Finishing last in Gorton & Denton – politicalbetting.com
Finishing last in Gorton & Denton – politicalbetting.com
My logic is simple, this doesn’t feel like fertile territory for a pure Rejoin party, as for the Lib Dems I am fully expecting Lib Dem voters to vote tactically en masse for the Greens to stop Reform winning, I think these bets feel value but others may disagree.
1
Comments
The fans are removed from airline turbofans when they're repurposed.
Turbines purpose designed for power generation are larger, more robust and need less maintenance (and are optimised for running at a single constant speed).
I guess absolute efficiency doesn't matter too much if you can get the plant up and running two to three years earlier ? The relative costs are less important than the leadtimes.
Another Brexit dividend.
Fuck knows why anyone believes Brexit's chief propagandist can sort out the mess he created.
(Also FPT, as somewhat on topic.)
9,710 UK medical graduate applications to specialty training programmes.
6,913 International medical graduate applications to speciality training programmes.
In 2025:
12,316 UK medical graduate applications to specialty training programmes.
20,807 International medical graduate applications to speciality training programmes.
No wonder UK grads now finish university, do two years on the job training as foundation doctors and then end up unemployed.
➡️ REF UK 28% (-2)
🌹 LAB 22% (-1)
🌳 CON 21% (nc)
🌍 GREEN 12% (+2)
🔶 LIB DEM 11% (-1)
🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,108 | 13/2 - 17/2| Change w 10/02
I sat through a very interesting session on power in the data centre world last week. Ranging across everything from SMRs to grid connections to batteries. The scale of power construction alongside DCs in the US, largely renewable especially at the hyperscalers, is quite something.
Also learned a new word: greenhushing. Businesses that continue to do things to improve energy efficiency and use of renewables, but keep it quiet for fear of provoking the US regime.
Why should skilled workers from overseas not apply for these roles ?
I’m not sure striking all the time helps their cause.
Would have thought the Communist League will struggle to get double figures considering all the other left options available.
No brainer if you are left of centre to vote Green to avoid a Reform MP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbUo9wdifkg
In today's ten minute monologue, Jacob Rees-Mogg addresses the question of our times.
@Foxy?
I did hear that there was pushback at the “nativist” idea of absolute priority for U.K. grads. Seemed a bit colic to call it nativist, when so many students are literally foreigners, but hey ho.
Pitch for my idea on NHS doctor training - increasing (year by year) NHS “scholarships”. Uni, training etc is free at point of access. Plus a yearly stipend. Training place guaranteed in the NHS.
All is free if they then do 7 years as an NHS doctor. No repayments - paid off in chunks (in effect) by the NHS.
If they quit early, becomes a loan for the remainder.
Perhaps more significantly:
- Core inflation down to 3.1%, the lowest since September 2021
- CPI is expected to continue to decrease over the first half of this year to around the 2% target
I expect we'll see the BoE cut rates at least a couple more times this year.
But a couple of people I know in the constituency have told me they don't think Reform has much of a chance there anyway, FWIW.
Who's voting SDP or Libertarian? Probably not even their close relatives.
A microcosm UK's economic and immigration policy. Boomernomics.
I'm on the right, the idea of tax cuts, promoting growth etc is all good. But you've got to analyse the impact of policies and changing rates of tax/revenue. You can't just make changes and cross your fingers.
Maybe this is the saving grace of the OBR. For all its failings, it did for Truss in short order.
That and a staffing policy mentality out of the 1950s. Which, strangely, results in 1950s style industrial relations.
TEchnically they still have to pay back the loan if they do, but as the SLC have never sued for repayment in a foreign court it effectively becomes voluntary.
To pick up on an earlier set of posts, no party has clean hands on student funding. The Conservatives abolished grants and mooted tuition fees. Labour brought in fees, and then top up fees (having lied in 2001 by saying they wouldn't) and set up the Browne Review (and why on earth they picked Lord Browne, a man who if in front of a proper judge instead of David Eady would have been serving four years for perjury, I do not know). The Conservatives, in an act of insanity that is almost as incomprehensible, said they would implement the findings of the report without knowing what they were, and the Liberal Democrats, having said they would block it, u-turned for no obvious reason while in the Coalition despite being offered a get-out and voted for it.
