On the betting scandal, I suspect we'll end up with a political ban on politicians betting on politics. From what I have read there are an awful lot of cheeky punts placed by politicians, so if this goes all puritanical then it could be all kinds of fun.
There's a world of difference between betting on yourself, your party, your candidates elsewhere to win, and betting on yourself to lose. Or betting unsing insider knowledge on when the election will be. Especially if your job is to get your party ready for that election and you don't bother.
The challenge is that less betting means less odds. And they are a useful tool for gauging how elections are progressing. The Press and Journal this morning in a piece about Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey notes that Ross was 1% - 100/1 - to retain his seat in 2019 and do so. Useful data surely!
Someone was asking earlier - I do not hold any bets on anyone.
I suspect early in the next Parliament, the Speaker will be the spoilsport that bans it. Anybody found breaching it will be bringing the House into disrepute - and face some serious sanctions.
This may be an unpopular view on here but I’ve a feeling that MPs will have to be banned from placing political bets.
However, and it’s a big however, how wide do you cast the net? MPs wives and husbands? SPADs and other workers? Journalists? The cleaner who comes into the minister’s office?
It’s going to be near-impossible to monitor let alone ‘police’.
And arguably a massive waste of everyone’s time and energy.
This has quite cleverly been hijacked by the Party and the client press as a scandal of candidates betting on elections.
This whole issue started as "cheating" by people from Sunak's inner circle. It has with Phillip Davies and the Ipswich Labour guy become a general problem with political betting. Starmer's over reaction to the Ipswich guy has probably caused this, and as such the real scandal has been lost.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
Apols for quoting at length, but I think is really good. From a guy called Nick Tyrone who does a weekly email I subscribe to, 'The Week in Brexitland'. He's on twitter as well. Reflects a lot of my thoughts as to how we got here:
The result of the EU referendum has long been misunderstood by both sides of the Remain-Leave debate. It was neither some sort of Russian PSYOP project gone wild, nor a rational choice for a better future made by the British electorate. It was a cry for help, a wilfully destructive act by the section of the British electorate who made the difference. They were handed a brick and told not to, under any circumstances, throw it through the store window - and they went ahead and hurled it through as an act of defiance. “Deal with that mess,” was the collective voice of Brexit. “Now maybe you’ll be forced to fix things.” The chaos that consumed parliament in the years following the vote was not against the “will of the people”, but a furtherance of what they wanted to happen when they voted for Brexit. They wanted to disrupt the “natural order” and make the political classes squirm. The electorate succeeded in this goal.
In a sense, the Tories getting annihilated by the electorate is the 2016 result coming full circle, back to the only place it was ever going to end up - the Conservative civil war that created Brexit eating the mothership. The same impulse that drove people to do something slightly crazy, slightly drastic, stepping into the unknown in 2016 has driven them to do the same again in 2024 in a very different direction. “You think we won’t destroy the Conservative party? Watch us.”
The warnings about “super majorities” sound remarkably like the “Brexit will cost every household £4,000” scare stories from eight years ago. People aren’t listening. They don’t care. They feel angry and betrayed and they finally have a chance to do something about it, namely destroying the governing party in the most brutal fashion imaginable. The electorate are being given numerous ways to do it, as well. If you feel angry from the right, you can vote Reform and destroy the Tories that way; if you want to make sure they get destroyed, you can vote Labour; if you feel angry from a different angle, there’s the Lib Dems to consider. So many ways of destroying the Conservative party out there to choose from this time round.
What is humorous to watch is Conservative politicians, about to have their careers ended in many circumstances, who cannot begin to fathom that the same destructive forces which gave us Brexit in 2016 have now turned around and are set to annihilate them as well. The winds of hell they unleashed have blown back and obliterated the Tories. You could almost feel sorry for them, if you really tried to.
Interesting and a lot of truth in it I think. What he misses is that, for many, the vote was less a cry for help, more an act of desperation. And none of the parties have learnt that. This is not just a problem for the Tories but in the longer term for Labour as well. Business as usual is no longer an option and if they try to make it so they will go the same way as the Tories in 5 or 10 years time.
Exactly right. Brexit was also a scream of anger about immigration. We all know that - I voted Leave for sovereignty and democracy reasons like you - but I wholly accept that many of my fellow Britons were demanding: LOWER IMMIGRATION
And what did the Tories do once they “got Brexit done”? They raised inmigration to the highest levels in our history. 2.4 millions in 3 years. Utterly insane and criminally irresponsible and for this and mainly this they deserve to die. You cannot betray voters like this, you absolutely cannot
For years the Tories used the EU and immigration as convenient scapegoats for the effects their policies had on these desperate people. They're - finally - being consumed by the conflagration they've wilfully fuelled through their lies. The country needs immigration. We are poorer for leaving the single market. The politicians know this. The Tories had to open the floodgates to the rest of the world after ending freedom of movement. If they didn't have to do it, they wouldn't have done it. And they would now be crowing that they reduced immigration and Reform would be irrelevant.
The Tories have trapped themselves in a perfect pincer movement from Right and Left, Leavers and Remainers.
Regarding debates - If you start a campaign 20% behind then debates are a rare chance to land a real blow. If you instead adopt the Trumpian line of talking over everyone and basically dragging the whole thing down into an unedifying shouting match then you have no chance of doing that.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Regarding debates - If you start a campaign 20% behind then debates are a rare chance to land a real blow. If you instead adopt the Trumpian line of talking over everyone and basically dragging the whole thing down into an unedifying shouting match then you have no chance of doing that.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
Tonight, the microphones are cut for the candidate not speaking.
On the betting scandal, I suspect we'll end up with a political ban on politicians betting on politics. From what I have read there are an awful lot of cheeky punts placed by politicians, so if this goes all puritanical then it could be all kinds of fun.
There's a world of difference between betting on yourself, your party, your candidates elsewhere to win, and betting on yourself to lose. Or betting unsing insider knowledge on when the election will be. Especially if your job is to get your party ready for that election and you don't bother.
The challenge is that less betting means less odds. And they are a useful tool for gauging how elections are progressing. The Press and Journal this morning in a piece about Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey notes that Ross was 1% - 100/1 - to retain his seat in 2019 and do so. Useful data surely!
Someone was asking earlier - I do not hold any bets on anyone.
I suspect early in the next Parliament, the Speaker will be the spoilsport that bans it. Anybody found breaching it will be bringing the House into disrepute - and face some serious sanctions.
This may be an unpopular view on here but I’ve a feeling that MPs will have to be banned from placing political bets.
However, and it’s a big however, how wide do you cast the net? MPs wives and husbands? SPADs and other workers? Journalists? The cleaner who comes into the minister’s office?
It’s going to be near-impossible to monitor let alone ‘police’.
And arguably a massive waste of everyone’s time and energy.
This has quite cleverly been hijacked by the Party and the client press as a scandal of candidates betting on elections.
This whole issue started as "cheating" by people from Sunak's inner circle. It has with Phillip Davies and the Ipswich Labour guy become a general problem with political betting. Starmer's over reaction to the Ipswich guy has probably caused this, and as such the real scandal has been lost.
On the betting scandal, I suspect we'll end up with a political ban on politicians betting on politics. From what I have read there are an awful lot of cheeky punts placed by politicians, so if this goes all puritanical then it could be all kinds of fun.
There's a world of difference between betting on yourself, your party, your candidates elsewhere to win, and betting on yourself to lose. Or betting unsing insider knowledge on when the election will be. Especially if your job is to get your party ready for that election and you don't bother.
The challenge is that less betting means less odds. And they are a useful tool for gauging how elections are progressing. The Press and Journal this morning in a piece about Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey notes that Ross was 1% - 100/1 - to retain his seat in 2019 and do so. Useful data surely!
Someone was asking earlier - I do not hold any bets on anyone.
I suspect early in the next Parliament, the Speaker will be the spoilsport that bans it. Anybody found breaching it will be bringing the House into disrepute - and face some serious sanctions.
This may be an unpopular view on here but I’ve a feeling that MPs will have to be banned from placing political bets.
However, and it’s a big however, how wide do you cast the net? MPs wives and husbands? SPADs and other workers? Journalists? The cleaner who comes into the minister’s office?
It’s going to be near-impossible to monitor let alone ‘police’.
And arguably a massive waste of everyone’s time and energy.
How does this map to the concept of "Connected Parties" used elsewhere in law / regulations?
On the betting scandal, I suspect we'll end up with a political ban on politicians betting on politics. From what I have read there are an awful lot of cheeky punts placed by politicians, so if this goes all puritanical then it could be all kinds of fun.
There's a world of difference between betting on yourself, your party, your candidates elsewhere to win, and betting on yourself to lose. Or betting unsing insider knowledge on when the election will be. Especially if your job is to get your party ready for that election and you don't bother.
The challenge is that less betting means less odds. And they are a useful tool for gauging how elections are progressing. The Press and Journal this morning in a piece about Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey notes that Ross was 1% - 100/1 - to retain his seat in 2019 and do so. Useful data surely!
Someone was asking earlier - I do not hold any bets on anyone.
I suspect early in the next Parliament, the Speaker will be the spoilsport that bans it. Anybody found breaching it will be bringing the House into disrepute - and face some serious sanctions.
A moment’s thought suggests problems with definition. Is Mr RP a politician, because he’s standing for election. Is Mr HYUFD because he’s an active member of a political party? RP hasn’t had a flutter on himself to win; if he had, could it be put in the same category as Dr F’s bet on Leicester to win the League? Once in a great while that came off.
Anyone with a pass to Parliament. That's all that needs to worry the Speaker.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
I think Farage and Galloway sounding off over victories in their two seats are the odds-on mood dampeners of election night.
Regarding debates - If you start a campaign 20% behind then debates are a rare chance to land a real blow. If you instead adopt the Trumpian line of talking over everyone and basically dragging the whole thing down into an unedifying shouting match then you have no chance of doing that.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
Tonight, the microphones are cut for the candidate not speaking.
Kinda stumps Trump.
The most memorable moment of the 2020 debates was Biden's, "come on man," cry of exasperation with Trump interrupting with his bollocks again.
So I have mixed feelings about Trump's microphone being cut.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
Regarding debates - If you start a campaign 20% behind then debates are a rare chance to land a real blow. If you instead adopt the Trumpian line of talking over everyone and basically dragging the whole thing down into an unedifying shouting match then you have no chance of doing that.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
Tonight, the microphones are cut for the candidate not speaking.
Kinda stumps Trump.
The debates here would have been improved no end by that. Particularly the Penny vs Angela ones.
Regarding debates - If you start a campaign 20% behind then debates are a rare chance to land a real blow. If you instead adopt the Trumpian line of talking over everyone and basically dragging the whole thing down into an unedifying shouting match then you have no chance of doing that.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
Tonight, the microphones are cut for the candidate not speaking.
Kinda stumps Trump.
It’s been suggested (by Trump supporters) that it actually helps Trump. They’re standing only a few feet apart, so as soon as his mic gets cut he will start talking to Biden directly. “You’re too old for this”, “How’s your son doing?” “Your family are all corrupt”, “What about all your classified documents?” Etc. None of which will be heard by the audience, but definitely will be heard by Biden himself.
On the betting scandal, I suspect we'll end up with a political ban on politicians betting on politics. From what I have read there are an awful lot of cheeky punts placed by politicians, so if this goes all puritanical then it could be all kinds of fun.
There's a world of difference between betting on yourself, your party, your candidates elsewhere to win, and betting on yourself to lose. Or betting unsing insider knowledge on when the election will be. Especially if your job is to get your party ready for that election and you don't bother.
The challenge is that less betting means less odds. And they are a useful tool for gauging how elections are progressing. The Press and Journal this morning in a piece about Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey notes that Ross was 1% - 100/1 - to retain his seat in 2019 and do so. Useful data surely!
