obligations on the signatories to the Budapest Memorandum are very limited.
If nuclear weapons are used against the Ukraine, the signatories are obliged to refer the matter to the UNSC.
Effectively this means that any of the Permanent Members of the UNSC can veto action proposed against the aggressor. So Russia can nuke Kiev and all Obama and Cameron are obliged to do is refer the matter to the UNSC and wait for Russia to veto any retaliatory action.
Otherwise all the memorandum obliges it signatories to do is:
to "respect"
the Ukraine's independence and sovereignty within its territorial borders; and.
to "refrain from":
the threat or use of war;
the use of economic pressure to influence the Ukraine's politics;
and the use of nuclear arms.
In the event the memorandum's signatiories fail to meet its undertakings to "respect" and/or "refrain from" the sanctions are limited to the requirement to:
"Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments".
So the Budapest Memorandum places no requirement on the guarantors to do anything except consult, which is exactly all that is being done at present.
The realpolitik was that the Ukraine never had an independent nuclear strike capability to surrender in the first place. Russia inherited sole access to the nuclear button following the break up of the Soviet Union and willingly worked with the international community to decommission nuclear weapons capabilities and facilities located in other former republics of the USSR.
The best the Ukraine could get in return for "seemingly" given up their nuclear weapons was "seemingly" getting protection from the UNSC Members.
For every 9 seats where the odds are like this, you'd expect them to get five. They wouldn't be odds-on to get all nine. In fact, winning all nine would be extremely unlikely.
So winning all 91 seats, even if all were odds-on, would be very unlikely (to give an example, back in WWII, if the loss rate for a bomber mission was 7%, it was very bad - although it meant any given crew had a 93% chance of returning, to get a streak of 30 missions in a row successfully was about a one-in-nine shot. So if loss rates held at 7%, eight out of nine crews would be lost before their tour completed.
But all 30 missions would be very "odds-on" to be survived (at odds of about 3/40 on)
And if you think it hasn't been very carefully noted by every country in the world thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons who might have been dissuaded from doing so by security guarantees (Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, even Japan...), then you're living in dreamland.
For the reasons stated in my previous post, the Ukraine never had de facto nuclear capabilities. The removal of nuclear weapons and capabilities from Ukrainian soil was a decision taken by Russia as the successor and inheritor of the USSR's nuclear powers.
Given that reality, I am not certain that any of the countries wishing to build nuclear weapons could take any comfort from the decommissioning of nuclear weapons on the Ukraine's territory or any subsequent perceived or actual breach of the later memorandum on security assurances.
The complicating factor for this is gas to the EU. It's often been pointed out that one of the reasons for the EU's pusillanimity in the face of Putin's aggression is the dependency of Germany, et al. on Russian gas. What is less often noted is that the majority of this gas transits Ukraine, and when rows like this have blown up in the past Ukraine has been known to threaten to suspend transit rights. This usually produces a compromise of some sort - though granted, things are a lot more heated now.
I agree that it is no parties interest for the gas supply from Russia to the EU to be interrupted.
A break in supply would have an impact on the global economy which would go well beyond the losses of supply suffered by the Central European purchasers of Russian energy. The financial markets would panic pushing up global prices for gas (e.g. UK prices of top up suplies to Germany jumped 10% on the first day of the crisis), with knock on effects on the currency and equity markets. There would be a very real prospect of such an event forcing the Eurozone back into a deep recession and halting the recessionary exits of the UK and US.
So no one wants a break in gas supplies.
Where does that leave the Ukraine in threatening to withdraw transit rights in retaliation to Russia cutting off its supplies. Simple. The Ukraine will get no support either from the EU or the US for such a position. What it will get, of course, is "interim financing" to enable it to pay its bills and debt to Russia. And Russia will not cut supplies to the Ukraine if it is paid. Putin doesn't care whether it is Kiev, Brussels or Washington who picks up the tab.
This is not a matter of taking sides, It is simply recognising that Putin is holding all the aces in the game of poker.
But having just read that article it is merely a claim from the union with absolutely no corroborating evidence or support. Even the newspaper couldn't find anything to back it up. It may be true and it may not, but that article doesn't take us anywhere more enlightened.
"Dave Turner" has realised that anyone can say any old bollocks without evidence with the good chance that a good percentage of people will believe it. He should try posting on PB.
The Russian boys and girls may sing like angels but they sure don't know how to tie a bow tie.
Perhaps that is why the oligarchs are filling our public schools with their own children.
A good education should do more than teach you how to sing.
And there'd even be chances of "wrong-way" occurrences at the top of the probability band, and the most marginal ones wouldn't be excessively certain. But yeah; we don't have enough information.
If Russia was to turn off the taps to the Ukraine and western and central Europe, yes, it would be deeply damaging to EU countries (and, indirectly, others beyond), but it would also be damaging to Putin. Russia's own economy is hardly a bed of roses at the moment.
Watch and see!
I don't fear Nigel Farage reading PB but Alan Sked would undoubtedly be a threat.
