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Ten years on – politicalbetting.com
Ten years on – politicalbetting.com
Today is the tenth anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum and if we look at how things are now compared to September 2014 not much has changed. Labour’s red rose is the dominant flower of Scotland, the SNP have single digit number of MPs, whilst support for independence generally hovering around the mid to high 40s (when don’t knows are removed) but all of that belies what has happened in those ten years.
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My genius is unparalleled
Even tho I agree with your central thesis. Sindy isn’t happening for 20 years and by the time those 20 years roll around the world will have changed so much the question will be bizarrely irrelevant and trivial
The same applies to Brexit FWIW
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader
ETA And by “you” I mean TSE.
Boris Johnson would have insisted on a televised debate with Alex Salmond.
Sorry, I might have gone into teacher mode there…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Scottish_independence
A deep dive into the UFO conspiracy theorists/grifters who created all the fuss in recent years and convinced some gullible people, including US politicians, that there was something going on: https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/s/p82r0FsKqf
Or a shorter article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/07/how-believers-paranormal-birthed-pentagons-new-hunt-ufos.html
Dunno if Scotland has any sort of history of the study of political economics.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24587438.poll-50-scots-want-second-independence-referendum/
There's a majority for a further Sindyref, and a 2% lead for No over Yes, so as close as Pennsylvania etc.
There must be a lot of Indy supporters who didn't vote SNP in the Westminster Election.
The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) is a database which aims to provide structured information relating to all the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to the late eleventh century. It is based on a systematic examination of the available written sources for the period, including chronicles, saints’ Lives, charters, libri vitae, inscriptions, Domesday Book and coins; and is intended to serve as a research tool suitable for a wide range of users with an interest in this period.
PASE was created by the Department of History and the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, at King’s College, London, and the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, at the University of Cambridge...
https://pase.ac.uk/
But that would also need an independence party which didn't pretend it would be easy.
Most people posting on this website will respond to the above by saying it is rubbish, there is no problem in the universities, it is based on generational anxieties and fears about change etc. In the end that just represents a different analysis and there are some persuasive arguments in favour of this perspective. But I would just say that it doesn't help your cause by resorting to insults towards people who have a different view.
People like Elon Musk have clearly thought very carefully about their position, and I think it is based on something like the analysis above. The system is collapsing, the collapse has to be disrupted, and Trump - for all the many dangers and flaws - is the only option going.
You'd lift up your hands and bless General Wade”
'A group known as "the invisible college" have been pushing for UFO disclosure for decades." (Your Reddit link). What type of theory is being advanced by this sentence? Have you ever in your life seen anything so beautifully circular?
If you want to attack a theory and you find yourself calling its proponents grifters in your first line you are not the best person to attack it, not even if they are in fact grifters. On many contested issues Yeats is spot on:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Have a read of the pentagon report of March this year. It manages to conclude that there's no evidence of UFOs without calling anyone a grifter.
One can believe Ted or not as one chooses, though as I say he seemed perfectly straightforward to me and his opinion of politicians seemed to be that they are all liars. But I found his opinion of Starmer of a piece with others I've heard from people who have dealt with him professionally and his behaviour during the aftermath of the referendum. And this is a man who now poses with a Union Jack behind him at every opportunity. I can only guess Ted's feelings every time he sees that.
Instead, just a week of curmudgeonly Hebrideans.
It has parallels with voting Brexit or Scottish independence. You have no idea what the outcome will really be like, but you sufficiently dislike the status quo to vote for the other option.
The final pro-Trump point is that the enemies of the USA have no idea what he will do, which is always a risk. Just like the USA's allies don't either.
What is exaggerated is the thought that Darkage will be deluged by PBers saying that the arguments are all rubbish.
Starmer doesn't appear to have broken any rules and it looks like he is meticulous in recording it all, but it looks fecking awful.
He wants to go and watch the footie, get comped because he's Swifty, dress nicely and have designer specs, so he'll take a hundred grand in freebies from whoever wants to curry his favour.
It stinks, and he needs to have a word with himself.
