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Ayrshire hotelier remains the favourite to win the American presidency – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,711

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,053

    Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    Isn’t Goodwin’s latest jive that white Britons will soon be a minority?
    I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,711

    Drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales have hit the highest level in 30 years, fuelled by a 30% rise in fatalities involving cocaine.

    The highest rate of drug deaths is still among men in “Generation X”, particularly those aged 40-49, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

    Cocaine deaths were nearly 10 times higher in 2023 than a decade earlier, claiming more than 1,100 lives.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5l4nknew0o

    That's not good.
    Legalise the entire drug supply chain. Impose actual standards. Tax it.
    They're doing the opposite in Oregon.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,632
    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,209

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    I don't think anyone should choose enforced lockdown but generally in life I try to make the best of any situation I find myself in. Also I think it was an important step to save lives. The situation in Wuhan and North Italy was horrible.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505
    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I'm sure he would have got "ALL the big calls right!"
  • Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    Isn’t Goodwin’s latest jive that white Britons will soon be a minority?
    I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
    Yah, he also thinks I am not British.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Kamala's speech. And yes, it's the same feelz as Cameron's speech in 2016.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBb3dWodDI

    She's resigning?

    I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.

    FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
    For what it's worth, I think the Democrats are so scarred by 2016 and the relative closeness of 2020, that they have underestimated their chances.

    And the same applies on the Republican/Trump side: because there was out

    This flows through into what is being shared: i.e. the early voting data is disastrous! Is it, though? Instead of comparing it to 2020 which was the middle of Covid, how does it compare to 2016 or the 2022 midterms?

    Likewise, the early voting from Georgia, which does not include party affiliation but does include gender and county looked pretty positive for Harris. 55% women, and the Atlanta area the main driver of turnout... I'd be very excited about that if I was the Democrat campaign given how significant the gender differences in turnout are.
    Harris several points ahead is counter productive for the Dems. A comfortable looking win and they stay at home. I don't think that applies to Trump, his voters will either vote regardless or stay at home regardless.

    I hope your book is right!
    Number of Democrats yours truly knows who are expecting a "comfortable looking win" is ZERO.

    There may be some spouting on the web, but damn thin on the ground! Even in states where Harris IS clearly winning (such as WA State) there are still plenty of down-ballot state and local races AND measures up for grabs.

    Including some that are likely to motivate even low-propensity-to-vote voters, for example choice referendum in Florida.
    Nice to have eyes on the ground. I'm rooting for Kamala, but fear Trump.
  • Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    If they really do add NI to employer pension contributions, it is a gigantic tax increase and it is up to the skills of the opposition to explain and lay it at the feet of the government. There’s no such things as a cost free tax increase.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,849
    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The problem for Labour is whether a pain budget can really be “received well.”

    I like others think it should have been gotten out of the way quicker - the fact it has been hanging over everyone like a cloud of doom has really not set the scene for the new government well.

    Osborne was able to get his emergency budget out of the way relatively quickly after taking power - get the bad medicine delivered and out of the way. The problem Labour have is that they’ve been trailing this horrible event for 3 months now, before that they put us on notice that granny was freezing this winter, and straight after the budget we actually do go into winter, when the papers will be full of freezing granny stories.
  • FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    I don't think anyone should choose enforced lockdown but generally in life I try to make the best of any situation I find myself in. Also I think it was an important step to save lives. The situation in Wuhan and North Italy was horrible.
    Absolutely. It was a horrendously damaging policy, but the point is that for some, lockdown was a temporary stepping off the elevator of life.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505
    rcs1000 said:

    On the subject of Nate Silver, this is a really excellent article he wrote for the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/opinion/election-polls-results-trump-harris.html

    TL;DR

    It's 50/50, but if he had to guess it would be that Trump will win. However, there's been a lot of poll methodology changes in the last four years, so a large polling miss is likely, and he doesn't know which way it will be.

    The best bet, though, is for one of Trump or Harris to sweep at least 6 of the 7 battleground states. He thinks that's a 60+% chance.

    That is a good analysis. Nobody knows anything, except as you said earlier it will be one of Harris or Trump.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,819

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    The messaging is half of the issue, but the least important half. Labour are not (quite) going to be able to sell this budget. Far more importantly the numbers (so far as I can guess) won't even get close to working.

