Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
How are you feeling Casino? All things considered, not a totally terrible outcome for your team.
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
Listening to the C4 "what ahppens next" extended coverage, Sue Gray as Chief of Staff may be problematic.
Especially her habit of not writing anything down.
Is that a problem or smart when you are in the world of politics...you never know what scandal might hit and then you end up all your stuff coming out...see all the numpties mixing work and social WhatsApps. Even Vallance was forced to reveal his chunks of personal diary entries to COVID inquiry.
Tony Blair was smart, no phone at all.
I never understand why people who have any public profile don't use the auto delete tw@tter services. Because you never know in years to come, somebody digs up some dodgy tweet, perhaps taken out of context, or the terminology that is acceptable has changed and you get loads of incoming.
Just for LOLs I wrote a scrapper tool that uses desktop WhatsApp to get around their API pricing.
If I set it loose on a conversation it would record everything. WhatsApp might delete, but it would retain the data.
Do we have any profiles of the Rump Tory MPs as a group, yet?
I don't know all the individuals well enough to judge, short of looking up lists of group members and cross-correlating, which would take a long time.
The only current market on BET365 for my bonus £30 in the next 30 days is Next Permanent Tory Leader .Jeremy Hunt at 11:1 looks ... possible. More information required !
I may have to look at Presidential Markets .
Caroline Nokes is still there so that’s at least one dripping wet!
My view - Starmer will run a very tedious boring centre-right government, raising a few taxes (because of the debt) but not doing much that makes anyone happy and Starmer is a wet fish
It won’t be popular and with no “f the tories” they lose a few percent on both left and the right
Leading to an even more chaotic 2029 election where weird stuff happens all over the place as multi way contests become the norm
Maybe I’m wrong and this Lab govt will surprise and be more popular than expected but I don’t see it
I’m hopeful they’ll be a fairly decent government, but the risk is that they could be like the LibDems in coalition, who did a tremendous amount of good work behind the scenes tinkering with complicated stuff to make it slightly better; the sort of job both they and Starmer enjoy. But come the election not much of it will be worth many votes.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
That’s a problem with all governments. Do things competently, and people give you little credit, because they assume there’s no problem.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
I can see the Conservatives gaining large numbers of Labour seats, mostly in the midlands and north, next time.
But struggling to regain many of those middle class southern seats the LibDems now have.
With the effect that after 2029 the Conservatives are a much more northern and working class oriented party.
I don't know how Conservative members, 'thinkers', politicians and leadership would deal with such a shift,
I dont think the LD gains are that unattainable. 20 within a 5% swing, 40 within 8% swing. Recovery to low/mid 30s brings them all into play and with no bogeyman to vote out, tactical vote unwind factors in. opposing that is how much the additional presence and exposure boosts the LDs as a party
Yougov question for my wife this morning, who ran the best election campaign? None of the won by a comfortable amount with over 30% of the poll.
Personally, I would have answered the Lib Dems and Ed Davey in particular. Their result was truly spectacular given both their starting point and how they have struggled to be heard in the last 5 years after losing 3rd place in Parliament. They got 9%.
The Labour party got the most (inevitably) at 20% but to me their campaign was let the Tories keep f****** it up and don't scare the horses. Kind of reminds me of nearly every team in the Euros, far too cautious and boring.
1% of the answers was the SNP. There's always some.
The trouble with that strategy for Labour is that it didn't attract any horses either.
If you stay silent people might just not feel there's any particularly good reason to vote for you, and object to what you do once you've won all the more.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
I can see the Conservatives gaining large numbers of Labour seats, mostly in the midlands and north, next time.
But struggling to regain many of those middle class southern seats the LibDems now have.
With the effect that after 2029 the Conservatives are a much more northern and working class oriented party.
I don't know how Conservative members, 'thinkers', politicians and leadership would deal with such a shift,
It's amazing that the Tories could gain 200 seats next time and still be short of a majority.
They could also gain 75 seats - probably a realistic level - and still be under where Michael Howard got to in the 2005GE.
