Options
Jenrick remains the strong favourite – politicalbetting.com

There was some slight movement away from Jenrick over the weekend following the revelations about one of his donors but he has largely recovered over on Betfair.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Partly because of his fundamental Jenrickness, but also that 75k donation from... who?
ETA: most of the action on freebiegate has come from the press, not Conservative politicians. Perhaps they know that there is a can of worms they don't really want opened.
Perhaps the Tories should ask themselves why the rest of us are so excited by the idea of a Jenrick win before they vote again...
Which would be minor consolation for the state we'd be in by then.
Look at the comments here over the weekend. A lot of Conservatives seem convinced that 2029 is in the bag, in which case they can choose the leader they want rather than one chosen to please the wider electorate.
I wonder if '79 to '83 is the temple?
Absolutely pissing it down. Hope it ends soon. In the next hour and a half I have to go out twice...
I am somewhat pessimistic, especially about Reeves, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
Two years on. The British economy would be in much better shape if the Mini Budget had been implemented.
https://x.com/trussliz/status/1838101872969687143
Can';t say I know a great deal about Jenrick, rather like the general public.
Yes, the BoE screwed up, they nearly always do. Just this last week they made another mistake in not cutting interest rates when the labour market is going soft and growth is stuttering. But to pretend that her policies and actions did not play a part in the chaos, jeez.
So whilst it is a bad look for Labour and I strongly condemn it, is it really a good look for the Tories to constantly draw attention to their own failings over 14 years?
What more do you need to know?
Actual Alan B'Stard... horrible, but with verve and swagger. Women want to be with him, men want to be him. See also: Lord Flashheart.
Jenrick is somehow a nerdy cosplay of a Rik Mayall character. Which keeps the bad bits but loses the attractive bits.
I know that she is no longer a Conservative MP, and that's probably for the best all round. But that's not really sufficient distance for the party.
Amongst Tory MPs if Cleverly or Tugendhat goes out next as expected then their support largely transfers to the other so one of them may even beat Jenrick with MPs in the final MPs ballot. Badenoch I expect to come third
Labour’s dilemma in a nutshell:
They can’t credibly deliver change without spending money, and they can’t credibly spend money without raising taxes. Raising taxes is unpopular. But so is failing to deliver improvements to a collapsing public realm
My replies full of people to the left of current govt invoking the wealth tax fairy and people to the right of the current govt invoking the productivity fairy.
Govt isn’t hard it seems. The answer to every tough choice is always “squeeze people I don’t like”.
Either that or do the magic growth dance and all the problems fall away. Because everyone knows the formula for growth is easy - and remarkably it always lines up perfectly with the ideological preferences of people with strong ideological preferences
https://x.com/robfordmancs/status/1837813247736451210
The Liz Truss solution...
(Politically, no candidates are remotely good enough, but that's another matter),
Ok, I accept that doesn’t really narrow it down.
1)who is she?
2) oh yes, she's the reason why I don't vote Conservative.
Edit - what odds can I get on a late November 2028 election...
Even more alarming now that billionaires, such as Paul Marshall, own elements of the press and are substantial donors to the think tanks and political parties. What is being driven now is their undiluted personal political view / vision.
These were the days when hilarious characters at the Labour conference didn't just suggest leaving the EEC and NATO - they wanted to join COMECON!
or Badenoch. Even if Starmer and Davey would prefer to face Jenrick or Badenoch than Cleverly or Tugendhat
Everywhere else in Europe is building High speed backbone networks and metro lines. The fact Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham do not have underground metro networks is completely insane...
Eyeballing the wikiworm graph,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1983_United_Kingdom_general_election
November 1980 is pretty much when things started going south for Labour.
And yes, a split side loses to a united side. (And the geography of Lib/Lab votes means that they are effectively united.) Whoever can stick the right back together without causing the remaining centrists to break off is very very clever indeed.
It depends on your view of this
1) Awesome, let's have some. Growth.
2) No, can't build things like that. No Growth.
Pick one. Either one. Don't whine about the outcome, though.
Literally my objections when it comes to planning are
1) does it directly impact someone?
if No it can be built.
And some of the biggest critics are coming from within Labour
More in common apparently polls this morning that 60% expect Labour to lose the next GE
52/48% believed that Starmer would not lead into the next GE
It also found 17% regretted voting Labour
Starmer ratings also fallen 31% from +11 to minus -20
It also said Labour would need 36% of the popular vote to retain power and even lose without losing a single vote from GE24
This of course has downsides. But it puts a heavy thumb in favour of stuff happening - if you're are onside with the Mayor.
1) Rishi didn't allow early access
2) Rishi announced the election when no-one was expecting it
3) the OBR has a massive lead time so it couldn't be any earlier given 1 and 2.
My money has gone on trading bets on Cleverly / Tugendhat.
*Actually, I'm not sure I would like that. I'm as woke a centrist dad as they come, but a FPTP choice between Lab and LD, even if the LDs went a bit more to the right on economics, would leave a huge part of the more traditionalist/small 'c' conservative part of the electorate with little voice and I don't think that would be a good thing. In that situation, we'd have even more need for PR.
Mostly people no-one has heard of, quietly running their hedge fund in Mayfair but contributing tens of millions in taxes, hearing talk of punitive 45% CGT rates and not wanting to hang around to find out.
In totally unrelated news, Singapore looked very attractive on TV yesterday for the F1 race.
If you have many more years on this mortal coil, growth is good, it pays for nice things. If you don't, the calculation of "inconvenience and expense and ugliness now vs. benefits over decades" works differently. The "there's enough to see me out" drug is damn potent.