Someone was asking earlier - I do not hold any bets on anyone.
I suspect early in the next Parliament, the Speaker will be the spoilsport that bans it. Anybody found breaching it will be bringing the House into disrepute - and face some serious sanctions.
A moment’s thought suggests problems with definition. Is Mr RP a politician, because he’s standing for election. Is Mr HYUFD because he’s an active member of a political party? RP hasn’t had a flutter on himself to win; if he had, could it be put in the same category as Dr F’s bet on Leicester to win the League? Once in a great while that came off.
Anyone with a pass to Parliament. That's all that needs to worry the Speaker.
Including all the Lobby hacks. I’d love to see a list of those who were betting on the election date.
This dosent feel like 1997. It feels like Majors exhausted and despised party of 1997 up against Kinnocks disliked Labour of 1992 and the SDP of 1983 performing Reforms disruptor role.
Feel is important in an election. In 1997 it was obvious Labour were whupping the Tories. You could taste it. In 2010? The Tories would have won that had we not had the Cleggasm. In the 2015 Stockton South campaign the wheel had fallen off the Labour bus weeks before polling day with fractious infighting within the camp. And with door after door saying they liked our candidate but feared Alex Salmond, we knew in our guts it wasn't going well. 2017? I co-authored and strategised Dr Paul Williams winning campaign. No infighting as we simply shut the party out, and won.
This time? I'm telling you, there is something in the air which the pollsters aren't picking up at least here in the true North East. That isn't me confidently saying we will win. But we're in the battle and getting heard and picking up support.
We know how the Tories feel. They feel that they are heading for the cliffs. Sunak out campaigning in seats they hold by 25k, kids with crayons running the social media campaign, and coming out swinging in the debates hoping desperately to land a punch on Penfold...
It feels the same here in Dorset but... the 'reluctantly going to vote Tory' voices on here make me think it will end up disappointingly much closer than the polls suggest.
just observer bias imho- On a site like this you get lots of "tories" - by definition they are politicly engaged (why would they be on the site if not) and therefore will at some point be angry with whats happened either by the government or by the campaign - Of this mass a lot will then not vote tory again but probably then dont feel the need to admit who they are going to vote for instead but some out of the mass will state they are "reluctantly " going to vote tory. Nothing that contradicts the polls ,indeed supports them , otherwise the tories would be on zero percent .
I for instance have voted tory at all general elections but will this time vote Reform .
I have a moral dilemma here. I have two votes. Two postal votes. One for me and one for my ex wife (who is now in distant parts and doesn’t care)
How shall I cast them? I am torn between starmer (to give him a chance and annoy @kinabalu) and Reform (I want the Tories destroyed and every vote for Reform adds to that)
However my two vote sitch seems to solve the dilemma. I shall personally vote for Starmer but my ex wife will vote Reform. Sorted
Don't cast the one for the ex-wife unless she tells you to because although you probably wouldn't be prosecuted that would be a crime and you just confessed to it on the internet.
Isn't it actually an offence to complete, even if you have a verbal instruction from the person?
Yes. See my and @TheScreamingEagles post. @leon posting on a subject he has no knowledge as usual. I mean on a site full of people who are experts on elections. How many ex Agents are here. Lots I expect.
A question to ask about the above would be about how an ex wife who doesn't care is registered to vote anyway?
This dosent feel like 1997. It feels like Majors exhausted and despised party of 1997 up against Kinnocks disliked Labour of 1992 and the SDP of 1983 performing Reforms disruptor role.
Feel is important in an election. In 1997 it was obvious Labour were whupping the Tories. You could taste it. In 2010? The Tories would have won that had we not had the Cleggasm. In the 2015 Stockton South campaign the wheel had fallen off the Labour bus weeks before polling day with fractious infighting within the camp. And with door after door saying they liked our candidate but feared Alex Salmond, we knew in our guts it wasn't going well. 2017? I co-authored and strategised Dr Paul Williams winning campaign. No infighting as we simply shut the party out, and won.
This time? I'm telling you, there is something in the air which the pollsters aren't picking up at least here in the true North East. That isn't me confidently saying we will win. But we're in the battle and getting heard and picking up support.
We know how the Tories feel. They feel that they are heading for the cliffs. Sunak out campaigning in seats they hold by 25k, kids with crayons running the social media campaign, and coming out swinging in the debates hoping desperately to land a punch on Penfold...
It feels the same here in Dorset but... the 'reluctantly going to vote Tory' voices on here make me think it will end up disappointingly much closer than the polls suggest.
just observer bias imho- On a site like this you get lots of "tories" - by definition they are politicly engaged (why would they be on the site if not) and therefore will at some point be angry with whats happened either by the government or by the campaign - Of this mass a lot will then not vote tory again but probably then dont feel the need to admit who they are going to vote for instead but some out of the mass will state they are "reluctantly " going to vote tory. Nothing that contradicts the polls ,indeed supports them , otherwise the tories would be on zero percent .
I for instance have voted tory at all general elections but will this time vote Reform .
I have a moral dilemma here. I have two votes. Two postal votes. One for me and one for my ex wife (who is now in distant parts and doesn’t care)
How shall I cast them? I am torn between starmer (to give him a chance and annoy @kinabalu) and Reform (I want the Tories destroyed and every vote for Reform adds to that)
However my two vote sitch seems to solve the dilemma. I shall personally vote for Starmer but my ex wife will vote Reform. Sorted
Don't cast the one for the ex-wife unless she tells you to because although you probably wouldn't be prosecuted that would be a crime and you just confessed to it on the internet.
Isn't it actually an offence to complete, even if you have a verbal instruction from the person?
Yes. See my and @TheScreamingEagles post. @leon posting on a subject he has no knowledge as usual. I mean on a site full of people who are experts on elections. How many ex Agents are here. Lots I expect.
ITS. A. JOKE
Omg
I do know that. I know you are just winding us up.
Interested to know if you knew though that you couldn't do it if instructed to do so? Also interested to know if you know it is easy to check if you have done it, although it takes a court order.
So if you did do it and write an article the authorities might consider it worth checking because it was publicised and you wouldn't get away with saying it was a joke when they pull the ballot paper out.
Ok I’ll run with. It was a joke - I wanted to see how many pompous people on PB would lose their humour-free nuts and get riled. Quite a few it seems
However I am now genuinely interested. Her postal vote really is in my flat (I’ve no idea why she still gets it - she registered here for the 2019 GE but she’s not been here since 2020). I wonder how often that happens and how many people post multiple votes?
Because I could easily do it and no one would know. Tho if I was going to do it I would not announce it on a public forum. OBVS
You should have returned an update for the register every year. It is a legal requirement, although I'm sure many forget. I don't know what they do if you forget. It seems like they pretend you have. Or you may have ticked the box that says nothing has changed when it has.
I'm sure some people do vote twice. The obvious ones are people who can vote in two places eg students. I think the numbers are trivial though.
And of course postal votes give the opportunity for a person who has died in the year to vote if you are good enough to forge the signature. Not worth the risk.
Especiallyt with the new procedures on death these days - on reporting the demise, a number of official bodies get notified automatically.
Totally O/t but. We have a young robin visiting our garden, and indeed has done so a few weeks now. However, it’s only got one leg. It manages to hop about quite well and is obviously benefiting from the food Mrs C puts out for the assorted small feathered friends. It flies perfectly well, and seems to manage well in spite of its deformity. Anyone else seen something like this?
Er excuse me. But you seem to have suddenly changed your methedology. Only a couple of days ago you were arguing that it was only 8 days to go because you don't count the day that has already started nor the actual day of the vote.
So now you are claiming it is 1 week to go when by your own methedology it should only be 6 days.
I don't mind which way you count it but if you are going to criticise others and make snide remarks at least be consistent in your own methedology.
I posted at 7am exactly. At that stage it was precisely one week!
But only 6 days using your claimed methodology so you sparky comments to Big G were rather hypocritical
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Fortunately you can't smell things through your television (or other electronic device), or else we might get a whiff of how far Trump is gone too.......
Er excuse me. But you seem to have suddenly changed your methedology. Only a couple of days ago you were arguing that it was only 8 days to go because you don't count the day that has already started nor the actual day of the vote.
So now you are claiming it is 1 week to go when by your own methedology it should only be 6 days.
I don't mind which way you count it but if you are going to criticise others and make snide remarks at least be consistent in your own methedology.
I posted at 7am exactly. At that stage it was precisely one week!
But only 6 days using your claimed methodology so you sparky comments to Big G were rather hypocritical
No. Look back and review my posts (if you are really that bothered). If it was this evening I'd probably say about six days to go.
As of this minute it's now six days, and 20 hours (to be precise). BigG claimed it was '12 days' at a point where it was only nine and a bit.
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
What if he exceeds expectations and does ok?
He doesn't even have to do brilliantly. Sure, he'll probably mince his words at some point or say something nonsensical (which will make the clip on TikTok) but all he has to do is look more level-headed than Trump and he's there.
I expect he can manage that. His problem is he sounds about 95, so if someone is really concerned about it even doing well doesn't change that.
Worth noting that Trump would be older than Biden was if he wins again, and he's made a lot about how Biden is too old, so logically anyone concerned by Biden's age should vote for neither, but politics has never been very logical.
US politics would be so much better if there was an age limit of 70 on running for President or Senator, or on lifetime appointments such as to the Supreme Court.
Sadly not happening though, as it requires amending the Constitution.
Without going back, I presume that would rule out quite a few previous presidents - Reagon being one in 1984.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70. Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
This is without doubt the maddest place I’ve ever been in France
I keep expecting eyeless and hairless French werewolves to stroll around the bistro on the corner, wearing berets and carrying fishing rods and glaring at me with truculent shyness
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
Er excuse me. But you seem to have suddenly changed your methedology. Only a couple of days ago you were arguing that it was only 8 days to go because you don't count the day that has already started nor the actual day of the vote.
So now you are claiming it is 1 week to go when by your own methedology it should only be 6 days.
I don't mind which way you count it but if you are going to criticise others and make snide remarks at least be consistent in your own methedology.
I posted at 7am exactly. At that stage it was precisely one week!
But only 6 days using your claimed methodology so you sparky comments to Big G were rather hypocritical
We need someone to cobble to gether a piece of javascript that Robert can pop into the PB headers so that $timetoge gets automatically replaced with seconds to the start of voting, therefore resolving* all arguments on PB
*as if! people would need to use it, agree on the reference point (start or end of voting) and I'm not sure how easy it would be to extract time zones and correct for posters overseas, assuming local time was used in the calculation...
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
What if he exceeds expectations and does ok?
He doesn't even have to do brilliantly. Sure, he'll probably mince his words at some point or say something nonsensical (which will make the clip on TikTok) but all he has to do is look more level-headed than Trump and he's there.
I expect he can manage that. His problem is he sounds about 95, so if someone is really concerned about it even doing well doesn't change that.
Worth noting that Trump would be older than Biden was if he wins again, and he's made a lot about how Biden is too old, so logically anyone concerned by Biden's age should vote for neither, but politics has never been very logical.
US politics would be so much better if there was an age limit of 70 on running for President or Senator, or on lifetime appointments such as to the Supreme Court.
Sadly not happening though, as it requires amending the Constitution.
Without going back, I presume that would rule out quite a few previous presidents - Reagon being one in 1984.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70. Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
Good point about Reagan. He was born Feb 1911 (!) so turned 70 the month after his first inauguration, and would have been damn nearly 78 when he stood down in Jan ‘89.
Perhaps 75 is a better place to draw the line? That would have allowed Reagan in ‘84, Trump in ‘16, Biden in ‘16 but not ‘20, all of whom were okay mentally on those dates but deteriorated soon afterwards.