I think the best opportunity for a single seat Con bet is for Con to win Torbay off the LDs at 9/4 with Ladbrokes. I'm not necessarily saying that they'll do it, but it looks to me like something of a toss up, and Paddy Power seem to agree as they have Con at 6/4 only. In fact the seat's a near-arb, with best odds for LD at 1/2 on, Con at 9/4, UKIP at 50/1 and Lab at 100/1. There must be value somewhere there. What clinches it for me is that Con have been well ahead of LDs in the local election results in the wards in the constituency, which is significant since the LDs tend to outperform their GE result at local elections.
BTW regarding your and others' posts on Bermondsey yesterday, I don't disagree that Hughes has got a very large personal vote there. My point is that he needs it, because the London assembly results in the constituency revealed just how far the LDs now are when personal votes are stripped out of the equation. So I think it's going to be touch and go for Hughes, and even though he may hold on the odds of 9/4 on Lab seem to me to be worth a shot.
UKIP and Russia share a common foe - the EU!
I really resent your sort of attack which may I suggest is based on your own confirmation bias.
Cast your eyes up the page and you will see...
"I’m on the purples at 6/1 in Easteigh and the yellows at the same price in Watford.
He is in much the same position as the NUM were in about 1980. In fact, he's probably in a weaker position. How many aces does Scargill's successor have today?
If Russia was to turn off the taps to the Ukraine and western and central Europe, yes, it would be deeply damaging to EU countries (and, indirectly, others beyond), but it would also be damaging to Putin. Russia's own economy is hardly a bed of roses at the moment.
Russia's economy is very, almost solely, dependent on mineral extraction, but it has amassed sufficient foreign currency reserves through trade surpluses to weather a short storm caused by a break in exports.
But why would we want to force Russia into breaking supply?
The only threat Putin is making is to turn off supplies to a country who isn't paying, hasn't paid and, on any objective and independent measure, is unlikely to be able to pay in the future.
It is a credit control not a geo-political decision. One for the accountants not the diplomats.
Where I do see an conflict escalation risk is in a 'terrorist' attack on the gas supply pipes and facilities which resulted in a temporary interruption in supplies. If this happened in an easily accessible area of Eastern Ukraine, I can can see Russian forces there to repair and protect the supplies quicker than you could say Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili.
And who would complain then? Germany?
Still, we've just had a swanky new HQ built, so all the office wallahs are happy.
However, I must take issue with the tone of your response. How should I phrase a post which doesn't agree with your viewpoint in a way that you won't interpret as an "attack", because it wasn't meant in that way.
Yes, I may suffer from confirmation bias when I place bets. I'm well aware of the trap just as you are and I try to guard against it just as you do. I happened to make money on Sanders holding off the Conservatives at GE 2010 in Torbay, and now I'm advocating the opposite bet. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that I subconsciously don't suffer from bias despite my best efforts, and I suggest that you don't know whether you do either.
Forget who suggested backing Scotland (which I pooh-poohed), but it's looking like a decent bet right now.
Avery, in the short term Russia wins. Energy prices go up and who is one of the biggest energy exporters at this moment.
In the long run, Russia will not get damaged too badly but Germany will want to shake off its dependency on eastern supplies.
It will be good for renewables. Rising energy costs always helps renewables.
Sceptics do not realise how much renewables have advanced even in the last 5 years. Even now, on some days, the UK gets 20% of its electricity from renewables. Spain about 50%. Portugal 70%.
Surby, shouldn't you be checking those sales figures?
Security of energy supplies, "resilience", or whatever the energy bods call it is essential for all countries and Germany are potentially paying the price for abandoning their nuclear energy programme.
Windmills are alright, if inefficient, but not in my back yard. They spoil the park view from the East Wing.
Perhaps Angela can persuade the ex-advertising agents running the new government in Kiev to allow the steppes of Eastern Ukraine to be populated with German manufactured windmills? The Ukrainians may then earn enough in German green subsidies to be able to pay their gas bill.
And no, the dismantling was not a unilateral decision taken by Russia, it was part of a multilateral negotiation of which the Budapest memorandum was but a part. I'm not sure what you're saying here if it isn't agreeing with me - anybody considering abandoning the search for nuclear weapons will not be in the slightest bit comforted by what has happened to Ukraine. Yes, the Budapest memorandum did not mandate military assistance to Ukraine in the event it was invaded (though I've seen legal advise to the effect that it would have authorised it) - but it did mandate respect for Ukraine's territorial integrity, and we've seen just how little that was worth.
'It is claimed that, of the five constituencies where Ukip stands its best chance of general election success, four are Labour seats (Great Grimsby, Plymouth Moor View, Ashfield, Walsall North) and one is Tory (Waveney). The consistent feature in these areas is a splintering of the traditional vote and the existence of a large, older, blue-collar demographic.'
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/08/senior-ukip-members-backed-pact-bnp
Random
I concede the paragraph of mine you quote was muddled. I seem to have combined two unconnected observations into one.
Let me try again.
The decommissioning of nuclear capability in former Soviet Union republics was really a special case and doesn't set any precedents for those countries which are currently causing concern about their nuclear ambitions.
