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The new normal? Reform ahead of the Tories – politicalbetting.com
The new normal? Reform ahead of the Tories – politicalbetting.com
Somebody made the observation to me last night that the 75% of the polls conducted wholly in 2025 have Reform ahead of the Tories, admittedly this from admittedly small sample size. My friend observed to me that this year opinion polls will shape the narrative a lot with the likely postponement of so many local elections this year.
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It's a time of considerable turmoil and it seems to me that, after such a long time in government, the Conservatives should be focussing on what they truly believe. Sorting themselves out, as @Alanbrooke says.
Some internal disagreements seen in Reform in the last couple of weeks too, although if you’re voting for NOTA anyway you probably don’t care.
On the betting topic, most likely is Badenoch, then Starmer, then Farage (who basically owns the Reform party). All very unlikely before the next election, so really not worth tying up the money for more than four years. The risk to Badenoch is in the shorter term though, if we get to 2028 with all three still in place then Starmer should be the favourite to go first.
F1: just put up the latest Undercutters podcast which is about the F1 betting market as it currently stands, so it might be of particular interest. No tips in there but an assessment of various things, and an amusing note on longest odds for the drivers' title. And a spot of news at the end.
Podbean: https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/f1-2025-betting-odds/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2PEmEA8CVnmRFGDjMZqS3N
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/bcfe213b-55fb-408a-a823-dc6693ee9f78/episodes/9ac187d3-b23b-48cc-ab51-87fa6c11c55e/undercutters---f1-podcast-f1-2025-betting-odds
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-2025-betting-odds/id1786574257?i=1000684049358
Transcript: https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/01/f1-2025-betting-odds-undercutters-ep5.html
But if they try to tack to the centre - which is where the votes are, and their only plausible path back to power - that leaves their right flank unguarded, not helped by the lunatic fringe represented by Braverman squealing loudly at any policies that smack of sanity rather than ideological purity. In previous times Cameron grasped that (along with huskies and hoodies) although his ultimate attempt to face down the right led to unfortunate consequences in 2016.
It's a knotty conundrum.
There are, however, three possible advantages:
1) It's almost inconceivable there will be an election in the next four years, which buys them time;
2) ReFuk being a one-man ego trip with several men with large egos in it might still disintegrate in civil war as UKIP did;
3) Badenoch clearly isn't any good at detailed policy, or strategy, but that might actually help. If she's very flexible on every issue just keeping the party with a high profile and giving the impression she can be anything to anyone may offer a route to a better electoral performance, if not to power.
After six days of trying to contain the fires by the Russians, it got bombed again last night and the fires are once again raging.
The base is home to the long-range bomber fleet that has been devastating Ukraine, and the storage tanks are for the very rare and expensive fuel that these planes require. The base is now pretty much useless to the Russians.
https://x.com/stratcomcentre/status/1879129497762693379
For all intents and purposes, Russia now appears to have run out of air defences protecting military and key industrial sites. Various refineries, fuel storage, and weapons factories have been taken out in recent days, including a chemical factory that makes bombs and an electonics factory that repairs aircraft systems, both key to the war effort.
But the brutal geopolitical reality is that Ukraine can't survive without help from the US.
We can argue all day about whether Biden has done enough (he probably hasn't) but unless Trump at least maintains the current level of support outwith Russia collapsing in the next five days Ukraine is still stuffed.
He tried to appease them and got fukked.
However last July Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson paused the law, days before it was due to come into force, over fears it could protect people using hate speech on campuses and expose universities to expensive legal action.
At the time, a government source told the BBC the legislation would have opened the way for Holocaust deniers to be allowed on campus, and was an "antisemite charter".
Phillipson told Parliament in July that the delay would allow time to consider whether the law would be repealed.
Having spent the last six months considering what to do, the act is now being reactivated.
A risk was identified, some time was taken to fix the it. Doesn't fit on a tabloid front page, but kind of how things should work.
This is allegedly a major reason why Russian aircrews had so fer flying hours pre-war - it was not the cost of the fuel, but the cost of replacing worn-out planes. AIUI most of the flying their planes are currently doing is not exactly strenuous - take off, fly, launch missiles, fly back and land, with no combat or harsh manoeuvres. But they are using up airframe life regardless, and often on airframes that are already several decades old.