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
Yeah, to be honest I'd forgotten it was on. Missed the footie too as I had a double bill of U7 football coaches' meeting and then tech support for my in-laws (who had just received a new router from their ISP with different SSID and default password).
ETA: Davey vs Sunak (and maybe Swinney) would in some ways be a more relevant debate - there's more of a battle - although I still don't think much of one in the end - for official opposition than for prime minister!
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
I’m not sure you should conflate campaign and election.
I suggest that a significant part of why people aren’t overly engaged with the campaign is because minds were already made up a long time ago.
The election is probably going to be huge fun for many people. The campaign isn’t.
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
TBF I think oddly the debates are not really meant for us diehards cos they won't tell us anything. It's just two weirdos shouting soundbites at each other. Which is curious really, as (as I said on the thread yesterday) they are so unedifying that they just make politicians in general look bad (which helps nobody).
Er excuse me. But you seem to have suddenly changed your methedology. Only a couple of days ago you were arguing that it was only 8 days to go because you don't count the day that has already started nor the actual day of the vote.
So now you are claiming it is 1 week to go when by your own methedology it should only be 6 days.
I don't mind which way you count it but if you are going to criticise others and make snide remarks at least be consistent in your own methedology.
I posted at 7am exactly. At that stage it was precisely one week!
But only 6 days using your claimed methodology so you sparky comments to Big G were rather hypocritical
We need someone to cobble to gether a piece of javascript that Robert can pop into the PB headers so that $timetoge gets automatically replaced with seconds to the start of voting, therefore resolving* all arguments on PB
*as if! people would need to use it, agree on the reference point (start or end of voting) and I'm not sure how easy it would be to extract time zones and correct for posters overseas, assuming local time was used in the calculation...
Vanilla actually shows your local time in the header to each post, presumably based on machine time, so can already deal with time zones pretty well. You’d tell it 2024-07-04-06:00Z and it should work out the rest by itself.
Totally O/t but. We have a young robin visiting our garden, and indeed has done so a few weeks now. However, it’s only got one leg. It manages to hop about quite well and is obviously benefiting from the food Mrs C puts out for the assorted small feathered friends. It flies perfectly well, and seems to manage well in spite of its deformity. Anyone else seen something like this?
During the first pandemic summer we noticed a one-legged jackdaw - inevitably known as peg-leg Jack - visiting the garden. We've seen a one-legged jackdaw again this summer, and in intervening years, but whether it's the same one, I couldn't say for sure. The average lifespan for a jackdaw in the wild is five years, so it may well be nearing the end if it is.
Totally O/t but. We have a young robin visiting our garden, and indeed has done so a few weeks now. However, it’s only got one leg. It manages to hop about quite well and is obviously benefiting from the food Mrs C puts out for the assorted small feathered friends. It flies perfectly well, and seems to manage well in spite of its deformity. Anyone else seen something like this?
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
Yeah, to be honest I'd forgotten it was on. Missed the footie too as I had a double bill of U7 football coaches' meeting and then tech support for my in-laws (who had just received a new router from their ISP with different SSID and default password).
ETA: Davey vs Sunak (and maybe Swinney) would in some ways be a more relevant debate - there's more of a battle - although I still don't think much of one in the end - for official opposition than for prime minister!
I hope you did the sane thing and set up the new router to have the same SSID and password as the old router...
Er excuse me. But you seem to have suddenly changed your methedology. Only a couple of days ago you were arguing that it was only 8 days to go because you don't count the day that has already started nor the actual day of the vote.
So now you are claiming it is 1 week to go when by your own methedology it should only be 6 days.
I don't mind which way you count it but if you are going to criticise others and make snide remarks at least be consistent in your own methedology.
I posted at 7am exactly. At that stage it was precisely one week!
But only 6 days using your claimed methodology so you sparky comments to Big G were rather hypocritical
We need someone to cobble to gether a piece of javascript that Robert can pop into the PB headers so that $timetoge gets automatically replaced with seconds to the start of voting, therefore resolving* all arguments on PB
*as if! people would need to use it, agree on the reference point (start or end of voting) and I'm not sure how easy it would be to extract time zones and correct for posters overseas, assuming local time was used in the calculation...
Vanilla actually shows your local time in the header to each post, presumably based on machine time, so can already deal with time zones pretty well. You’d tell it 2024-07-04-06:00Z and it should work out the rest by itself.
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that - mostly view on PB.com where the timestamps aren't shown.
This is without doubt the maddest place I’ve ever been in France
I keep expecting eyeless and hairless French werewolves to stroll around the bistro on the corner, wearing berets and carrying fishing rods and glaring at me with truculent shyness
Also: epic quantities of Noom
Does it remind you of home. No not that home, real home but ... French ?
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
What if he exceeds expectations and does ok?
He doesn't even have to do brilliantly. Sure, he'll probably mince his words at some point or say something nonsensical (which will make the clip on TikTok) but all he has to do is look more level-headed than Trump and he's there.
I expect he can manage that. His problem is he sounds about 95, so if someone is really concerned about it even doing well doesn't change that.
Worth noting that Trump would be older than Biden was if he wins again, and he's made a lot about how Biden is too old, so logically anyone concerned by Biden's age should vote for neither, but politics has never been very logical.
US politics would be so much better if there was an age limit of 70 on running for President or Senator, or on lifetime appointments such as to the Supreme Court.
Sadly not happening though, as it requires amending the Constitution.
Without going back, I presume that would rule out quite a few previous presidents - Reagon being one in 1984.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70. Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
Good point about Reagan. He was born Feb 1911 (!) so turned 70 the month after his first inauguration, and would have been damn nearly 78 when he stood down in Jan ‘89.
Perhaps 75 is a better place to draw the line? That would have allowed Reagan in ‘84, Trump in ‘16, Biden in ‘16 but not ‘20, all of whom were okay mentally on those dates but deteriorated soon afterwards.
Have Labour provided any objective rationale for setting 80 as a limit for the House of Lords?
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
In Clacton some ex Labour voters will vote for Farage
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
Yeah, to be honest I'd forgotten it was on. Missed the footie too as I had a double bill of U7 football coaches' meeting and then tech support for my in-laws (who had just received a new router from their ISP with different SSID and default password).
ETA: Davey vs Sunak (and maybe Swinney) would in some ways be a more relevant debate - there's more of a battle - although I still don't think much of one in the end - for official opposition than for prime minister!
I hope you did the sane thing and set up the new router to have the same SSID and password as the old router...
Yep, always do (our SSID at home is based on a house address we had ~10 years ago - seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's been too painful to change it).
Annoyingly, I had to download an app (ISP is Sky) to change the SSID and password on the router - simply connecting via the web browser didn't permit changing that, even with 'admin' login.
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
What if he exceeds expectations and does ok?
He doesn't even have to do brilliantly. Sure, he'll probably mince his words at some point or say something nonsensical (which will make the clip on TikTok) but all he has to do is look more level-headed than Trump and he's there.
I expect he can manage that. His problem is he sounds about 95, so if someone is really concerned about it even doing well doesn't change that.
Worth noting that Trump would be older than Biden was if he wins again, and he's made a lot about how Biden is too old, so logically anyone concerned by Biden's age should vote for neither, but politics has never been very logical.
US politics would be so much better if there was an age limit of 70 on running for President or Senator, or on lifetime appointments such as to the Supreme Court.
Sadly not happening though, as it requires amending the Constitution.
Without going back, I presume that would rule out quite a few previous presidents - Reagon being one in 1984.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70. Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
Good point about Reagan. He was born Feb 1911 (!) so turned 70 the month after his first inauguration, and would have been damn nearly 78 when he stood down in Jan ‘89.
Perhaps 75 is a better place to draw the line? That would have allowed Reagan in ‘84, Trump in ‘16, Biden in ‘16 but not ‘20, all of whom were okay mentally on those dates but deteriorated soon afterwards.
Have Labour provided any objective rationale for setting 80 as a limit for the House of Lords?
They sold at 90 with Spreadex and bought at 75 with IG.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
I'm setting up a watch party/shitposting group for some politically-inclined friends and thinking of some talking points, side plots, seats to watch and maybe a bingo card. From the top of my head, the main things are:
* scale of defeat * allied to these, notable scalps * Gorgeous and Corbz * SNP collapse? * The Farage Ascendency * Greens - better in the shires or the cities? * The Vaz madness in Leicester * Effect (if any) of 'personal votes' * Shameless Con leadership manoeuvring * Alliance in NI
There will be a lot to chat on through the night. Anything anyone else has a particular eye on, or other interesting mini dramas?
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
I'm setting up a watch party/shitposting group for some politically-inclined friends and thinking of some talking points, side plots, seats to watch and maybe a bingo card. From the top of my head, the main things are:
* scale of defeat * allied to these, notable scalps * Gorgeous and Corbz * SNP collapse? * The Farage Ascendency * Greens - better in the shires or the cities? * The Vaz madness in Leicester * Effect (if any) of 'personal votes' * Shameless Con leadership manoeuvring * Alliance in NI
There will be a lot to chat on through the night. Anything anyone else has a particular eye on, or other interesting mini dramas?
How the various indies do against Labour - Tower Hamlets, Newham, Birmingham etc 'Most extreme cardinal point Con seats in England' Send out a list of con seats ordered by majority- best defence/worst loss
Totally O/t but. We have a young robin visiting our garden, and indeed has done so a few weeks now. However, it’s only got one leg. It manages to hop about quite well and is obviously benefiting from the food Mrs C puts out for the assorted small feathered friends. It flies perfectly well, and seems to manage well in spite of its deformity. Anyone else seen something like this?
Still racked with guilt that 3 years ago I found a dead robin in a rat trap I had set. Perhaps what happened to yours.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
In Clacton some ex Labour voters will vote for Farage
TBH I think Farage being elected into an actual job, where he's expected to do things like casework and other boring stuff, might actually shoot his fox.
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
What if he exceeds expectations and does ok?
He doesn't even have to do brilliantly. Sure, he'll probably mince his words at some point or say something nonsensical (which will make the clip on TikTok) but all he has to do is look more level-headed than Trump and he's there.
I expect he can manage that. His problem is he sounds about 95, so if someone is really concerned about it even doing well doesn't change that.
Worth noting that Trump would be older than Biden was if he wins again, and he's made a lot about how Biden is too old, so logically anyone concerned by Biden's age should vote for neither, but politics has never been very logical.
US politics would be so much better if there was an age limit of 70 on running for President or Senator, or on lifetime appointments such as to the Supreme Court.
Sadly not happening though, as it requires amending the Constitution.
Without going back, I presume that would rule out quite a few previous presidents - Reagon being one in 1984.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70. Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
Good point about Reagan. He was born Feb 1911 (!) so turned 70 the month after his first inauguration, and would have been damn nearly 78 when he stood down in Jan ‘89.
Perhaps 75 is a better place to draw the line? That would have allowed Reagan in ‘84, Trump in ‘16, Biden in ‘16 but not ‘20, all of whom were okay mentally on those dates but deteriorated soon afterwards.
Have Labour provided any objective rationale for setting 80 as a limit for the House of Lords?
It doesn't say in the manifesto, beyond that the Lords is too big. So it could be that it's simpler thought to be easier to cull the elderly. It does say:
"At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords."
So it would look like no Lord's would retire until the 2028/9 election, and in general the age of retirees would be 80-84, rather than a hard stop on the precise day a Lord turned 80.
No what anyone with any brains or who knew a single shred about betting would take. The Tories are 230 - two hundred and thirty - on Betfair Exchange. You are either a mug punter or a garden-variety trollcaster.
Betfair exchange is not Ladbrokes.