The lack of a military response to Russian aggression by signatories to the Budapest Memorandum is not really connected to 'nuclear proliferation or decommissioning'. It doesn't therefore set a precedent for not acting against other countries who are (or may be) building nuclear weapons, either in breach, or independently, of any treaty they may have entered into.
The problem in the Ukraine has arisen due to the country's borders being a construct of the USSR, when it was assumed that it would remain a constituent part of a Moscow controlled empire rather than an independent country.
The border problems have become a present source of conflict due to the differential in economic (and cultural?) development between the Warsaw Pact countries now part of the EU and NATO and the Ukraine.
We have a Russian speaking East and South of the country whose medium term future and prosperity is dependent upon integration in Russia's broadly successful economy and governance, and, an Eastern part, principally of Ukrainian ethnic origin who sees their only hope of prosperity being in incorporation within the EU and NATO.
This division is further exacerbated by historical differences, such as who was on which side during WWII.
In my view the two sides are irreconcilable and secession of the West and South would offer the East its best hope of a secure and prosperous future.
A more ambitious and universally beneficial solution would be bringing the whole Russo-Slavic bloc, including Russia, into a closer co-operation with the EU, with multi-lateral interim support for the Ukraine being a first step. But that just seems beyond the ambitions and imaginative reach of the current players on all sides.
With the possible exception of a previous good by-election performance (Eastleigh, still a remote possibility, imho) and their "stars" (Farage, Nuttall) perhaps pulling off a sensation (unlikely, since they've yet to even choose a constituency...)
PS. Given your earlier comparison with Marcus Wood telling us how the Conservatives were "certainly going to gain" Torbay in 2010, note that I happened to make money from the actual outcome there. I'm not telling people that Lab is "certainly" going to gain Bermondsey and OS in 2015. What I'm saying that it's going to be pretty close and that 9/4 therefore represents very good value.
Cleethorpes: Peter Keith
Enfield Southgate: Bambos Charalambous
A more ambitious and universally beneficial solution would be bringing the whole Russo-Slavic bloc, including Russia, into a closer co-operation with the EU, with multi-lateral interim support for the Ukraine being a first step. But that just seems beyond the ambitions and imaginative reach of the current players on all sides.
I agree, We need to consider why it is that Russia is both mesmerised and anxious about the EU. Russia is like Britain a country on the margin of Europe, made great by both geography and history, not feeling fully part of Europe.
I too would want to see the Russo Slavic block more integrated into Europe, possibly with asso.ciate member status
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2014/03/06/ukip-is-taking-far-more-votes-away-from-the-tories-than-any-other-party/
This is the current Westminster bubble narrative that ignores real number.
On the other hand, coincidences do happen. They might have been travelling under false credentials, but the accident is unrelated to their presence.
There are also rumours that the Russian was also not on board.
It may be worth remembering this story, where many passengers and crew were injured fighting off hijackers on an internal Chinese flight (although some believe they were not hijackers). Two of the hijackers were tied up on the flight, and so badly beaten that they later died.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-uighurs-try-to-hijack-plane-with-crutches-and-get-tortured-2012-8
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/06/chinese-passengers-crew-thwart-attempted-plane-hijacking/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/11/china-sentences-uighurs-death-plane
I'm also surprised (in a non-expert way) that plane-specific debris has reportedly not been found. It's hardly a quiet area of ocean. They found debris from AF447 within a couple of days, and that plane crashed in a remote part of the South Atlantic.
Talking about two false passports. I don't know if anyone has already mentioned this or not:
How do you reduce the probability that there is a bomb in the aircraft ?
Ans: Carry one yourself. What are the chances that there would be two bombs on the aircraft ?
For information, aggregated total constituency votes in Bermondsey and Old Southwark at the 2012 Assembly elections split as follows:
Lab 43.4%
LD 22.2%
Con 18.3%
Green 10.5%
UKIP 4.0%
Socialist 1.7%
http://www.chards.co.uk/news/2009-kew-gardens-fifty-pence-rare-coin/
However, the Con Dem coalition changes things drastically ! Name the constituency with the highest percentage of council housing dwellers ?
I've just read Mr Farage's "Flying free" book. That suggests he/UKIP will have a Direct Democracy platform at the 2015 general election.
"I hope that we can introduce direct democracy on something akin to the Swiss model, where the signatures of a given number of people on any issue may generate a plebiscite at national or local level. … I want to see county councils and individual communities afforded far more power over their own destinies. …. I also believe that the future of the British Union lies in federalism. The component nations of the Union should govern themselves" Flying Free, Epilogue, p.289
https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/flying-free-paperback
It never spilled over into Broxtowe constituency, though the BNP won a seat in Brinsley, in Ashfield constituency but Broxtowe borough. Ironically that was one reason the party had such trouble later, as the councillor was a bitter opponent of Griffin and had an explosive feud with him, following which the BNP membership list was leaked and BNP heavies visited her house to remove her computer.
I'm not one of those who generally accuses UKIP of racism (obviously with the exception of some members), but ipeople who used to vote BNP may feel they're the next best thing.