The resurgence of interest in pre-conquest British Isles is extraordinary and wonderful. The most ignored field in Britain (not Ireland of course) is first millennium Irish studies, where the sources are early and extensive - and totally bonkers - and of course untouched by the Roman empire. Every university should have an Irish studies department, and every English degree should require Anglo Saxon.
If so, as a matter of interest, what other sorts of cases does the DPP have to announce at a press conference?
Christian May
@ChristianJMay
Marcelo Goulart, of the Zurich-based wealth advisor First Alliance, has been so busy helping clients leave the UK that he’s had no summer holiday. He tells @CityAM
that 80 per cent of his “UK exposed” clients have either left the country or are in the final stages of doing so.
https://cityam.com/its-becoming-clear-that-the-governments-efforts-are-focused-on-short-term-revenue-raising-rather-than-long-term-pro-growth-reform/
https://x.com/ChristianJMay/status/1836298488478601333
Skimming down the article, there's one thing that tickled me - Truss apparently, pre-PM, accepted "a Norwich City football match attendance worth £2,000". Unless that's a typo and should be attendances, I'm left bemused by the idea that a single Norwich City attendance could be worth £2000. In Starmer's list, for comparison, there's: "The most pricey football match was four box tickets to watch Arsenal v Watford provided by the Premier League worth £2,160".
Personally I feel our pro-Ukraine position rejecting an inch of boundary change is exagerrated and dangerous, and we should be encouraging peace talks involving the east being merged into Russia and the West merged into the west, including NATO. I have no influence over the outcome, so it doesn't matter what I think, but if I actually had a vote I'd be tempted to vote for Trump - except that he's clearly bonkers on almost every other issue, so I suppose I'd vote Democrat.
This position is in at least some parts shared by roughly nobody, so I'm tempted not even to express it in the relatively friendly confines of PB. My point, though, is that everyone has their own priorities which opinion polls struggle to represent. My betting position is strongly pro-Democrat as it seems to me that Harris should be clear favourite at this point. But I'm uneasily aware that there are cross-currents under the surface which few of us fully understand.
Equally, Unionists might want to think about doing more to demonstrate the benefits of the Union to Scotland. I can think of two practical steps: make it easier to trade with the EU, and build HS2 to Edinburgh and Glasgow.
There was plenty of comment on here and elsewhere that it was an establishment cover up (not realising there were other issues, Constance Briscoe and Isabel Oakeshott at first refusing to reveal her sources).
Had it been left to a court listing it would have embolden those siren voices.
"People like Elon Musk" have no idea of how to run a government.
He's good at running engineering companies - but as he's demonstrated at Twitter (which has lost something like three quarters of its revenue), step outside his area of competence, and he's no better than the average idiot in the street.
I learnt a new word. I like "prosopography" - it sounds like a medical condition that might need a proctologist *, but is defined as:
prosopography: a description of a person's social and family connections, career, etc., or a collection of such descriptions.
* Imagine your Doctor. "I'm sorry, Mr Eagles - your scan has revealed a prosopography in your nether regions."
"People on your team tried to kill Donald Trump twice"
I was also told of a number of Financial companies relocating key parts from London to here and it’s all down to the fear and feeling that Labour are going to screw them.
I’ve said it before - I’m not happy about this, doesn’t improve my life but diminishes the UK which I love.
This is corporate tax, spending with the VAT and jobs associated, stamp duties, staff etc etc going.
Question is does he have to declare these "gifts" for tax purposes ?
The accommodation might be related to political activity - campaigning needs rooms - but the rest of it is straightforward freebies.
For a government which was elected having campaigned on probity, it's not a good look at all.
Still, now he can carry on going to the football, under the radar:
...ministers are not forced to declare hospitality on their MP register that they receive in their official roles..
Wealthy people pay for the NHS.
The bipartisan bill was drafted by the office of the Democrat Senate Majority Leadership, and passionately argued for on the floor by Schumer. It’s unthinkable its content was not cleared first by the Democrat White House and deemed a legislative priority at a moment of almost total congressional gridlock.
And then ask yourself why the US government felt it important to define in law the meaning of “technology of non human intelligence origin”, to attempt to assert eminent domain over such technology held by the private sector, and to seek a presidential appointed review board (to include amongst others an economist and psychologist) to recommend public data releases thereof.