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
The Yougov snap poll had it tied but 85% of 2019 Tories said Sunak won so the polls likely narrow a bit by next week
Earlier you said nearly 90%, now you say 85%, and both times you are wrong. How do you do it?
78% of (undecided?) 2019 Tories said Sunak won, which is 82% when excluding don't knows.
Even if only 80% that would equate to 34% voteshare overall for the Tories if all the 2019 Conservatives who thought Sunak won last night voted Tory next week.
Even if they don't all do that, it still likely gets the Tories nearer to 30% than 20%
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Yet his opponents accuse him of being drugged up if he does well, so they win either way.
Trump rambles incoherently constantly but unfortunately none of his supporters care, so an unedifying encounter of two very old men past their prime looks likely. Only one cares about democracy though.
'Drugging up' someone with dementia would be highly unlikely to improve their debate performance.
And we know whose White House was an actual pill mill.
The allegation that he was on some kind of amphetamines for the State of the Union looks quite convincing to me - the sudden extraordinary improvement in lucidity and eloquence was striking, as was the massive relapse to his normal senility thereafter
Moreover they will want to avoid any “accidents”. A medically informed (and left wing) friend of mine recently gave me a plausible explanation for Biden’s weird behaviour on the White House lawn the other day. I’ll spare PB the unhappy details and precise medical words my friend used, but it all made sense
Also, how many octogenarians are NOT on multiple drugs? It’s normal. I am sure Trump is as well. He’s definitely been guzzling ozempic you can see it in his face
Amphetamines are not a treatment for dementia. Indeed they are likely to make it worse.
The only strong evidence we have for off label, unethical drug prescriptions in the White House is from the Trump administration. I don't count right wing TwitterX as evidence. Or your friends.
I was using “amphetamines” in the broadly accepted medical sense of “many different kinds of drugs some of them not actually amphetamines”
They could have jacked him up with this
“The following are used to temporarily improve dementia symptoms. Cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines work by boosting levels of a chemical messenger involved in memory and judgment. They include donepezil (Aricept, Adlarity), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Razadyne ER)”
So, you're clueless, and you can use google. Got that.
Is there a total sense of humour failure on PB this morning? Jeeez
Cheer up. I’m on a boat going to a mystical island. This is the final ultimate incredible life-changing culmination of a long-held dream that I’ve nurtured for literally days, ever since I first beheld the Ile De Sein from the sun-burnt rocks of Pointe de Rez well over a fortnight ago
Finally, I’m here. After all that yearning. Minute after minute of staring at atlases, tracing the outline of this fabled island then getting bored and doing something else. Entire moments of thinking about it vaguely then thinking about the next place I can have oysters
At last. The time has come and the dreams that I never really had are fulfilled
I'm presuming, given its location, it was an important Nazi base to monitor the Atlantic? Lots of concrete bunkers still like the Channel Isles?
There were Nazis here but that didn’t stop the entire male population buggering off in their fishing smacks in 1940 to form the free French navy
It’s an incroyable place. Like a mix of the saddest Welsh mining village but set in the Hebrides with some beautiful French houses in the middle of a warm still grey Arctic lake
You have sold it to me, I am cycling to Brest and Douarnenez in July. Where does ferry go from?
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
In Clacton some ex Labour voters will vote for Farage
TBH I think Farage being elected into an actual job, where he's expected to do things like casework and other boring stuff, might actually shoot his fox.
And less expenses than he had in Brussels and Strasbourg
Sinn Fein are 8/15 with the bookies here . Normally this seat is won in the most marginal way as the unionists only fielded one serious candidate last time to not split the vote . This time it looks like both unionist parties contesting ? Maybe reading this wrong but seems like a Sinn Fein cert (much more so than 8/15) if so
What's your source for indicating two major unionist parties are running ?
Yeah, the DUP aren't standing in F&ST.
The TUV might take some of the unionist vote, and you'd expect Aontu to have a similar effect on the nationalist side - neither stood last time round.
Looks to me like it'll be yet another closely-balanced race, and so the 8/15 odds on SF sound about right.
Apols for quoting at length, but I think is really good. From a guy called Nick Tyrone who does a weekly email I subscribe to, 'The Week in Brexitland'. He's on twitter as well. Reflects a lot of my thoughts as to how we got here:
The result of the EU referendum has long been misunderstood by both sides of the Remain-Leave debate. It was neither some sort of Russian PSYOP project gone wild, nor a rational choice for a better future made by the British electorate. It was a cry for help, a wilfully destructive act by the section of the British electorate who made the difference. They were handed a brick and told not to, under any circumstances, throw it through the store window - and they went ahead and hurled it through as an act of defiance. “Deal with that mess,” was the collective voice of Brexit. “Now maybe you’ll be forced to fix things.” The chaos that consumed parliament in the years following the vote was not against the “will of the people”, but a furtherance of what they wanted to happen when they voted for Brexit. They wanted to disrupt the “natural order” and make the political classes squirm. The electorate succeeded in this goal.
In a sense, the Tories getting annihilated by the electorate is the 2016 result coming full circle, back to the only place it was ever going to end up - the Conservative civil war that created Brexit eating the mothership. The same impulse that drove people to do something slightly crazy, slightly drastic, stepping into the unknown in 2016 has driven them to do the same again in 2024 in a very different direction. “You think we won’t destroy the Conservative party? Watch us.”
The warnings about “super majorities” sound remarkably like the “Brexit will cost every household £4,000” scare stories from eight years ago. People aren’t listening. They don’t care. They feel angry and betrayed and they finally have a chance to do something about it, namely destroying the governing party in the most brutal fashion imaginable. The electorate are being given numerous ways to do it, as well. If you feel angry from the right, you can vote Reform and destroy the Tories that way; if you want to make sure they get destroyed, you can vote Labour; if you feel angry from a different angle, there’s the Lib Dems to consider. So many ways of destroying the Conservative party out there to choose from this time round.
What is humorous to watch is Conservative politicians, about to have their careers ended in many circumstances, who cannot begin to fathom that the same destructive forces which gave us Brexit in 2016 have now turned around and are set to annihilate them as well. The winds of hell they unleashed have blown back and obliterated the Tories. You could almost feel sorry for them, if you really tried to.
Nick Tyrone was a middle-ranking staffer in the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign HQ during the 2011 AV referendum so he's well-placed to offer insight into failing and unpopular campaigns.
(Mention of that Yes campaign is also a reminder that the seemingly recent trend for political betting against your own team is not a new development. One of the researchers from that campaign boasted openly about using internal polling data to earn a hefty wedge betting against a Yes vote... although, in fairness, they could have reached the same conclusion and achieved the same outcome without access to the polling numbers.)
Sinn Fein are 8/15 with the bookies here . Normally this seat is won in the most marginal way as the unionists only fielded one serious candidate last time to not split the vote . This time it looks like both unionist parties contesting ? Maybe reading this wrong but seems like a Sinn Fein cert (much more so than 8/15) if so
What's your source for indicating two major unionist parties are running ?
Yeah, the DUP aren't standing in F&ST.
The TUV might take some of the unionist vote, and you'd expect Aontu to have a similar effect on the nationalist side - neither stood last time round.
Looks to me like it'll be yet another closely-balanced race, and so the 8/15 odds on SF sound about right.
No what anyone with any brains or who knew a single shred about betting would take. The Tories are 230 - two hundred and thirty - on Betfair Exchange. You are either a mug punter or a garden-variety trollcaster.
Betfair exchange is not Ladbrokes.
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
My point was simply why anyone in receipt of their senses would take such miserly odds when there are vastly longer ones on offer at a click of a mouse.
Unless they were a) a mug punter or b) using odds to make a spurious 'point' (aka trollcasting).
What is humorous to watch is Conservative politicians, about to have their careers ended in many circumstances, who cannot begin to fathom that the same destructive forces which gave us Brexit in 2016 have now turned around and are set to annihilate them as well. The winds of hell they unleashed have blown back and obliterated the Tories. You could almost feel sorry for them, if you really tried to.
I think I may use this as my image of the day every day until the election, as it says pretty much the same thing but in fewer words.
No what anyone with any brains or who knew a single shred about betting would take. The Tories are 230 - two hundred and thirty - on Betfair Exchange. You are either a mug punter or a garden-variety trollcaster.
Betfair exchange is not Ladbrokes.
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
My point was simply why anyone in receipt of their senses would take such miserly odds when there are vastly longer ones on offer at a click of a mouse.
Unless they were a) a mug punter or b) using odds to make a spurious 'point' (aka trollcasting).
Because they are not a regular better and when they do bet they do it at a bookies so don't look at online only outlets.
Also Ladbrokes political betting is run (or was run) by a well known poster here. Shadsy, so they might know what they are doing.
Into the final mile of the 2024 General Election Handicap open to three year olds of all ages.
The Conservatives may feel the ship has steadied in the past 24-48 hours. Yesterday's recent fieldwork polling suggested a stablilisation in the low 20s rather than the high teens but we've got a lot of other polling out there (no doubt).
Reform seem to have reached the ceiling, hit it and started to slide back to the mid teens. The LDs coming back to or just past the 2019 number (11-13%) and may yet challenge Reform for third. The efficiency of the LD vote combined with the lure of tactical voting may yet cause the Conservatives a lot of "local difficulty".
Labour remain serene at or above 40% and while some may argue it's not as good as 2017 that's irrelevant as each election is new and unique.
The current split (40-22-15-12 to be charitable) doesn't end well for the Conservatives if you being in the tactical voting angle and that's the elephant in the prediction room.
It's still a long time in politics - we know the big Conservative social media push (presumably Labour's too) will be next week. OTOH, some postal votes are already in or on the way.
It's worth re-iterating just because you don't believe something will happen doesn't mean it can't.
The data at this time suggests a substantial Labour majority but the election won't be complete until next Thursday evening so the numbers may (or may not) change. I'd argue looking at this election through the prism of the past is a quick route to the poor house in betting terms.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
In Clacton some ex Labour voters will vote for Farage
TBH I think Farage being elected into an actual job, where he's expected to do things like casework and other boring stuff, might actually shoot his fox.
Yeah. I hope he wins and wins well. Partly because he triggers the right people and partly because he's a grifter who, if he had to do this, I think will come up pretty short pretty quickly and he would be under the microscope all of the time and won't enjoy it one bit.
I have found the noomiest place in France. Its so noomy I’m going to use my one photo to explain it
Im calling this photo: Mayor, Menhir, Monument
To explain. I was taking a photo of this wartime monument when the friendly guy with the wheelbarrow (in the photo) came up and said “no no, you are taking the photo from the wrong angle” (in french, we chatted in franglais)
He then told me is the mayor of ile de Sein and he took me round the corner to show me the better angle. Why? Because on the monument it refers to Germans as the boche - that racist slur is actually engraved in the stone. “It is perhaps the only monument in France which uses this word”. Why is the engraving so angry?
Didier the mayor of ile de Sein told me the story. The monument is to three fishermen from the island who were out fishing one day in the war and a u boat surfaced and saw them and simply shot them dead. For no reason
“Local people were very angry” Didier informed me. Can’t really blame them
Add to that the 4000 year old menhirs right behind the justifiably racist monument to dead fishermen and the church (just out of picture) on the right which is drenched with sadness - so many drownings, so many dead free French soldiers - and this is it. Peak Noom pour la France
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Yet his opponents accuse him of being drugged up if he does well, so they win either way.
Trump rambles incoherently constantly but unfortunately none of his supporters care, so an unedifying encounter of two very old men past their prime looks likely. Only one cares about democracy though.
'Drugging up' someone with dementia would be highly unlikely to improve their debate performance.
And we know whose White House was an actual pill mill.