    Following a good period of Tory government is all Labour have ever done. Today they're following a bad period of Tory government, and their economic thought-vacuum is going to hurt us all. Reeves/Starmer will be the best of it - when they go it'll be much worse.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,578
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,963

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    Ugh. When graphs go bad.

    I recognise some big differences compared to 2020, but if you want to compare the polling you really ought to make sure they're on the same scale of axes.
    :innocent:


  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
  • Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,194
    edited October 23
    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    Kamala's speech. And yes, it's the same feelz as Cameron's speech in 2016.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBb3dWodDI

    She's resigning?

    I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.

    FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
    That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
    @Cookie @Mexicanpete

    No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
    A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.

    Remember Farage conceding?
    I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist? :(
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,243
    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    It was truly Hobson's choice. The Tories were tired and clapped out by the end, and I say that as someone who voted for them.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,819

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Playing German Opera is still allowed to this day you know.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,674

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.

    IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,194

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,304

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    Quite possibly. Of course, though, that will mean they fall back in TX too, which will reduce their large number of wasted votes there.

    CNN polling had the Dems doing better among White Non-College Educated voters, at the expense of Hispanic. Which would suggest the Dems lose ground in Florida, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Arizona, but hold up well in the rust belt.

    *IF* that is what is happening, then we could see Harris holds onto WI, MI and PA while losing the sunbelt and even falling behind in the PV.

    Trump would be incandescent with rage in that scenario... he'd have won... but not won...

    And I'm sure we'd see some of the usual suspects coming out and saying that his refusal to concede and attempts to delay certification etc., were all just the right thing to do given he'd won the PV.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,304
    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
  • Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It's possible we could end up in a situation similar to Biden's, with concrete economic improvements partly obscured for many. by media partisanship.

    In our case, it would be newspapers ,rather than TV, but the principle being the same.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,307

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,304
    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505

    Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    Isn’t Goodwin’s latest jive that white Britons will soon be a minority?
    I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
    I'll need more clues than that.😂
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,819
    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,243

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
  • Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    The Osborne/balls podcast had been banging on about how pay rises weren’t budgeted for months before the GE.
  • Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    Isn’t Goodwin’s latest jive that white Britons will soon be a minority?
    I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
    Matthew Goodwin is clearly in need of some excitement in his life. He looks utterly miserable all the time.

    He's decided that the w word means anything he doesn't personally agree with.

    He also insists he is cancelled despite everyone knowing what he thinks and having a show on GB News.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    I find Eric Kauffman more insightful than Goodwin on culture and identity these days, tbh.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,711

    Geoff Capes has died.

    RIP, still holds the British shot put record set in 1980.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,304
    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Trump has the balls to have put solutions on the line.

    So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.

    It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.

    I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.

    * What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,209

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
    That's certainly an option as government in practice has a lot of agency in imposing below market rates. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good option and by the way these pay rises were in line with national averages, except for junior doctors where the pay body recommendation was higher.

    The interesting thing to me is that Sunak didn't take the option to impose smaller pay settlements. He was quite happy to let the strikes run and not make any pay settlements at all.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,307

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
    That's to assume that the government held more of the cards than it did.

    In the short term, the strikes were a hefty drag on the government- they look bad, they were costing the state a lot and stopping progress on things like waiting lists.

    In the longer term, the situation was even worse. Lots of people linked to different bits of the public sector have pointed out how near-impossible it is to recruit at current pay scales. (So organisations spend even more on agency staff.) The 2024 pay round was around about the minimum necessary to stop things getting worse.

    After all, one of the first rules of the market is that you can't buck it. Not forever, anyway.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,415

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Commonwealth has probably reached the end of its shelf life.

    Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
  • rcs1000 said:

    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/

    That’s ace.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,209
    Pulpstar said:

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
    The train driver settlement was slightly below average national earnings increases over the three year period
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505
    edited October 23

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,632

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.

    IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
    They need to sell it, because they need a story to explain to people why pain now is worth it, and what improvements later it will bring. Otherwise they don't get the credit for good things, and people don't understand why the bad things had to happen.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,413

    I think it's far, far too early to judge Labour.

    Their first budget hasn't even been announced yet.

    weknow already they are going to give unions and especially public service ones anything they want including our money with no thought of conditions. We have exchanged one set of grifters for an even more incompetent set of grifters.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,415
    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,711
    Janan Ganesh in the FT.