We've not had economic growth for ages because, when push comes to shove, not enough people have really wanted it.
And they probably need to neuter Reform first because there is a lot of downside if Reform start to get organised which Nigel does seem to be interested in doing...
Because the OBR said they couldn't do the necessary numbers in time to allow an earlier date.
Spending political capital on the Winter Fuel thing was mad. Trying to re-create Alistair Campbell with Sue Gray - when has that ever been a good idea? Even the first time? Not to mention Dominic Cummings....
* iirc Lawson equalised CGT with income tax but the world and capital is far more mobile in digital 21st century I reckon.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/reeves-insists-there-are-reasons-to-be-optimistic-as-she-encourages-investment/ar-AA1r1HBx?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=e08d149ac3384c5d954c6deafad1a132&ei=42
If you were in the Paddock Club, on the other hand, it was lovely.
I have actually been there for the GP, the heat and humidity isn’t that bad for punters, especially if you’re used to the sandpit in summer! It’s 35ºC during the day, same as the hottest days in the UK. Wear a hat and drink lots of water.
The Harris campaign is toying with rises in CGT as well, so there could also be an exodus from the US. Most options are in Europe outside the EU, Middle East, or Asia
2/3rd pint is the perfect volume of beer.
And that gets listened to.
In Chablis, the attitude from the other 95% is "Shut up. We want the jobs and local taxes. This means better roads and schools."
3) Spend £100m in planning and legal fees and 15 years arguing about whether to build a £50m building.
But that is key part of the problem. And why it is frustrating that Starmer is burning political capital on nonsense. The real test will be later - when they try and get the abbreviated planning processes they have been talking about through parliament. And when they try and use them.
A zillion MPs will spring up, objecting, first to the abbreviation of planning. Then for each and every occasion where it is applied.
Mirrored by the left-leaning papers of course, but there's less left-leaning media.
If you’re a fund manager, are you going to base your fund in the UK (45%), the US (40%), Singapore (0%-12%iirc) or Dubai (0%-7%)? So long as there’s regulatory stability, (in Dubai we have the DIFC finance free zone that works under English law, and there’s similar options in Singapore), these people can choose to base themselves and their funds anywhere.
Changing the sequencing would surely help a lot, but I suspect that only the state can put the money up front.
Good morning, everybody.
(*) Apparently he's caved in over Brazil?
Quoting La Truss?
We don't mention Archbishop Justus; why are we mentioning Loopy Liz?
UK 52.9 (Aug 53.8)
The September PMI data bring encouraging news, with robust economic growth being accompanied by a cooling
of inflationary pressures. The data therefore hint at a ‘soft landing’ for the UK economy, whereby the fight against
inflation is showing increasing signs of being won without higher interest rates having caused a downturn.
A slight cooling of output growth across manufacturing and services in September should not be seen as too
concerning, as the survey data are still consistent with the economy growing at a rate approaching 0.3% in the third
quarter, which is in line with the Bank of England’s forecast.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/4ce0d839a5d447bf92e1c3b7f9ddb680
https://x.com/gavreilly/status/1837897947339542583
NEW: President Higgins has accused Israel of leaking a letter he wrote to his new Iranian counterpart, congratulating him on his election.
He says he doesn’t know how Israeli authorities would have obtained the courtesy letter and regrets that Israel’s ambassador is not currently in Ireland to be consulted.
There is also planning bureaucracy. We wanted to put a dark corrugated iron roof on our barn conversion. Serve, the mayor, said he’d like something a bit lighter as the proposed colour was a bit “Northern European”. We said fine and landed on a warm grey, which does look better. He waved it through.
Then several months later after building we get a very stern letter from the prefecture of Salome et Loire announcing our building is illegal because the roof is not in keeping with the region and the mayor had exceeded his authority in the matter. This despite nobody local actually objecting (because it’s pretty much invisible to everyone). Cue frantic exchanges of emails and an agreement on a compromise, with Serge getting a ticking off.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/deMFryXryuUfJ7kx7
It is a sad reality; the strong growth in the French economy seen in August evaporated by September. The Flash Composite HCOB PMI has dropped well below the critical 50 mark, now standing at 47.4. This confirms the suspicion that the service sector surge in August was an Olympics-related anomaly, which has now dissipated. The situation in manufacturing remains difficult, much like in the previous month. Our HCOB Nowcast predicts near stagnation in the French economy for the third quarter, compared to the previous one. With this, France joins the group of Eurozone economies struggling with significant growth challenges
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/694d0a3bd63944428e2042aaf17e9443
Germany 47.2 (48.4)
The downturn in the manufacturing sector has deepened again, evaporating any hope for an early recovery. Output plunged at the fastest rate in a year, with new orders collapsing. In a sign of resignation, companies have shed staff at a rate not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This comes as several major automotive suppliers have announced significant job reductions. These troubling figures are likely to intensify the ongoing debate in Germany about the risk of deindustrialization and what the government should do about it.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/5455a5b6d984483ebb968a52881396d8
2) It's certainly not the case that anyone who works for the Telegraph,Mail etc is right-leaning.
3) Again, being critical of one of the two big parties <> being a supporter of the other one.
4) I'd strongly question 'less left-leaning media'. Print media, perhaps.
GBP:EUR 1.20, last seen in early 2022 before Truss etc, and before that briefly in Feb 2020.
GBP:USD 1.33, also the highest since Feb 2022.
Not quite the rates I grew up with (I remember the halcyon days of 2 dollars to the pound in the noughties) but the financial crisis put paid to any hope of those ever coming back.
1) The relative strength of the UK and EU economies
2) The likelihood of political turmoil in EU countries caused by unemployment among the under 30s.