The allegation that he was on some kind of amphetamines for the State of the Union looks quite convincing to me - the sudden extraordinary improvement in lucidity and eloquence was striking, as was the massive relapse to his normal senility thereafter
Moreover they will want to avoid any “accidents”. A medically informed (and left wing) friend of mine recently gave me a plausible explanation for Biden’s weird behaviour on the White House lawn the other day. I’ll spare PB the unhappy details and precise medical words my friend used, but it all made sense
Also, how many octogenarians are NOT on multiple drugs? It’s normal. I am sure Trump is as well. He’s definitely been guzzling ozempic you can see it in his face
Amphetamines are not a treatment for dementia. Indeed they are likely to make it worse.
The only strong evidence we have for off label, unethical drug prescriptions in the White House is from the Trump administration. I don't count right wing TwitterX as evidence. Or your friends.
I was using “amphetamines” in the broadly accepted medical sense of “many different kinds of drugs some of them not actually amphetamines”
They could have jacked him up with this
“The following are used to temporarily improve dementia symptoms. Cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines work by boosting levels of a chemical messenger involved in memory and judgment. They include donepezil (Aricept, Adlarity), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Razadyne ER)”
So, you're clueless, and you can use google. Got that.
Is there a total sense of humour failure on PB this morning? Jeeez
Cheer up. I’m on a boat going to a mystical island. This is the final ultimate incredible life-changing culmination of a long-held dream that I’ve nurtured for literally days, ever since I first beheld the Ile De Sein from the sun-burnt rocks of Pointe de Rez well over a fortnight ago
Finally, I’m here. After all that yearning. Minute after minute of staring at atlases, tracing the outline of this fabled island then getting bored and doing something else. Entire moments of thinking about it vaguely then thinking about the next place I can have oysters
At last. The time has come and the dreams that I never really had are fulfilled
I'm presuming, given its location, it was an important Nazi base to monitor the Atlantic? Lots of concrete bunkers still like the Channel Isles?
There were Nazis here but that didn’t stop the entire male population buggering off in their fishing smacks in 1940 to form the free French navy
It’s an incroyable place. Like a mix of the saddest Welsh mining village but set in the Hebrides with some beautiful French houses in the middle of a warm still grey Arctic lake
You have sold it to me, I am cycling to Brest and Douarnenez in July. Where does ferry go from?
Audierne. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you like unique weird lovely sad beautiful places
No what anyone with any brains or who knew a single shred about betting would take. The Tories are 230 - two hundred and thirty - on Betfair Exchange. You are either a mug punter or a garden-variety trollcaster.
Betfair exchange is not Ladbrokes.
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
My point was simply why anyone in receipt of their senses would take such miserly odds when there are vastly longer ones on offer at a click of a mouse.
Unless they were a) a mug punter or b) using odds to make a spurious 'point' (aka trollcasting).
Because they are not a regular better and when they do bet they do it at a bookies so don't look at online only outlets.
Also Ladbrokes political betting is run (or was run) by a well known poster here. Shadsy, so they might know what they are doing.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
I'm setting up a watch party/shitposting group for some politically-inclined friends and thinking of some talking points, side plots, seats to watch and maybe a bingo card. From the top of my head, the main things are:
* scale of defeat * allied to these, notable scalps * Gorgeous and Corbz * SNP collapse? * The Farage Ascendency * Greens - better in the shires or the cities? * The Vaz madness in Leicester * Effect (if any) of 'personal votes' * Shameless Con leadership manoeuvring * Alliance in NI
There will be a lot to chat on through the night. Anything anyone else has a particular eye on, or other interesting mini dramas?
Ashfield, with the Ashfield Independents, and Lee Anderson for RFM, is a seat to watch (though maybe that's included in your Farage Ascendancy?)
Particular things you might want to keep an eye on, depending on the interest in your group, is whether the Tories are wiped out in particular areas: Wales, Scotland, North West, etc, or seats with Premier League football grounds, County Cricket grounds, Warhammer stores, etc.
I'm going to look up the cricket grounds (including outgrounds). I also want to keep a running total of the area of seats won - will Labour reach a majority by constituency land area?
No what anyone with any brains or who knew a single shred about betting would take. The Tories are 230 - two hundred and thirty - on Betfair Exchange. You are either a mug punter or a garden-variety trollcaster.
Betfair exchange is not Ladbrokes.
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
My point was simply why anyone in receipt of their senses would take such miserly odds when there are vastly longer ones on offer at a click of a mouse.
Unless they were a) a mug punter or b) using odds to make a spurious 'point' (aka trollcasting).
Because they are not a regular better and when they do bet they do it at a bookies so don't look at online only outlets.
Also Ladbrokes political betting is run (or was run) by a well known poster here. Shadsy, so they might know what they are doing.
Yes, Shadsy indeed "knows what he is doing" by offering pisspoor odds (in this case) to mug punters.
You do know it's always easily possible to find bookies offering shorter odds than the market? That is pretty much the epitome of a mug-punter wager, taking odds shorter than those widely available from other bookies/markets.
So for the three most recent polls there is quite a lot of consistency. Herding in the final week?
Lab 39,40, 42 so let’s call it LAB 40% Con 20,20, 23 so let’s call it CON 22% to be generous RFM 14, 15, 16 so RFM 15% LibDem 11,12,12 so let’s call it LibDem 12% GRN 5,6,6 so let’s call it GREEN 6%
Fed into EC without tactical that would yield a Lab majority of c. 230 with the tories and LibDems vying for second place on around 70.
I still think the Conservative vote share will rise a little and that Labour and Reform may slip a little further but I accept that time is limited.
I think Farage has Ratnered the Reform brand with his position snugly in Putin's small intestine on Ukraine. There will be a close correlation between those who are proud of the UK's assistance to Ukraine and those who might have considered voting Reform. I genuinely can't see Reform coming close to the Conservative vote.
Perhaps my only bright spot of this whole election would be Farage losing in Clacton.
Rare agreement by me with a Tory. Farage losing would be magnificent, and I would get even more joy from that than from my eager desire for JRM to be decapitated.
I would certainly share your joy in both cases.
Landslide defeat for govt, Reform damp squib and Lib Dems surprising on the upside are my wish list for next week.
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Farage losing in Clacton has to top any wishlist.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
In Clacton some ex Labour voters will vote for Farage
TBH I think Farage being elected into an actual job, where he's expected to do things like casework and other boring stuff, might actually shoot his fox.
Plenty of MPs simply don't do the day to day stuff. I've seen my MP in public once in the last Parliament - People complain about his response to their requests on facebook, but ultimately it's only a tiny % who ever contact an MP. He may well be busy with constituency work but I don't think many people notice either way, and he's going to be in with a much bigger majority this time around whatever he did.
Farage is probably the political figure with the biggest personal following in the country. I'd imagine the people voting for him in Clacton will be more happy that he's prominent nationally, rather than noticing if he visited a local charity, or helped Bob with his Council tax problems.
This dosent feel like 1997. It feels like Majors exhausted and despised party of 1997 up against Kinnocks disliked Labour of 1992 and the SDP of 1983 performing Reforms disruptor role.
Feel is important in an election. In 1997 it was obvious Labour were whupping the Tories. You could taste it. In 2010? The Tories would have won that had we not had the Cleggasm. In the 2015 Stockton South campaign the wheel had fallen off the Labour bus weeks before polling day with fractious infighting within the camp. And with door after door saying they liked our candidate but feared Alex Salmond, we knew in our guts it wasn't going well. 2017? I co-authored and strategised Dr Paul Williams winning campaign. No infighting as we simply shut the party out, and won.
This time? I'm telling you, there is something in the air which the pollsters aren't picking up at least here in the true North East. That isn't me confidently saying we will win. But we're in the battle and getting heard and picking up support.
We know how the Tories feel. They feel that they are heading for the cliffs. Sunak out campaigning in seats they hold by 25k, kids with crayons running the social media campaign, and coming out swinging in the debates hoping desperately to land a punch on Penfold...
It feels the same here in Dorset but... the 'reluctantly going to vote Tory' voices on here make me think it will end up disappointingly much closer than the polls suggest.
just observer bias imho- On a site like this you get lots of "tories" - by definition they are politicly engaged (why would they be on the site if not) and therefore will at some point be angry with whats happened either by the government or by the campaign - Of this mass a lot will then not vote tory again but probably then dont feel the need to admit who they are going to vote for instead but some out of the mass will state they are "reluctantly " going to vote tory. Nothing that contradicts the polls ,indeed supports them , otherwise the tories would be on zero percent .
I for instance have voted tory at all general elections but will this time vote Reform .
I have a moral dilemma here. I have two votes. Two postal votes. One for me and one for my ex wife (who is now in distant parts and doesn’t care)
How shall I cast them? I am torn between starmer (to give him a chance and annoy @kinabalu) and Reform (I want the Tories destroyed and every vote for Reform adds to that)
However my two vote sitch seems to solve the dilemma. I shall personally vote for Starmer but my ex wife will vote Reform. Sorted
Don't cast the one for the ex-wife unless she tells you to because although you probably wouldn't be prosecuted that would be a crime and you just confessed to it on the internet.
Isn't it actually an offence to complete, even if you have a verbal instruction from the person?
Yes. See my and @TheScreamingEagles post. @leon posting on a subject he has no knowledge as usual. I mean on a site full of people who are experts on elections. How many ex Agents are here. Lots I expect.
A question to ask about the above would be about how an ex wife who doesn't care is registered to vote anyway?
This dosent feel like 1997. It feels like Majors exhausted and despised party of 1997 up against Kinnocks disliked Labour of 1992 and the SDP of 1983 performing Reforms disruptor role.
Feel is important in an election. In 1997 it was obvious Labour were whupping the Tories. You could taste it. In 2010? The Tories would have won that had we not had the Cleggasm. In the 2015 Stockton South campaign the wheel had fallen off the Labour bus weeks before polling day with fractious infighting within the camp. And with door after door saying they liked our candidate but feared Alex Salmond, we knew in our guts it wasn't going well. 2017? I co-authored and strategised Dr Paul Williams winning campaign. No infighting as we simply shut the party out, and won.
This time? I'm telling you, there is something in the air which the pollsters aren't picking up at least here in the true North East. That isn't me confidently saying we will win. But we're in the battle and getting heard and picking up support.
We know how the Tories feel. They feel that they are heading for the cliffs. Sunak out campaigning in seats they hold by 25k, kids with crayons running the social media campaign, and coming out swinging in the debates hoping desperately to land a punch on Penfold...
It feels the same here in Dorset but... the 'reluctantly going to vote Tory' voices on here make me think it will end up disappointingly much closer than the polls suggest.
just observer bias imho- On a site like this you get lots of "tories" - by definition they are politicly engaged (why would they be on the site if not) and therefore will at some point be angry with whats happened either by the government or by the campaign - Of this mass a lot will then not vote tory again but probably then dont feel the need to admit who they are going to vote for instead but some out of the mass will state they are "reluctantly " going to vote tory. Nothing that contradicts the polls ,indeed supports them , otherwise the tories would be on zero percent .
I for instance have voted tory at all general elections but will this time vote Reform .
I have a moral dilemma here. I have two votes. Two postal votes. One for me and one for my ex wife (who is now in distant parts and doesn’t care)
How shall I cast them? I am torn between starmer (to give him a chance and annoy @kinabalu) and Reform (I want the Tories destroyed and every vote for Reform adds to that)
However my two vote sitch seems to solve the dilemma. I shall personally vote for Starmer but my ex wife will vote Reform. Sorted
Don't cast the one for the ex-wife unless she tells you to because although you probably wouldn't be prosecuted that would be a crime and you just confessed to it on the internet.
Isn't it actually an offence to complete, even if you have a verbal instruction from the person?
Yes. See my and @TheScreamingEagles post. @leon posting on a subject he has no knowledge as usual. I mean on a site full of people who are experts on elections. How many ex Agents are here. Lots I expect.