    "Here are two conflicting thoughts as the US election nears. First, Kamala Harris is an imperfect candidate who should never have been crowned without challenge. Second, it doesn’t matter. Even if the Democrats had nominated a living saint, a Periclean orator, the election next month would still be a toss-up, as it was in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. The other two elections in this century — the victories of Barack Obama — weren’t blowouts either. There seems to be nothing a party can do to go above 53 per cent of votes cast, or much below 46.
    No other major democracy in the world is anything like as consistently deadlocked. Nor was the US itself in the last century. Its mutation into a 50-50 country (or really a 30-30-40 one, as four in 10 voters often abstain) has been a civic disaster.
    Why? Because there is no incentive to moderate. If you are guaranteed to be competitive in every national election, even if you nominate a twice-impeached felon, why mend your ways?"

    https://www.ft.com/content/a29d4815-2a77-4acc-9375-c441ed7ca5bb
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618
    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    No. It was the definition of awful. Glorious sunny weather and unable to see friends and family and enjoy it together. A truly horrible, oppressive time, that should never happen again.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,690
    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    Kamala's speech. And yes, it's the same feelz as Cameron's speech in 2016.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBb3dWodDI

    She's resigning?

    I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.

    FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
    That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
    @Cookie @Mexicanpete

    No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
    A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.

    Remember Farage conceding?
    I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist? :(
    Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.

    If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.

    Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,194
    rcs1000 said:

    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/

    My favourite Depeche Mode song is AI generated. Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JzcTJNWr0
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    Sean_F said:

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Commonwealth has probably reached the end of its shelf life.

    Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
    Who are the friendly nations, outside Five Eyes?

    I think we've really taken our eye off the ball the last few years, and we've had some weirdly naive thinking about China.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
    If the Tories did, I didn't feel much of that enrichment.

    Suppose I'm not a pensioner though.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,068
    Andy_JS said:

    Janan Ganesh in the FT.

    "Here are two conflicting thoughts as the US election nears. First, Kamala Harris is an imperfect candidate who should never have been crowned without challenge. Second, it doesn’t matter. Even if the Democrats had nominated a living saint, a Periclean orator, the election next month would still be a toss-up, as it was in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. The other two elections in this century — the victories of Barack Obama — weren’t blowouts either. There seems to be nothing a party can do to go above 53 per cent of votes cast, or much below 46.
    No other major democracy in the world is anything like as consistently deadlocked. Nor was the US itself in the last century. Its mutation into a 50-50 country (or really a 30-30-40 one, as four in 10 voters often abstain) has been a civic disaster.
    Why? Because there is no incentive to moderate. If you are guaranteed to be competitive in every national election, even if you nominate a twice-impeached felon, why mend your ways?"

    https://www.ft.com/content/a29d4815-2a77-4acc-9375-c441ed7ca5bb

    The contrast with the UK, where voters are singing significantly between parties from one election to another despite FPTP, is quite something.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618

    Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    Isn’t Goodwin’s latest jive that white Britons will soon be a minority?
    I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
    The moderators Goodwinning the thread is new on me. But I think @TheScreamingEagles has a point in this case.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,888

    Sean_F said:

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Commonwealth has probably reached the end of its shelf life.

    Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
    Who are the friendly nations, outside Five Eyes?

    I think we've really taken our eye off the ball the last few years, and we've had some weirdly naive thinking about China.
    Although with India conducting assassinations with impunity, maybe we're worrying about the wrong country.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,854
    rcs1000 said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Trump has the balls to have put solutions on the line.

    So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.

    It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.

    I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.

    * What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
    Cheer up! Tomorrow he might say he's in favour (and has always been so!) of 0% tariffs.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,263

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.

    IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
    They need to sell it, because they need a story to explain to people why pain now is worth it, and what improvements later it will bring. Otherwise they don't get the credit for good things, and people don't understand why the bad things had to happen.
    The point is, it's 5 years to the next election. You don't need to sell it, it should have results inside 5 years. All governments should do the unpopular things in year 1 and not bother to explain.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
    As predictable as night follows day.

    Fortress Europe ain't a player in global geopolitics.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
  • Jack Posobiec warning about “deepfakes incoming” means we’re about to see something real.

    https://x.com/TheRickWilson/status/1849168351739699529
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565
    FF43 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Omnium said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.

    Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.

    If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)


    I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
    The budget will not be received well.

    Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.

    Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.

    Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?

    Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
    Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.

    Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
    I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
    It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
    How much would you have raised public sector pay by?