You'd get very different answers from (say) TSE, HYUFD, Casino and PtP.
The last decade has fragmented their coalition - and some of those fragments may permanently be lost to them.
https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1878914497089597867?s=46
I can’t decide whether Trump and his people are just scared of Russia - it’s the only country they never criticise or troll - or actively supportive. I’m starting to incline towards the latter.
It's just possible we might realise that it will be cheaper preventing Ukraine's defeat that it would be dealing with its consequences.
(Which is my view, FWIW.)
The glue was mostly not liking socialism. For a long time, that was enough, and 2019 saw a brief renaissance of that. But for some reason, that doesn't work now. There are similar challenges on the left.
Maybe it's a universal move to prioritise me over us, and to want things my way or not at all. Maybe it's internet radicalisation of everyone- lefties, righties and centrists. Who knows? But it's a problem.
Massive increase in bureaucracy
Massive hit to the public finances
Severely constrained personal freedoms
Which, either way, suggests a degree of incompetence incompatible with continued employment in post.
Will @Cyclefree apply ?
Everything else - shadow cabinet appointments, sorting out CCHQ (she hasn't), policy (laughs bitterly), PMQs and handling the media (including social media) - has all been preeeetty bad.
There was a story in the press at the weekend about 75% of the defeated Tories wanting to get their seats back, and allegedly Shapps is helping them organise. It’s hard to say what voters will want, come the next GE, but I very much doubt they will be clamouring for the return of the useless individuals they have just voted out.
Danny Fink's column in The Times this morning is interesting about the rise of Trump/Musk and BoZo/Cummings as a cry for help by the uneducated against their perceived failure of the traditional political class to improve their lot
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/complacent-centrists-blame-elon-musk-donald-trump-nm8p53z6k
What we need is growth - so promote good old-fashioned capitalism again. Invest in infrastructure which will facilitate growth and thus pay for itself. Low taxes on business targeted at investment in skills and high-tech and jobs - as in you can have low Corporation Tax if you spend the saving on stuff we need.
People are crying out for a return of the good times. Farage says he knows what is wrong and who is to blame, but offers only crayon solution. The USP for the Tories should be a return to that mid-80s buzz. And yes, that would work in the left-behind towns who had buckets of cash thrown at them through things like Development Corporations.
That coupled with her easy charm, warmth means that the whole electorate are giving the Conservative a fresh look.
Her deep intellectual roots and the ability to harness the great minds on the Tory front bench has created the practical Conservative vision which means that the Conservative Party renewal is not only underway, but gathering momentum.
It’s exciting.
What's not to like about that, if you are an immoral narcissist who does not care for their country?
It is hardly something to praise them for.
If indeed this was a genuine reason rather than an excuse then it doesn't really reflect well on our legislators.
Perhaps Trump suspects that drill, drill, drill is now a strategic necessity viz Greenland.
https://nitter.poast.org/kamilkazani
Yoon is refusing to say anything to the police who have arrested him.
Yoon claims 'martial law is not crime' in handwritten letter following detention
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=390470
Trump has nominated some China hawks to his administration, but has made positive remarks about Xi in recent days.
She needs to get out there, tell stories, and set the agenda more. Go hard on the economy, a core Tory strength that neither Reform or Labour have.
It shouldn't be difficult with this lot in power.
I always found the Greens’ stubbornly high support in the absence of any media coverage or visible activity at all quite remarkable, but I sense Reform is benefiting from the same phenomenon.
These are all reasons I expect the Tories to do better vis a vis Reform in real elections for the foreseeable future. They’ve been outperforming polling in local by-elections.
*cough*TRUSS*cough*
I truly believe Reform are in a good position to start leading the polls. The fundamentals favour them. Their own greatest threat comes from themselves and whether Farage and co have the discipline and staying power to keep up momentum for another four years.
The big test is 2026. If Reform beat the Tories in Wales and Scotland and finish ahead of the Tories in vote share in the locals I think that could open the floodgates to a wider collapse in the Tory position, and Reform dominance of the opposition narrative all the way to 2028/9. At that point, the Tories are likely to be relegated to third or fourth party status.