ITS. A. JOKE
Omg
I do know that. I know you are just winding us up.
Interested to know if you knew though that you couldn't do it if instructed to do so? Also interested to know if you know it is easy to check if you have done it, although it takes a court order.
So if you did do it and write an article the authorities might consider it worth checking because it was publicised and you wouldn't get away with saying it was a joke when they pull the ballot paper out.
Ok I’ll run with. It was a joke - I wanted to see how many pompous people on PB would lose their humour-free nuts and get riled. Quite a few it seems
However I am now genuinely interested. Her postal vote really is in my flat (I’ve no idea why she still gets it - she registered here for the 2019 GE but she’s not been here since 2020). I wonder how often that happens and how many people post multiple votes?
Because I could easily do it and no one would know. Tho if I was going to do it I would not announce it on a public forum. OBVS
I have the postal vote for my mother, in a care home with dementia, and could probably do the same. Yet I am fairly sure that an LPA doesn’t extend to voting matters.
Most such occurrences probably occur spontaneously on impulse, and people don’t realise that a photo of the original signature is held on record. If you look at the stats for a constituency declaration, there are usually postal votes rejected, often a fair few of them, and my guess is that most of these are from such situations. Quite possibly people think it’s OK, because their partner working away, or whatever, has agreed to it. But the votes are rejected all the same, The extent to which rejected votes are later investigated is up to the ERO, but if it looked really dodgy - for example several rejected with the same handwriting - it certainly should be.
Interesting. So they literally check every postal vote? That must really slow up the count on the night as they have to check every postal vote that is put in the ballot box on the day?
All postal votes received before polling day are verified at separate verification counts, held in the runup to polling day. Those received at the last minute are verified at the first stage of the election night count.
The parties are entitled to send observers to the PV verification counts, just as they are to the main count, and if the observers are there, it’s even more likely that the checking will be thorough and anything that looks suspect will be set aside. Because the voter’s identity details are visible, every ERO will know to keep the actual ballot paper face down throughout this process.
Parties often don’t bother to observe the verification count, because it’s mostly a waste of time - even if you make a difference by challenging something the counting agent hasn’t spotted or was going to let through, you have no way of knowing whether a challenge helps or hinders your candidate.
But it’s a handy job to send someone who, for various possible reasons, you don’t want to trust knocking on doors, when you’ve run out of things to deliver, because it seems more important than it is, and people are usually keen to go, at least for the first time. If they are very lucky they just might see the X on a few ballots as they are pulled out of envelopes, if the voter has foolishly folded them with the voting side facing outwards, and by the time they get back to HQ they will be pressed for any info - because it’s the only actually data on completed ballots on offer at the time. So the one or two votes the hapless helper has actually seen will have turned into “I saw a few votes”, through the natural tendency to exaggerate and desire to appear important (I am sure you can understand), and by the time the story has been passed around, and reached the media if it’s a key election or by-election, Chinese whispers will have turned it into “party Z is ahead on the postal votes” and occasionally we see such nonsense posted here by people who don’t understand how these things go.
So, yes, they’re checked individually and usually thoroughly. Such that any count result that doesn’t reject some of its postal votes should be regarded with some suspicion.
So two headlines on the Telegraph website this morning related to political betting and I think they are very different in terms of legality and there is a real danger of conflating the two.
1. Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, has said he placed a bet on the Conservatives to win the election. I see nothing wrong with this at all. It is not going to influence how hard he tries to secure a Tory victory and I think this should remain legal.
2. Senior Tory ‘bet £8,000 he would lose his seat at election. This to me seems completely wrong and if it is not yet illegal then it should be. It is no different from sportsmen betting on their team to lose.
My fear is that in trying to deal with the second (and the examples of insider knowledge already being invetigated) the new Government will go over the top and ban the first as well.
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Yet his opponents accuse him of being drugged up if he does well, so they win either way.
Trump rambles incoherently constantly but unfortunately none of his supporters care, so an unedifying encounter of two very old men past their prime looks likely. Only one cares about democracy though.
'Drugging up' someone with dementia would be highly unlikely to improve their debate performance.
And we know whose White House was an actual pill mill.
The allegation that he was on some kind of amphetamines for the State of the Union looks quite convincing to me - the sudden extraordinary improvement in lucidity and eloquence was striking, as was the massive relapse to his normal senility thereafter
Moreover they will want to avoid any “accidents”. A medically informed (and left wing) friend of mine recently gave me a plausible explanation for Biden’s weird behaviour on the White House lawn the other day. I’ll spare PB the unhappy details and precise medical words my friend used, but it all made sense
Also, how many octogenarians are NOT on multiple drugs? It’s normal. I am sure Trump is as well. He’s definitely been guzzling ozempic you can see it in his face
Amphetamines are not a treatment for dementia. Indeed they are likely to make it worse.
The only strong evidence we have for off label, unethical drug prescriptions in the White House is from the Trump administration. I don't count right wing TwitterX as evidence. Or your friends.
I was using “amphetamines” in the broadly accepted medical sense of “many different kinds of drugs some of them not actually amphetamines”
They could have jacked him up with this
“The following are used to temporarily improve dementia symptoms. Cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines work by boosting levels of a chemical messenger involved in memory and judgment. They include donepezil (Aricept, Adlarity), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Razadyne ER)”
So, you're clueless, and you can use google. Got that.
Is there a total sense of humour failure on PB this morning? Jeeez
Cheer up. I’m on a boat going to a mystical island. This is the final ultimate incredible life-changing culmination of a long-held dream that I’ve nurtured for literally days, ever since I first beheld the Ile De Sein from the sun-burnt rocks of Pointe de Rez well over a fortnight ago
Finally, I’m here. After all that yearning. Minute after minute of staring at atlases, tracing the outline of this fabled island then getting bored and doing something else. Entire moments of thinking about it vaguely then thinking about the next place I can have oysters
At last. The time has come and the dreams that I never really had are fulfilled
I'm presuming, given its location, it was an important Nazi base to monitor the Atlantic? Lots of concrete bunkers still like the Channel Isles?
There were Nazis here but that didn’t stop the entire male population buggering off in their fishing smacks in 1940 to form the free French navy
It’s an incroyable place. Like a mix of the saddest Welsh mining village but set in the Hebrides with some beautiful French houses in the middle of a warm still grey Arctic lake
You have sold it to me, I am cycling to Brest and Douarnenez in July. Where does ferry go from?
Audierne. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you like unique weird lovely sad beautiful places
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Yet his opponents accuse him of being drugged up if he does well, so they win either way.
Trump rambles incoherently constantly but unfortunately none of his supporters care, so an unedifying encounter of two very old men past their prime looks likely. Only one cares about democracy though.
'Drugging up' someone with dementia would be highly unlikely to improve their debate performance.
And we know whose White House was an actual pill mill.
The allegation that he was on some kind of amphetamines for the State of the Union looks quite convincing to me - the sudden extraordinary improvement in lucidity and eloquence was striking, as was the massive relapse to his normal senility thereafter
Moreover they will want to avoid any “accidents”. A medically informed (and left wing) friend of mine recently gave me a plausible explanation for Biden’s weird behaviour on the White House lawn the other day. I’ll spare PB the unhappy details and precise medical words my friend used, but it all made sense
Also, how many octogenarians are NOT on multiple drugs? It’s normal. I am sure Trump is as well. He’s definitely been guzzling ozempic you can see it in his face
Amphetamines are not a treatment for dementia. Indeed they are likely to make it worse.
The only strong evidence we have for off label, unethical drug prescriptions in the White House is from the Trump administration. I don't count right wing TwitterX as evidence. Or your friends.
I was using “amphetamines” in the broadly accepted medical sense of “many different kinds of drugs some of them not actually amphetamines”
They could have jacked him up with this
“The following are used to temporarily improve dementia symptoms. Cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines work by boosting levels of a chemical messenger involved in memory and judgment. They include donepezil (Aricept, Adlarity), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Razadyne ER)”
So, you're clueless, and you can use google. Got that.
Is there a total sense of humour failure on PB this morning? Jeeez
Cheer up. I’m on a boat going to a mystical island. This is the final ultimate incredible life-changing culmination of a long-held dream that I’ve nurtured for literally days, ever since I first beheld the Ile De Sein from the sun-burnt rocks of Pointe de Rez well over a fortnight ago
Finally, I’m here. After all that yearning. Minute after minute of staring at atlases, tracing the outline of this fabled island then getting bored and doing something else. Entire moments of thinking about it vaguely then thinking about the next place I can have oysters
At last. The time has come and the dreams that I never really had are fulfilled
I'm presuming, given its location, it was an important Nazi base to monitor the Atlantic? Lots of concrete bunkers still like the Channel Isles?
There were Nazis here but that didn’t stop the entire male population buggering off in their fishing smacks in 1940 to form the free French navy
It’s an incroyable place. Like a mix of the saddest Welsh mining village but set in the Hebrides with some beautiful French houses in the middle of a warm still grey Arctic lake
You have sold it to me, I am cycling to Brest and Douarnenez in July. Where does ferry go from?
Audierne. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you like unique weird lovely sad beautiful places
Parfait. 25k odd on from Douarnenez
You can easily do it as a day trip. I’m not sure you need to stay here. Get the morning boat - wander around - have a nice picnic or lunch and some wine (several cool restaurants/bars) get the boat back at 4pm. An hour each way. Audierne is also lovely
Also bring binos. Great birdwatching. It’s a UNESCO biosphere reserve
So two headlines on the Telegraph website this morning related to political betting and I think they are very different in terms of legality and there is a real danger of conflating the two.
1. Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, has said he placed a bet on the Conservatives to win the election. I see nothing wrong with this at all. It is not going to influence how hard he tries to secure a Tory victory and I think this should remain legal.
2. Senior Tory ‘bet £8,000 he would lose his seat at election. This to me seems completely wrong and if it is not yet illegal then it should be. It is no different from sportsmen betting on their team to lose.
My fear is that in trying to deal with the second (and the examples of insider knowledge already being invetigated) the new Government will go over the top and ban the first as well.
It might be a sliver of state overreach but it is hardly something to fear.
It impacts the proportion (10%?) of MPs (650 so 65) who bet on politics. And of those 65 most will spend far less than 1% of their time or money betting on politics. No big deal.
So, I was out last night and didn't see the debate or PB comments - was there a consensus on what happened? Any light or just heat?
I think it is a sign of how people are viewing the whole election that even from such an engaged crowd as PB, a surprising number were far more entertained by watching Georgia thrash Portugal than Starmer and Sunak repeating the same old attack lines at each other.
Clearly the focus will be on Biden. if he is as far gone as the images seem to suggest, he might struggle to hold it together for a full debate.
Yet his opponents accuse him of being drugged up if he does well, so they win either way.
Trump rambles incoherently constantly but unfortunately none of his supporters care, so an unedifying encounter of two very old men past their prime looks likely. Only one cares about democracy though.
'Drugging up' someone with dementia would be highly unlikely to improve their debate performance.
And we know whose White House was an actual pill mill.
The allegation that he was on some kind of amphetamines for the State of the Union looks quite convincing to me - the sudden extraordinary improvement in lucidity and eloquence was striking, as was the massive relapse to his normal senility thereafter
Moreover they will want to avoid any “accidents”. A medically informed (and left wing) friend of mine recently gave me a plausible explanation for Biden’s weird behaviour on the White House lawn the other day. I’ll spare PB the unhappy details and precise medical words my friend used, but it all made sense
Also, how many octogenarians are NOT on multiple drugs? It’s normal. I am sure Trump is as well. He’s definitely been guzzling ozempic you can see it in his face
Amphetamines are not a treatment for dementia. Indeed they are likely to make it worse.