    My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
    Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
    The train driver settlement was slightly below average national earnings increases over the three year period
    I'd have had train drivers crawl over broken glass to kiss my foot in exchange for me mitigating their pay cut.
  • JUST IN: The Justice Department has sent a letter to Elon Musk's super PAC, warning that his daily $1m giveaway to registered voters in swing states might violate federal laws, sources tell CNN. It's illegal to incentivize registration with cash/prizes.
    @evanperez

    @HBRabinowitz


    https://x.com/MarshallCohen/status/1849164733368476038
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,854

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
  • Clearly WW3 is just around the corner based on the gold price..🧐🥴

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/23/gold-stratospheric-rise-disaster-ahead-financial-order/
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,556

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
    No.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,415

    Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
    If the Tories did, I didn't feel much of that enrichment.

    Suppose I'm not a pensioner though.
    You had to be a pensioner who favoured mass immigration, to feel the benefit of the last government.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,209
    Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
    The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.

    And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,963
    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/

    My favourite Depeche Mode song is AI generated. Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JzcTJNWr0
    Sacrilege!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,468
    Andy_JS said:

    Geoff Capes has died.

    RIP, still holds the British shot put record set in 1980.
    Only 75.

    He started young.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618
    ohnotnow said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
    No. He, and everyone else, was banned from seeing their neighbours, beyond 20 yard stares over the garden fence. Do you not remember?

    Lockdown was a regulation inhumane hell. And what made the hell even worse was people saying they liked it.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,711
    "France follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to 'serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Sean_F said:

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Commonwealth has probably reached the end of its shelf life.

    Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
    Who are the friendly nations, outside Five Eyes?

    I think we've really taken our eye off the ball the last few years, and we've had some weirdly naive thinking about China.
    Although with India conducting assassinations with impunity, maybe we're worrying about the wrong country.
    I am deeply worried about Modi's India.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,415

    Sean_F said:

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Commonwealth has probably reached the end of its shelf life.

    Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
    Who are the friendly nations, outside Five Eyes?

    I think we've really taken our eye off the ball the last few years, and we've had some weirdly naive thinking about China.
    Most Europeans. Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Botswana, Nigeria, Oman, Jordan, Sierra Leone
    , Gambia, Tonga, Samoa.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,581
    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/

    My favourite Depeche Mode song is AI generated. Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JzcTJNWr0
    That’s quite amazing. Unlike the images which are nothing like Dave Gahan.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,581

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
    Love thy Neighbour became Grass thy Neighbour.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618
    Andy_JS said:

    "France follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to 'serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html

    Par for the course. France has been overruling Schengen rules as and when they feel like it for years.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,556
    Cookie said:

    Goodwin thinks Kemi Badenoch is woke.

    I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.

    https://x.com/rolandmcs/status/1849135864971944412

    I don't think Kemi is woke. I think she's fairly middle of the road on the woke/antiwoke spectrum.
    Goodwin doesn't say that Kemi is woke in this piece. It's unfortunate that we sometimes fail in basic reading comprehension here. His critique is not that she is signed up to woke, but that she is prepared to be supine in the face of the spread of woke, apart from picking the odd media battle. Given that that has been the position of all Tory leaders (though Truss we didn't see enough of to gauge) from Cameron on, it's an important argument to weigh up.
  • Good evening from the salubrious delights of Spoons in Rochdale (don't ask). Would have stayed in Manchestoh in advance of tomorrow's corporate gig but Citeh are playing in the Champions League and the Hiltons want top dollah. That I had an invite to go to the Citeh vs Prague game as a guest of the corporate gig doesn't matter...

    I see that the RNC and Farage are outraged at "foreign election interference" from the Labour team. Because Farage endlessly going to Trump rallies is obviously completely different.

    Anyway, we need a cock-off. We know Arnold Palmer's was HUGE. And Trump's is small. Any more celeb cocks that will be used as crowdbait before election day...?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,194
    Taz said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There's an AI generated girl band that plays off Barbie, and which everyone worrying about the AI takeover should listen to:

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/

    My favourite Depeche Mode song is AI generated. Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3JzcTJNWr0
    That’s quite amazing. Unlike the images which are nothing like Dave Gahan.
    It can't do ears. Look at it again and once you note the ear problem you can't not see it.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,963

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
    Look at the territory that once "belonged" to England/Britain/UK over the centuries! Even if we're being "ultra-woke" and only including European land, just for a bit of fun!