Not to blow my own Trumpet on Leicester East but when i was here posting during Truss the Tories gsined a local by election in Leicester East from nowhere despite being sub 20 polling and i suggested it could go against the head if Webbe stood as an indy. I was, i believe, mocked for such frippery
You'll always get mocked for unusual predictions or tips, unfortunately. As I was when I first said 2 weeks ago on here that Starmer might be a one-term PM, which is now being more widely debated.
But, I always listen to the tips of others - including you - and that's why I consistently make money betting on politics.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
They need to find actually talented people. Despite the large majority the Tories got in 2019, so much absolute dross. And now a lot of the remaining decent ones have stepped down e.g. Javid.
Their 2029 campaign begins today. They need to take the job seriously. Part of the problem is the utter retired officer/local landowner/golf club captain nature of constituency associations, they dont pick decent people to fight seats, they pick Mr Potato Head construct-a-Tories
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Though how many PMs have had a big management job before, running an organisation with responsibility for people under them?
In a way, Johnson's editing of the Spectator possibly comes closest, and I'm not sure that's a great training ground.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
He has very little charisma and little common touch but I might be tempted to vote for Hunt, particularly given the rest on offer.
I think the biggest thing the Tories need to focus on right now is high-quality candidate selection and professionalism.
I think he could help with that, he's a proper Tory, and he also has the brains to develop a broader strategy and work ethic to execute it.
Yougov question for my wife this morning, who ran the best election campaign? None of the won by a comfortable amount with over 30% of the poll.
Personally, I would have answered the Lib Dems and Ed Davey in particular. Their result was truly spectacular given both their starting point and how they have struggled to be heard in the last 5 years after losing 3rd place in Parliament. They got 9%.
The Labour party got the most (inevitably) at 20% but to me their campaign was let the Tories keep f****** it up and don't scare the horses. Kind of reminds me of nearly every team in the Euros, far too cautious and boring.
1% of the answers was the SNP. There's always some.
It's hard not to be impressed by the LD campaign.
They need to be careful not to be too beard and sandals in Parliament, though; they've accrued a lot of naturally centre-right votes.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
They need to find actually talented people. Despite the large majority the Tories got in 2019, so much absolute dross. And now a lot of the remaining decent ones have stepped down e.g. Javid.
Yes, that's more important than anything else.
Even Cameron got this wrong because he thought diversity was more important than quality.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
He was (and is) a very sensible and talented chap.
Isle of Wight East interesting - precisely the same Conservative vote as IoW West but the anti-Tory vote was almost perfectly split asunder with the greens. Greens were second though so I assume they'll target it heavily again next time round - may be tricky as the Tories are not in Gov't to boot out mind.
No wonder the lady in front of @IanB2 had no idea which way to vote. Not even particularly obvious with the benefit of hindsight.
Something Sam Freedman's constituency-by-constituency predictions frequently had was "Conservatives should hang on because it's not clear who the challenger is". If one wanted to give Conservatives sleepless nights, it could be pointed out that there are a fair few seats where the challenger is a lot more obvious now.
Comments
But am bracing myself for what comes next.
If I set it loose on a conversation it would record everything. WhatsApp might delete, but it would retain the data.
Labour could so very easily be way more fiscally irresponsible than the Tories, and tax out investment.
And Alicia Kearns is also pretty sensible.
opposing that is how much the additional presence and exposure boosts the LDs as a party
If you stay silent people might just not feel there's any particularly good reason to vote for you, and object to what you do once you've won all the more.
They could also gain 75 seats - probably a realistic level - and still be under where Michael Howard got to in the 2005GE.
But, I always listen to the tips of others - including you - and that's why I consistently make money betting on politics.
In a way, Johnson's editing of the Spectator possibly comes closest, and I'm not sure that's a great training ground.
Before that, the wartime generation?
I think the biggest thing the Tories need to focus on right now is high-quality candidate selection and professionalism.
I think he could help with that, he's a proper Tory, and he also has the brains to develop a broader strategy and work ethic to execute it.
They need to be careful not to be too beard and sandals in Parliament, though; they've accrued a lot of naturally centre-right votes.
Even Cameron got this wrong because he thought diversity was more important than quality.
Loss to the party.