The only strong evidence we have for off label, unethical drug prescriptions in the White House is from the Trump administration. I don't count right wing TwitterX as evidence. Or your friends.
I was using “amphetamines” in the broadly accepted medical sense of “many different kinds of drugs some of them not actually amphetamines”
They could have jacked him up with this
“The following are used to temporarily improve dementia symptoms. Cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines work by boosting levels of a chemical messenger involved in memory and judgment. They include donepezil (Aricept, Adlarity), rivastigmine (Exelon) and galantamine (Razadyne ER)”
So, you're clueless, and you can use google. Got that.
Is there a total sense of humour failure on PB this morning? Jeeez
Cheer up. I’m on a boat going to a mystical island. This is the final ultimate incredible life-changing culmination of a long-held dream that I’ve nurtured for literally days, ever since I first beheld the Ile De Sein from the sun-burnt rocks of Pointe de Rez well over a fortnight ago
Finally, I’m here. After all that yearning. Minute after minute of staring at atlases, tracing the outline of this fabled island then getting bored and doing something else. Entire moments of thinking about it vaguely then thinking about the next place I can have oysters
At last. The time has come and the dreams that I never really had are fulfilled
I'm presuming, given its location, it was an important Nazi base to monitor the Atlantic? Lots of concrete bunkers still like the Channel Isles?
There were Nazis here but that didn’t stop the entire male population buggering off in their fishing smacks in 1940 to form the free French navy
It’s an incroyable place. Like a mix of the saddest Welsh mining village but set in the Hebrides with some beautiful French houses in the middle of a warm still grey Arctic lake
You have sold it to me, I am cycling to Brest and Douarnenez in July. Where does ferry go from?
Audierne. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you like unique weird lovely sad beautiful places
Parfait. 25k odd on from Douarnenez
You can easily do it as a day trip. I’m not sure you need to stay here. Get the morning boat - wander around - have a nice picnic or lunch and some wine (several cool restaurants/bars) get the boat back at 4pm. An hour each way. Audierne is also lovely
Also bring binos. Great birdwatching. It’s a UNESCO biosphere reserve
Apologies, Leon, I missed the name of the island. Where are you?
Surely they could park the ISS somewhere like a Lagrange point or something as all that stuff could be used more usefully than polluting the Pacific? Maybe even as an emergency refuge.
This dosent feel like 1997. It feels like Majors exhausted and despised party of 1997 up against Kinnocks disliked Labour of 1992 and the SDP of 1983 performing Reforms disruptor role.
Feel is important in an election. In 1997 it was obvious Labour were whupping the Tories. You could taste it. In 2010? The Tories would have won that had we not had the Cleggasm. In the 2015 Stockton South campaign the wheel had fallen off the Labour bus weeks before polling day with fractious infighting within the camp. And with door after door saying they liked our candidate but feared Alex Salmond, we knew in our guts it wasn't going well. 2017? I co-authored and strategised Dr Paul Williams winning campaign. No infighting as we simply shut the party out, and won.
This time? I'm telling you, there is something in the air which the pollsters aren't picking up at least here in the true North East. That isn't me confidently saying we will win. But we're in the battle and getting heard and picking up support.
We know how the Tories feel. They feel that they are heading for the cliffs. Sunak out campaigning in seats they hold by 25k, kids with crayons running the social media campaign, and coming out swinging in the debates hoping desperately to land a punch on Penfold...
It feels the same here in Dorset but... the 'reluctantly going to vote Tory' voices on here make me think it will end up disappointingly much closer than the polls suggest.
just observer bias imho- On a site like this you get lots of "tories" - by definition they are politicly engaged (why would they be on the site if not) and therefore will at some point be angry with whats happened either by the government or by the campaign - Of this mass a lot will then not vote tory again but probably then dont feel the need to admit who they are going to vote for instead but some out of the mass will state they are "reluctantly " going to vote tory. Nothing that contradicts the polls ,indeed supports them , otherwise the tories would be on zero percent .
I for instance have voted tory at all general elections but will this time vote Reform .
I have a moral dilemma here. I have two votes. Two postal votes. One for me and one for my ex wife (who is now in distant parts and doesn’t care)
How shall I cast them? I am torn between starmer (to give him a chance and annoy @kinabalu) and Reform (I want the Tories destroyed and every vote for Reform adds to that)
However my two vote sitch seems to solve the dilemma. I shall personally vote for Starmer but my ex wife will vote Reform. Sorted
You don't have 2 votes. You have 1. It is a crime to use your ex wife's vote. Not likely to get caught, but you have admitted it here and voter fraud is usually harshly punished.
How do you sign the cover document? My postal vote was refused In May because my signature didn’t match that originally submitted.
My wife is disturbingly good at forging signatures and other handwriting, a skill developed over years of signing her school homework book in the name of her mother at her mother's direction.
Not that I don't trust her or anything, but I did complete my postal vote while she was still in bed, just to remove any temptation.
It's harder when you don't have a copy of the specimen signature in front of you, of course.
Given that this seems to be the area of voting which does actually see a noticeable level of fraud, it's an obvious target for improvement in the future.
@Leon was mocked mercilessly, not least by me, months ago for claiming he might vote Starmer. Yet he is voting Starmer. So I guess I was wrong.
The most Tory member of the VoteUK forum is also voting Labour, as some sort of protest against the government.
Of course, we all look forward to the day when HYUFD reports voting LibDem.
I don’t think I’ll live long enough to read that he’s voted Labour.
I believe HYUFD is a former Plaid Cymru supporter, so he could be termed a swing voter.
No I voted for every Tory candidate even then but there were 6 candidates to vote for in that Town council election but after I had voted for all 4 Tory candidates the only candidates to vote for were Plaid. I would otherwise have voted LD to use all my votes but there were no LD candidates
This is my photograph for the day. Road violence through neglect / carelessness.
This is an X-ray of a friend who had their radial head of his bone at the elbow broken by an SUV changing lanes without looking on Trent Bridge in Nottingham in early June, when they had been travelling in separate lanes alongside each other. My friend was crushed by the driver with his Landcruiser against the solid "terrorist barriers" down both sides of the carriageway (not bollards like London), so there is no escape route.
The driver stopped some distance up the road, saw the cyclist get up from the ground, then drove away. Then called the police 25 minutes later, blaming the cyclist for cycling into their vehicle then cycling away. Unfortunately for the lying driver, my friend has proof of events. The healing process will take 3 months.
There's a whole list of issues here, but these questions are not going away whilst action and consequences are so unbalanced across different parties. To list just three:
One is about driver skill and judgement of many given the privilege to drive (remember ~80% say they are 'above average'), especially attempts to deceive.
A second is about Trent Bridge being fail-dangerous not fail-safe - which would be very easy to fix *. We claim to apply "systems safety" to road design, but it does not seem to make it to the actual roads often enough.
A third is about alternatives to driving being perceived as so difficult that it is perhaps routine to deceive the DVLA about medical status in order to retain a license when it is not safe to do so. Elderly people and eyesight are one example which causes multiple deaths each year.
Sinn Fein are 8/15 with the bookies here . Normally this seat is won in the most marginal way as the unionists only fielded one serious candidate last time to not split the vote . This time it looks like both unionist parties contesting ? Maybe reading this wrong but seems like a Sinn Fein cert (much more so than 8/15) if so
What's your source for indicating two major unionist parties are running ?
Yeah, the DUP aren't standing in F&ST.
The TUV might take some of the unionist vote, and you'd expect Aontu to have a similar effect on the nationalist side - neither stood last time round.
Looks to me like it'll be yet another closely-balanced race, and so the 8/15 odds on SF sound about right.
This is an X-ray of a friend who had their radial head of his bone at the elbow broken by an SUV changing lanes without looking on Trent Bridge in Nottingham in early June, when they had been travelling in separate lanes alongside each other. My friend was crushed by the driver with his Landcruiser against the solid "terrorist barriers" down both sides of the carriageway (not bollards like London), so there is no escape route.
The driver stopped some distance up the road, saw the cyclist get up from the ground, then drove away. Then called the police 25 minutes later, blaming the cyclist for cycling into their vehicle then cycling away. Unfortunately for the lying driver, my friend has proof of events. The healing process will take 3 months.
There's a whole list of issues here, but these questions are not going away whilst action and consequences are so unbalanced across different parties. To list just two:
One is about driver skill and judgement of many given the privilege to drive (remember ~80% say they are 'above average'), especially attempts to deceive.
A second is about Trent Bridge being fail-dangerous not fail-safe - which would be very easy to fix *. We claim to apply "systems safety" to road design, but it does not seem to make it to the actual roads often enough.
And the weirdness keeps coming. Here’s the story of the church
“The chapel of Saint Corentin was rebuilt in 1970 on the ruins of an old chapel dating from the 12th century. According to tradition, Saint Guénolé, too bothered on the mainland by the faithful, decided to take refuge on the island of Seidhun (Sein). He built a priory there, before leaving to found the Abbey of Landévennec. According to the archives, the Abbey of Landévennec provided for several centuries the religious service of the island, which owed it in compensation "150 hake of rent".”
And you think rents in London are high? They paid three figures in hake EVERY YEAR. I’d have thought 80 hake, tops
Surely they could park the ISS somewhere like a Lagrange point or something as all that stuff could be used more usefully than polluting the Pacific? Maybe even as an emergency refuge.
Aren't the Lagrange points higher orbit, so needing boosting upwards? No idea if the now *assembled* station is strong enough.
Plus seems like the only likely ones still need constant corrections (being dynamically unstable) so you need supplies of fuel etc.
So two headlines on the Telegraph website this morning related to political betting and I think they are very different in terms of legality and there is a real danger of conflating the two.
1. Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, has said he placed a bet on the Conservatives to win the election. I see nothing wrong with this at all. It is not going to influence how hard he tries to secure a Tory victory and I think this should remain legal.
2. Senior Tory ‘bet £8,000 he would lose his seat at election. This to me seems completely wrong and if it is not yet illegal then it should be. It is no different from sportsmen betting on their team to lose.
My fear is that in trying to deal with the second (and the examples of insider knowledge already being invetigated) the new Government will go over the top and ban the first as well.
It depends on the reasons why you think #2 is wrong. Is it wrong because of the position of influence, or because of the position of knowledge?
This all started because of people betting on something they had privileged knowledge of but presumably next to no influence over: the date of the election. If that is wrong then arguments can be made for all insider betting to be wrong.
To use football terms, if you're a player and you know some of the fitness doubts on your side are doing quite well, you can bet on your own team to win because you have information that affects the value of the bet. Guaranteeing a bet will win isn't the only path to a bet being morally dubious.
I'm not offering a view, so don't mistake me for saying this or that should be banned. I don't know. But there are sound reasons why footballers betting, even on their own team to win, is frowned upon. Similar views might be applicable to political betting by insiders.
I think clearly because of position of influence. Whilst no one is going to throw away a Parliamentary career for 8 grand, once you have established the principle then they might do so for, say, 100 grand. This is exactly the same as footballers or cricketers throwing games. Hence the reason I think it should be illegal (if it isn't already)
Sinn Fein are 8/15 with the bookies here . Normally this seat is won in the most marginal way as the unionists only fielded one serious candidate last time to not split the vote . This time it looks like both unionist parties contesting ? Maybe reading this wrong but seems like a Sinn Fein cert (much more so than 8/15) if so
What's your source for indicating two major unionist parties are running ?
Yeah, the DUP aren't standing in F&ST.
The TUV might take some of the unionist vote, and you'd expect Aontu to have a similar effect on the nationalist side - neither stood last time round.
Looks to me like it'll be yet another closely-balanced race, and so the 8/15 odds on SF sound about right.