    Iceland - British occupied 1940-1945
    Faeroes - British occupied 1940-1945
    Norway - personal union 1028-1035 (King Canute)
    Denmark - personal union 1018-1035 (King Canute)

    Southern tip of Sweden - personal union (as part of Denmark) 1018-1035
    Hano island - Swedish island with a British base 1810-1812
    Ireland - part of the UK until 1922
    France - historic actual and dynastic claims until as late as 1801
    Belgium - part of France pre-1801
    Luxembourg - part of France pre-1801
    Geneva - part of France pre-1801
    Andorra - personal union with France from before 1801
    Spain - personal union 1556-1558: Queen Mary I and King Phillip II; Menorca was British (sometimes!) 1713-1802
    Netherlands - part of Spain 1556-1558, personal union 1688-1702 (William III and Mary II), also southern bits part of France pre-1801
    Sardinia - part of Spain 1556-1558
    Sicily - part of Spain 1556-1558
    Southern mainland Italy (Kingdom of Naples) - part of Spain 1556-1558
    Milan duchy (Lombardy-ish) - part of Spain 1556-1558
    Trieste - British occupied 1947-1954, along with a tiny sliver of modern Slovenia
    Lissa (Vis) - Croatian island with British base 1809-1814 (approx. dates)
    Ionian islands - seven Greek islands British 1815-1864
    Cyprus - British until 1960 (though bases are still British), de jure includes Turkish occupied north
    Crete - British occupation 1898-1908 (approx.)
    Malta - British until 1964
    Istanbul - European part occupied 1918-1923
    Schleswig-Holstein - British occupied 1945-1949; Heligoland was British 1807-1890, 1945-1952
    Lower Saxony - personal union 1714-1837 (Hanoverians), including Bremen 1715-1720; also British 1945-1949
    Hamburg - British 1945-1949
    North Rhine-Westphalia - British 1945-1949, western bits French pre-1801
    Rhineland-Palatinate - western parts French pre-1801
    Saarland - part of France pre-1801
    West Berlin (part) - British occupied 1945-1990
    East Tyrol (Lienz district) - British occupied 1945-1955
    Carinthia - British 1945-1955
    Styria - British 1945-1955
    Vienna (part) - British occupied 1945-1955

    Total area 2.2 million sq. km; modern population c.300 million.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,690
    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    Buyers remorse in this case needs a different name. It indicates that of the choices available you made the wrong one. The choices (say on house buying) would be: stay where you are, buy another.

    In July we were choosing a government. Sticking where you were (keeping that Tory government) was and remains an abhorrent prospect in every way. No government isn't an option. Labour were the only other government available.

    I am a bit distressed they are so bad at common sense, but as at this moment no better government is available. And no better electorate available either. So whatever I am suffering isn't buyers remorse. If there was an election tomorrow there would still only be one possible government, and that is Labour.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,304

    Clearly WW3 is just around the corner based on the gold price..🧐🥴

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/23/gold-stratospheric-rise-disaster-ahead-financial-order/

    Niall Ferguson's first great work was on whether the financial markets had any inkling that the First World War was coming.

    Were they the canary in the coalmine?

    And the answer is no.

    The imparted no information that would have led you to the conclusion that a great European conflagration was coming. So excuse me if I take "the gold price as a predictor of WW3" with a giant pinch of salt.

    (To add to which, gold was rubbish when Yugoslavia collapsed. If you wanted to survive the collapse of government, of money and civilization, what you wanted was a stock of wine and cigarettes. Almost anything could be traded for wine and cigarettes.)
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Clearly WW3 is just around the corner based on the gold price..🧐🥴

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/23/gold-stratospheric-rise-disaster-ahead-financial-order/

    The US tends to retreat behind its walls when things like this happen and go "la la la, I'm not listening".

    International coalition building in defence of British values is supposed to be what we're good at.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,505
    algarkirk said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    Kamala's speech. And yes, it's the same feelz as Cameron's speech in 2016.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBb3dWodDI

    She's resigning?

    I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.

    FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
    That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
    @Cookie @Mexicanpete

    No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
    A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.

    Remember Farage conceding?
    I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist? :(
    Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.

    If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.

    Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
    You may well be right but with such certainty please show your workings.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,854

    ohnotnow said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
    No. He, and everyone else, was banned from seeing their neighbours, beyond 20 yard stares over the garden fence. Do you not remember?

