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The latest Tory leadership betting – politicalbetting.com
The latest Tory leadership betting – politicalbetting.com
In exactly a fortnight Tory MPs start voting in this election under the exhaustive ballot voting system which can be described as quasi-AV.
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Post Office ‘has paid £250m to law firms over Horizon IT scandal’
Amount reportedly paid to 15 law firms and two barristers chambers almost equal to payouts for victims
The Post Office has paid out a quarter of a billion pounds in legal fees in relation to the Horizon IT scandal – almost equal to the amount which has been given so far to victims, some of whom were imprisoned and made bankrupt, it has been reported.
The state-owned body paid out £256.9m to 15 law firms and two barristers chambers between September 2014 and March 2024, the Lawyer magazine reported after submitting a freedom of information (FoI) request.
The figure for legal fees is almost the same as the £261m of financial redress that has been paid out to victims of the scandal as of 31 July.
UK government figures show that the £261m has been paid so far to 2,800 claimants across three separate schemes. These include £54m for people who have had their criminal convictions overturned, as well as £126m for post office operatives that had financial shortfalls in their branches, and £80m for claimants in the high court lawsuit brought by the campaigner Sir Alan Bates and 554 post office operatives against the Post Office.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/21/post-office-law-firms-payouts-horizon-it-scandal
Kemi: boring, cowardly, crap
Patel: dim
Jenrick: LOL
..."The Trump campaign had initially agreed that Trump would participate in an interview with The Detroit News. But after the newspaper began asking about the Michigan crime data ... the presidential candidate no longer had time for an interview."..
Trump returns to Michigan to talk crime, but data shows rates dropped after he left office
https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/08/20/donald-trump-howell-michigan-crime-campaign-speech-kamala-harris-illegal-immigration/74844154007/
Seriously, worth remembering there is a leadership contest in the Scons as well. No idea who will win.
Edit. Ah, I have read upthread- good idea!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8756g46j1o
I find myself often using the singular they instead of he/she. Not for any conscious reason. Perhaps it's a cognitive shortcut when I'm tired.
Sicily civil protection chief Salvo Cocina told The Telegraph that two other bodies have been found and are now being recovered by divers.
Mr Cocina added: “On behalf of myself and my colleagues, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the families of the victims and express our condolences to them at this difficult time”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/21/bayesian-superyacht-sicily-sinking-missing-mike-lynch/
motorhomeclown car.Earlier this month, the far right set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.
Today, the government announced a "major surge" in deportations and promised to re-open detention centres.
The government could have stood up to the far right. Instead, it pandered to them.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1826233108775256144
Wait till he gets around to watching Obama's speech.
These were no ordinary law firms and barristers dishing out hopeless incorrect and unhelpful advice. One of the most distinguished and expensive barristers in the country, Lord Grabiner, advised the PO to seek the recusal of the Judge who had given the PO short shrift in the crucial Common Issues trial. Grabiner accused the judge of bias. It was a ridulous charge, and in due course it was summarily dismissed as '...misconceived...fatally flawed...untenable and absurd'. It had the consequence however of delaying justice in the Horizon case even longer, and of course Grabiner trousered a lot of money for not much work. (His rate at the time was, I believe, £3,000 per hour, which even TSE would find impressive....although I hasten to add that the chances of getting some sensible advice from Eagles would be considerably better.)
At a certain level I swear silks start inventing stuff out of whole cloth, and because of their reputation someone might take a punt on it - see Pannick's ridiculous private school stuff.
PS - It is £3,000 per hour plus VAT and disbursements.
These are obviously not stupid men, so what were they up to?
Trump 2.04
Harris 2.1
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.176878927
Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
Isn't it more to do with RFK's musings that he might endorse Trump ?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/29972371/tory-leadership-candidate-reveals-used-ozempic/
Politics?
The moral of the story? It's good to talk.
https://x.com/RMTunion/status/1826190060410028465
RMT posts 1-minute video in TwiX above.
Lawyers. About as popular as haemorrhoids.
Immigration minister Seema Malhotra says the govt wants to deport the highest number of people since 2018.
SKS fans you need to own what you voted for
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/21/watch-russian-soldier-blows-up-base-defecting-ukraine/
a) They absolutely have to OR
b) Commercially it's necessary.
When it's the public's money and arse covering is the order of the day though there's absolutely no incentive to try and reign the bill in.
See also the covid enquiry.
He was worth every penny.
Your longstanding antipathy to Starmer notwithstanding, what would your immigration policy be? Open door? Skills based? Should those who are here illegally be allowed to stay ? What shoulkd we do whose cases for asylum are pending? It's easy to be critical but I'm much more interested in hearing what alternative policy you would support.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/07/04/history-suggests-lawyer-starmer-was-always-going-to-win-this-election/
I am a Socialist who has consistent principles
2) I was talking about England;
3) No assessment will ever better my questioning Alistair Cook's reasoning in putting the Aussies in at Trent Bridge 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU75265wXzA
Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025. 900 pages with no index. Not quite as off the wall as AC feared but anti-woke and anti-abortion.
How will the six candidates seek to distance themselves from the Government of which they were all members (and indeed Cabinet Ministers) at some point between 2010 and 2024? It was interesting Sunak's first comment on the day after the election was a mea culpa.
It might be nice to hear a similar apology or expression of fault from any of the leadership contenders but I suspect I'll have a long wait.
Stodge's Ninth Law of Politics states if you want to get elected you don't tell your electorate things they don't want to hear even (and especially) if it's the truth.
That's going to be the problem - the MPs and membership won't want a damning indictment of 2010-24 (and especially 2019-24). They don't want to hear a litany of failure, of waste, of missed opportunities, of poor decisions and inept governance. They probably should hear it because that's what millions of ex-Conservative voters delivered on July 4th, whether they voted Labour, Reform, Liberal Democrat, Green or stayed at home.
The presence of Reform should help but there's a fundamental question evolving - what's the point of the Conservatives?
Every Palestinian for example should be welcome like the Ukranian ones were even though SKS would never allow that because they are brown and his record of "Israel has the right" makes him complicit in their Genocide.
Beyond that if we need immigrant Labour in certain sectors such as care we need to let sufficient people in for those purposes. So sort of skills based but without the stigma. Not open door but we should also welcome students who are great for our economy and the survival of large swathes of Universities.
Cleverly, Badenoch and Patel - hopelessly flawed in different ways but each has one strong point compared with the others
Jenrick is just bad. Bad for the country in the unlikely event a Conservative Party led by him gets into power. But bad I think for the Conservatives too. He is naturally the favourite to win.
Badenoch - clever debater. Will challenge the Labour Party
Patel - Willingness to face up to the problems with the party. What it actually needs right now.
The PO deliberately went for the most prestigious (and therefore most expensive) barristers they could get. They seem to have been following the principle of force majeure, which was a tactic they used remorselessly throughout. They could not have done so without Government support of course, so I think we can assume the Government was perfectly happy to see justice suppressed with public money.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
I think the logic @Andy_JS is applying is that the odds of 2.04 and 2.1 imply a probability of 96.6% that either Trump or Harris will win, leaving a 3.6% chance that neither will. I.e, 30s. Harris is very unlikely to drop out. Trump is a possibility for multiple reasons.
@TheScreamingEagles - "Wouldn't a coach and four be faster?"
Lord Grabber - "Exactly. Chiz. Chiz"
EDIT: found a picture of Lord Grabber in his younger days