Comments
This whole issue started as "cheating" by people from Sunak's inner circle. It has with Phillip Davies and the Ipswich Labour guy become a general problem with political betting. Starmer's over reaction to the Ipswich guy has probably caused this, and as such the real scandal has been lost.
The Tories have trapped themselves in a perfect pincer movement from Right and Left, Leavers and Remainers.
After the failure of that tactic in the first debate - where I initially thought it had worked somewhat - to repeat it was idiotic. The only gain there was that the real winners of the debate were not Starmer and Labour but rather Farage and Sir Ed.
Expect Trump - the original - to do the same with rather more tactical sense
That plus Galloway losing in Rochdale, Corbyn losing in Islington and some weird and surprising results to keep the interest up.
Kinda stumps Trump.
So I have mixed feelings about Trump's microphone being cut.
With an ideal result being Farage comes third (again!) which is why I'm so annoyed Labour have pulled their candidate as it seemed quite plausible until then.
Anyone else seen something like this?
https://x.com/rishisunak/status/1806251057070116865
As of this minute it's now six days, and 20 hours (to be precise). BigG claimed it was '12 days' at a point where it was only nine and a bit.
It's also grossly unfair to those who are still sharp past 70.
Jimmy Carter made some jokes about running in 2020 as he was also eligible. Had he done so, and won, he'd have nearly seen his second term out.
And of course, if health outcomes do improve over the decades and centuries you'd want to revisit this limit.
I keep expecting eyeless and hairless French werewolves to stroll around the bistro on the corner, wearing berets and carrying fishing rods and glaring at me with truculent shyness
Also: epic quantities of Noom
*as if! people would need to use it, agree on the reference point (start or end of voting) and I'm not sure how easy it would be to extract time zones and correct for posters overseas, assuming local time was used in the calculation...
Perhaps 75 is a better place to draw the line? That would have allowed Reagan in ‘84, Trump in ‘16, Biden in ‘16 but not ‘20, all of whom were okay mentally on those dates but deteriorated soon afterwards.
ETA: Davey vs Sunak (and maybe Swinney) would in some ways be a more relevant debate - there's more of a battle - although I still don't think much of one in the end - for official opposition than for prime minister!
I suggest that a significant part of why people aren’t overly engaged with the campaign is because minds were already made up a long time ago.
The election is probably going to be huge fun for many people. The campaign isn’t.
78% of (undecided?) 2019 Tories said Sunak won, which is 82% when excluding don't knows.
Annoyingly, I had to download an app (ISP is Sky) to change the SSID and password on the router - simply connecting via the web browser didn't permit changing that, even with 'admin' login.
And because this is Ile de Sein it is of course insane. Ahem
It’s for a candidate called Jugdeep Harvender. I jest thee not. She’s standing for Finistere for the Far Left. And the poster has been attacked
Well, until the end of July when I'm moving to California.
* scale of defeat
* allied to these, notable scalps
* Gorgeous and Corbz
* SNP collapse?
* The Farage Ascendency
* Greens - better in the shires or the cities?
* The Vaz madness in Leicester
* Effect (if any) of 'personal votes'
* Shameless Con leadership manoeuvring
* Alliance in NI
There will be a lot to chat on through the night. Anything anyone else has a particular eye on, or other interesting mini dramas?
'Most extreme cardinal point Con seats in England'
Send out a list of con seats ordered by majority- best defence/worst loss
It doesn't say in the manifesto, beyond that the Lords is too big. So it could be that it's simpler thought to be easier to cull the elderly. It does say:
"At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords."
So it would look like no Lord's would retire until the 2028/9 election, and in general the age of retirees would be 80-84, rather than a hard stop on the precise day a Lord turned 80.
In fact, I wouldn’t mind going jug-deep
Sorry, @Heathener
Suggest you do your own research before labelling others as trolls?
If you had you might have been able to post something interesting about why Ladbrokes and Betfair odds are so divergent.
https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/next-uk-general-election/229577000/all-markets.
Even if they don't all do that, it still likely gets the Tories nearer to 30% than 20%
The TUV might take some of the unionist vote, and you'd expect Aontu to have a similar effect on the nationalist side - neither stood last time round.
Looks to me like it'll be yet another closely-balanced race, and so the 8/15 odds on SF sound about right.
SoPN here: https://www.eoni.org.uk/getmedia/320a604a-e3ab-4c4c-a010-9586aec24353/Statement-of-Persons-Nominated-combined-with-Notice-of-Poll
(Mention of that Yes campaign is also a reminder that the seemingly recent trend for political betting against your own team is not a new development. One of the researchers from that campaign boasted openly about using internal polling data to earn a hefty wedge betting against a Yes vote... although, in fairness, they could have reached the same conclusion and achieved the same outcome without access to the polling numbers.)
I don’t think I’ll live long enough to read that he’s voted Labour.
The Economist endorses the Labour Party to form the next government.
"It has the greatest chance of tackling the biggest problem that Britain faces: a chronic and debilitating lack of economic growth."
Unless they were a) a mug punter or b) using odds to make a spurious 'point' (aka trollcasting).
Also Ladbrokes political betting is run (or was run) by a well known poster here. Shadsy, so they might know what they are doing.
Into the final mile of the 2024 General Election Handicap open to three year olds of all ages.
The Conservatives may feel the ship has steadied in the past 24-48 hours. Yesterday's recent fieldwork polling suggested a stablilisation in the low 20s rather than the high teens but we've got a lot of other polling out there (no doubt).
Reform seem to have reached the ceiling, hit it and started to slide back to the mid teens. The LDs coming back to or just past the 2019 number (11-13%) and may yet challenge Reform for third. The efficiency of the LD vote combined with the lure of tactical voting may yet cause the Conservatives a lot of "local difficulty".
Labour remain serene at or above 40% and while some may argue it's not as good as 2017 that's irrelevant as each election is new and unique.
The current split (40-22-15-12 to be charitable) doesn't end well for the Conservatives if you being in the tactical voting angle and that's the elephant in the prediction room.
It's still a long time in politics - we know the big Conservative social media push (presumably Labour's too) will be next week. OTOH, some postal votes are already in or on the way.
It's worth re-iterating just because you don't believe something will happen doesn't mean it can't.
The data at this time suggests a substantial Labour majority but the election won't be complete until next Thursday evening so the numbers may (or may not) change. I'd argue looking at this election through the prism of the past is a quick route to the poor house in betting terms.
Im calling this photo: Mayor, Menhir, Monument
To explain. I was taking a photo of this wartime monument when the friendly guy with the wheelbarrow (in the photo) came up and said “no no, you are taking the photo from the wrong angle” (in french, we chatted in franglais)
He then told me is the mayor of ile de Sein and he took me round the corner to show me the better angle. Why? Because on the monument it refers to Germans as the boche - that racist slur is actually engraved in the stone. “It is perhaps the only monument in France which uses this word”. Why is the engraving so angry?
Didier the mayor of ile de Sein told me the story. The monument is to three fishermen from the island who were out fishing one day in the war and a u boat surfaced and saw them and simply shot them dead. For no reason
“Local people were very angry” Didier informed me. Can’t really blame them
Add to that the 4000 year old menhirs right behind the justifiably racist monument to dead fishermen and the church (just out of picture) on the right which is drenched with sadness - so many drownings, so many dead free French soldiers - and this is it. Peak Noom pour la France
Reform punters are mugs.
Sounds about right.
Particular things you might want to keep an eye on, depending on the interest in your group, is whether the Tories are wiped out in particular areas: Wales, Scotland, North West, etc, or seats with Premier League football grounds, County Cricket grounds, Warhammer stores, etc.
I'm going to look up the cricket grounds (including outgrounds). I also want to keep a running total of the area of seats won - will Labour reach a majority by constituency land area?
You do know it's always easily possible to find bookies offering shorter odds than the market? That is pretty much the epitome of a mug-punter wager, taking odds shorter than those widely available from other bookies/markets.
Farage is probably the political figure with the biggest personal following in the country. I'd imagine the people voting for him in Clacton will be more happy that he's prominent nationally, rather than noticing if he visited a local charity, or helped Bob with his Council tax problems.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/oct/25/labour-mp-election-results-twitter
Also reported and debated on Mark Pack's blog:
https://www.markpack.org.uk/10192/section-66a-1983-representation-of-the-people-act/
My impression is that these checking sessions can supply useful impressions for parties.
Has the way they are conducted changed since 2010?
1. Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, has said he placed a bet on the Conservatives to win the election. I see nothing wrong with this at all. It is not going to influence how hard he tries to secure a Tory victory and I think this should remain legal.
2. Senior Tory ‘bet £8,000 he would lose his seat at election. This to me seems completely wrong and if it is not yet illegal then it should be. It is no different from sportsmen betting on their team to lose.
My fear is that in trying to deal with the second (and the examples of insider knowledge already being invetigated) the new Government will go over the top and ban the first as well.
Also bring binos. Great birdwatching. It’s a UNESCO biosphere reserve
It impacts the proportion (10%?) of MPs (650 so 65) who bet on politics. And of those 65 most will spend far less than 1% of their time or money betting on politics. No big deal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnl02jl5pzno
Surely they could park the ISS somewhere like a Lagrange point or something as all that stuff could be used more usefully than polluting the Pacific? Maybe even as an emergency refuge.
But it's worth noting that 20% of UK adults said in 2018 that they can't produce a consistent signature, and the figure is probably higher today. And the reliance on a signature is exclusionary for people with disabilities or who are physically impaired.
Given that this seems to be the area of voting which does actually see a noticeable level of fraud, it's an obvious target for improvement in the future.
This is an X-ray of a friend who had their radial head of his bone at the elbow broken by an SUV changing lanes without looking on Trent Bridge in Nottingham in early June, when they had been travelling in separate lanes alongside each other. My friend was crushed by the driver with his Landcruiser against the solid "terrorist barriers" down both sides of the carriageway (not bollards like London), so there is no escape route.
The driver stopped some distance up the road, saw the cyclist get up from the ground, then drove away. Then called the police 25 minutes later, blaming the cyclist for cycling into their vehicle then cycling away. Unfortunately for the lying driver, my friend has proof of events. The healing process will take 3 months.
There's a whole list of issues here, but these questions are not going away whilst action and consequences are so unbalanced across different parties. To list just three:
One is about driver skill and judgement of many given the privilege to drive (remember ~80% say they are 'above average'), especially attempts to deceive.
A second is about Trent Bridge being fail-dangerous not fail-safe - which would be very easy to fix *. We claim to apply "systems safety" to road design, but it does not seem to make it to the actual roads often enough.
A third is about alternatives to driving being perceived as so difficult that it is perhaps routine to deceive the DVLA about medical status in order to retain a license when it is not safe to do so. Elderly people and eyesight are one example which causes multiple deaths each year.
* https://www.google.com/maps/@52.9388995,-1.1373709,3a,75y,119.48h,76.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY9qR8LrFU3gaynLF4debzA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu
"Fermanagh and South Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency) - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermanagh_and_South_Tyrone_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Ile de Sein. C’est magnifique
And the weirdness keeps coming. Here’s the story of the church
“The chapel of Saint Corentin was rebuilt in 1970 on the ruins of an old chapel dating from the 12th century. According to tradition, Saint Guénolé, too bothered on the mainland by the faithful, decided to take refuge on the island of Seidhun (Sein). He built a priory there, before leaving to found the Abbey of Landévennec. According to the archives, the Abbey of Landévennec provided for several centuries the religious service of the island, which owed it in compensation "150 hake of rent".”
And you think rents in London are high? They paid three figures in hake EVERY YEAR. I’d have thought 80 hake, tops
Plus seems like the only likely ones still need constant corrections (being dynamically unstable) so you need supplies of fuel etc.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/resources/faq/what-are-lagrange-points/