    Lockdown was a regulation inhumane hell. And what made the hell even worse was people saying they liked it.
    I don't have a garden fence - so I wouldn't know. I was in an old tenement and people would check up on each other, people who were ill would get food/household parcels dropped off at their doors paid for by their neighbours chipping in, local cheery mailing group set up to keep peoples spirits up and in contact, someone who had a 'get out of jail free' pass would take orders for little treats from the shops.

    Did I enjoy lockdown? No. It was terrible. But not everyone's neighbours were some kind of Home Office-reporting covid-nazi's.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,888
    Andy_JS said:

    "France follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to 'serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html

    Is Elon Musk destablising things again?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,068
    edited October 23
    The second most geopolitically important, or possibly most important, general election of the coming fortnight takes place this weekend.

    Useful analysis, though I’d say probably a touch too optimistic, on the potential outcome.

    https://x.com/terjehelland/status/1849169458276737186?s=46

    The future of the West-Russia divide could hinge on two very different sets of voters in two very different places called Georgia (though their climates are not dissimilar).

    Georgia shows why it’s an exaggeration to claim the EU is not a geopolitical player. As does Ukraine - recall what triggered the war in 2014.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,565

    Andy_JS said:

    "France follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to 'serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html

    Is Elon Musk destablising things again?
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump the shark quite so badly as @SouthamObserver did on Musk on the last thread.

    I mean, wow.
  • FF43 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
    The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.

    And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
    If you have evidence of conservative MPs awarding dodgy PPE deals you really should contact the Met police.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,307

    Andy_JS said:

    FF43 said:

    Cookie said:

    FF43 said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh.

    Unions given twice as long to strike as Labour boosts workers’ rights

    Employment Rights Bill would relax restrictions on unions and extends the strike window to 12 months


    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/unions-given-twice-as-long-to-strike-as-labour-boosts-workers-rights-9ncvccdk3

    I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
    I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.

    It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
    The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.

    In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
    I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
    I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
    First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
    Some people didn't have gardens.
    I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.

    Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
    Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
    Bits of it (the fear, the regulation, the shifting sands) sucked, and it would have been good to avoid the accelerator/brake stuff that seemed distinctively British. And the bill will take decades to pay off.

    But bits of it were strange but lovely. For a while we did have time to consider those around us. And some of the technical developments- in healthcare and in remote working- will stick in a positive way.

    But bottom line- if another novel virus comes along, we won't have any choice, because lockdown vs. washover is no choice at all. Especially now we know that mRNA can get vaccines into arms in months, not years.

    (Someone has to write that dystopian alt-history... But not yet.)
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,581
    Labour Party staff are now cancelling their trips to help out team Kamala following Trumps complaint.

    Clearly a nothing story !!

    https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/1849144596946682208?s=61
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,618

    algarkirk said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    Kamala's speech. And yes, it's the same feelz as Cameron's speech in 2016.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBb3dWodDI

    She's resigning?

    I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.

    FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
    That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
    @Cookie @Mexicanpete

    No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
    A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.

    Remember Farage conceding?
    I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist? :(
    Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.

    If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.

    Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
    You may well be right but with such certainty please show your workings.
    You are a changed man, perhaps humbled by your Sunak ‘1992’ certainty.

    But yes, I agree. Any PBer who claims an outcome is certain must show his workings.
  • Andy_JS said:

    "France follows Germany and reinstates border controls due to 'serious threats posed by terrorists and migratory flows'"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html

    Is Elon Musk destablising things again?
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump the shark quite so badly as @SouthamObserver did on Musk on the last thread.

    I mean, wow.
    I've only dipped in and out this last month or so. What did I miss?

    For context, I have "shit talked" Musk on a couple of videos (with throwaway comments that trigger certain viewers from Murica) and lost a few subscribers. Though doing so clearly gains more than it loses.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,335

    Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.

    Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q

    The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons
    to?
    Like Austro-Hungary?
  • FF43 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Omnium said:

    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.

    image

    There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.

    And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.

    The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?

    If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.

    But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.

    On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.

    It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.

    It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.

    If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.

    I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
    I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.

    (I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
    Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.

    But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
    And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?

    Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
    We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
    That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.

    That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
    Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.

    In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.

    Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
    Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.

    I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
    The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.

    And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
    If you have evidence of conservative MPs awarding dodgy PPE deals you really should contact the Met police.
    Oh give over. Not only have various people had their collars felt, the Public Accounts Committee found nearly 200 dodgy deals. Its one of the reasons the Tories got absolutely eviscerated at the election.
This discussion has been closed.