The answer is that there have been a reported forty plus highly cleared people testifying under oath to Congress the veracity of such claims.
Whichever way you cut it, it’s by far the most intriguing political story in decades. Because either true or false, it implies a grotesque undermining of US democracy, easily surpassing Iran Contra or Watergate. It’s amazed me that so many on here still don’t seem to recognise that.
Clearly he has managed to put some Republican voters off, while on the other hand attracting some other voters who wouldn't otherwise vote Republican. But while these naturally attract attention and analysis, and are important because they are by definition swing voters, they must be quite a small minority of those voting. Edit: or at least small-ish - has anyone got any figures on this?
And how do you define the 'east' ?
And why do you trust Putin?
Vance is a thoroughgoing arsehole.
All it would require is the cessation of US aid. A GOP majority in Congress would probably sort that out for him.
His wife has to calm him down sometimes and remind him he is behaving inappropriately as he is no longer in the mountains of Kentucky. I think there is an example where he is about to get out of the car and paste someone who cut him up driving but she talks him out of it.
Perhaps she is not around during this campaign?
The other day, when we were discussing tax, someone was saying that if CGT was put up substantially, then exiting the country and living abroad for a period of time was in his financial interest. Which led people to accuse that person of being "transactional" and that, if he had that attitude, then leave and good riddance.
The recent immigrant members of the team have started discussing moving (in the bank) to another country or leaving for another country. The reason - concern over future tax rates. Is this transactional? Is it just to be expected? After all, they have lived nearly their entire lives in China, India etc. etc. While they are currently putting down roots - even studying for the citizenship test and spending money on the naturalisation process - they are very shallow roots.
In short - a portion of the highly skilled workforce has very little social and emotional connection to this country. Their "personal cost of changing countries" is quite low. In the case of the bank, they have been told that they can move to any other bank office in the world - we have partial WFH and the team is already split between countries...
It's the EU glory hole that Big Z needs to be working.
It required special dispensation from Ed Miliband because you have be a Labour member for x years and he wasn’t.
https://www.holyrood.com/comment/view,where-did-all-the-hope-and-optimism-of-2014-go?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter 18924&utm_content=Newsletter 18924+CID_032916a5a0f3b24d17eae6bc4a7113c2&utm_source=Email newsletters&utm_term=that loss of hope and optimism
The one caveat though, is that this isn't 'my view' - I am trying to explain why there is a cohort of centrist voters who end up supporting Trump. Sometimes radical disruption is necessary, although Trump adopts a strategy of performatively breaking fundamental rules, which is dangerous, and is why I would ultimately not vote for him - were I to have a vote.
Regarding the universities, this is a view I have which formed by reading 'the coddling of the american mind' about 6 years ago. But it is not a total condemnation of academia. The point I might add is that public service/government work tends to increasingly attract activists due to the poor levels of pay compared with tech.
(Edited to be polite)
Russia should get North Wales. Ukraine should get Palestine. The Palestinians should get the Sakhalin. The Japanese should get Lichtenstein. The Northern Irish should get Swaziland.
And there is absolutely nobody of any influence (apologies to you for the implied insult) arguing both that Ukraine should give up its eastern territories, and citizens, and be admitted to NATO - Putin has also rejected that idea.
I'd agree with you that any peace settlement can really only be guaranteed by something along the lines of NATO membership for Ukraine. Previous agreements with Putin haven't been worth the paper they were written on, since they had no credible security guarantees backing them up.
If he wasn’t this perfect paragon of Legal brilliance then he could trip up with something silly like declaring clothes donations late.
But it is interesting, a new constraint (possibly) on the actions of government. If a chunk of the middle class tax base is willing and able to leave at short notice and low cost (in the style that one the really rich could do, until recently)......
How does it go - "Justice requires sacrifices. Are you prepared to be one of them?"
Labour being vague and only speaking of tax hikes rather than growth having the consequence of driving out the wealthy is not exactly a shocker. Still a month or more until the Budget, right? Plenty of time to chase away more high-earning tax payers.
It is the very reverse of surprising that the Iranian ambassador was on their C&C network.
UAE is offering 10-year ‘golden visa’ opportunities to anyone with a salary of $100k or making an investment of $500k.