People want immigration brought under control. End of.
Time they may not have.
The only way the Tories avoid this is by becoming relevant again. They will struggle if they continue along the vacuous path Badenoch has set off along. Though the only alternative the moron MPs offered was Jenrick who would have been worse.
Trump has picked some right freaks. Didn't stop him winning.
Classic centrist establishment thinking = the platform that made the Conservatives electorally successful.
I find it bizarre that any conservative could disparage what made the party successful. An almost Corbynite point of view.
I think it's best if the Tories stick to their "Reeves is shit" lane. That way they do less damage.
You’re absolutely right that they will need to make themselves over to look like a government in waiting. Most of that GIW will be made up of people who are not MPs, so they can (and likely will) get credible people attaching themselves to the project.
Remember this - the Whitehall machine is broken. Whatever ideas Labour had have been crushed by the Treasury. Though the “Rachael from Accounts” jibe is outrageously misogynistic, she has been captured and broken by economic orthodoxy. Reform offering up people who basically say “this is stupidity, here’s what we should do” is not the negative you may think.
It could be argued that the Single Market was Margaret Thatcher's greatest success in office, which makes Brexit "unpicking Thatcher's greatest success in office"
I don't know how anyone who claims to be a Conservative supported that
The pitch will be that we train our own people. May take time, will be some disruption, but think about the brilliant place we would get to in a few years.
We’re not the US. But faith in the media is running very low indeed. And when people want a “change” - a real change, as they see it, not what Starmer is selling - it is hard to dissuade them.
Because they don't like someone or their politics they automatically assume no one should.
Be better to understand the appeal of the likes of Lee Anderson than just scoff but PB is what it is.
Voters think the Government is not working for them
They will vote for people promising to smash it
Unfortunately that's mob mentality. The same people who vote for trashing the system are the ones who try and burn down a hotel housing migrants
Of course in the aftermath they also want the fire brigade, ambulances and hospitals...
Though I'd absolutely love it if a motley crew of Unionist parties conspired to put him in place.
https://x.com/HolyroodSources/status/1879127360387313799
Once you get to 2016, you have the political turmoil that dispatched Cameron and Osborne. Then May lingered in an ever weakened state because Parliament was deadlocked.
A deadlock broken by Boris winning in December 2019. But then you get to the start of 2020, and Covid - when the decision was taken by the government to max out the credit card protecting the private sector from destruction (and the massive overtime bill for the NHS).
Then funding lecky bills to mitigate the Cost of Living Crisis.
About the only time in those 14 years there was scope for a proper Conservative agenda was what Sunak and Hunt were trying to implement from 2022 onwards. Albeit, hideously boxed in by what had gone before.
No one forced May to call a GE in 2017 and Boris brought himself down by being Boris. Truss had the opportunity to reset again, but blew it.
The public all agree that none of the above have the proven competence to deliver any or all of this very well.
The Tories have two issues: Are they prepared to rethink the post WWII deal (I doubt it). Can they present as serious and competent? (They have not yet started).
The retreat from technology to human wave tactics and trench warfare.
History repeating - that’s what happened to the German army in Russia from 1943 onwards.
Kemi will therefore survive until the general election. She won both the Tory MPs and Tory members vote.
On immigration let us also not forget Boris ended EU free movement and Rishi cut net non EU immigration too by tightening visa requirements and the ability to bring dependents over
(Think you linked the wrong tweet - Holyrood is this one: https://x.com/HolyroodSources/status/1879438373871575490?t=nADY_RveF9GKuqu6ck0ThA&s=19)
It’s exactly that kind of thinking that has prevented regeneration. Which has provided the perfect springboard for Reform.
There are two choice here.
1) a Social Liberal Democratic *reform* of the system.
2 Reform - or worse.
How long would the King of All He Surveys have lasted if he had not delivered the Referendum?
Having a Referendum was voted for by the population in the 2015 General Election.
Leaving the EU was voted for by the population in 2016.
So a load of old cobblers backatcher....
Failing that, back to the Conservatives.
Note with care Farage distancing himself from trouble makers. Though he needs to go further.