The result, unfortunately, is a massive cross-party mess. Oh, and because Browne was a moron as well as a crook, the university sector's finances are still a disaster. For some years they got away with it by taking international students who paid much higher fees. Then, in a stroke of sheer genius not given to all humans, the Conservatives clamped down hard on that and left them all facing bankruptcy (and damaged the private school sector as well, even before VAT came in).
The only conclusion we can draw from this is that the further politicians, civil servants and supposed business executives keep from the education system, the better.
Meanwhile the need for doctors has increased so we employ many more on "Trust Grade" local contracts and Speciality Doctor posts to bridge the gap. UK graduates never apply for these as they are seen as a career dead end.
This means that these go to overseas graduates (mostly Nigerian, Egyptian and Indian Sub-continent). These jobs are eligible for a Skilled Worker visa and permenant residence. Once Permanent Residence is established they too are eligible to apply for Specialist Training. They are often better qualified than UK grads.
Whilst emmigrating to Australia is an obvious thing to do, it is possible to get Specialist Registration via the CESR route by working Trust and Speciality Jobs, so is a viable option for UK graduates unable to get onto formal Speciality Training. Of course expanding the number of ST places is more obvious as a solution, but since 2007 the government has been reluctant to do this.
2017 GE - Islington North
Monster Raving Loony 106 - Communist League 7
Turnout 54,928
MRL will be 100-250. Zero chance the LDs fail to reach three figures. Communist League may not reach double figures.
Under my proposal, if you get signed up, you are essentially paid by the NHS to go to uni, guaranteed a training place and a job after that. Not just no costs - given a stipend per year while in education.
If you then compete 7 years in the NHS - all completely free.
That kind of thing builds loyalty.
The markets operate, if not on Mr Micawber's dictum, at least the principle you lend money when you can see it will be going into projects that will generate a substantial return.
Truss' plans reminded me of nothing so much as the post-Ruhr borrowing of the German economy under Stresemann - $11 billion borrowed commercially on five-year terms and spent on municipal grandeur (parks, stadiums, town halls) - and then of course, not paid back, leading to a major credit crunch and indirectly the Wall Street Crash.
https://www.bmj.com/content/390/bmj.r1413
Of course there would be no need to have a complex bursary system if British Junior doctors got a significant payrise to cover the cost of their student loan repayments.
Pay is just one of many grievances of our junior doctors, training places being the big one.
'Vote for us! We can be relied on to do the right thing after exploring absolutely every other course of action.'
One of the nagging doubts I have about Britain's collective debt pickle is that I can't see where the money has gone.
And we come back to my argument that the Government should explicitly report 3 things separately
1) Day to day spending
2) maintaince of infrastructure
3) new infrastructure investment
So you can't bin items 2 and 3 in an attempt to lower tax bills without it being 100% obvious.
It also means we can ask why 1 is increasing so rapidly in a way that answers can't be avoided.
Advance UK though if it gets a reasonable showing could take votes from Reform. The Communist League, Libertarian Party, SDP and Rejoin the EU will be hoping to avoid the humiliation of being beaten by the Monster Raving Loonies, as will the Tories who were only 5th in the seat in 2024
Sony is considering delaying the release of the PlayStation 6 until 2028 or 2029, according to reports by Bloomberg, as the Japanese manufacturer struggles to get the memory chips needed for the console.
The scarcity of Dram, or dynamic random-access memory, has been stoked by competing demand from AI data centres.
The PlayStation 6, the successor to the PS5 that launched in 2020, had been planned for release towards the end of next year. Sony has typically launched a new console generation every six or seven years since the original PlayStation debuted in 1994.
https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/sony-playstation-6-launch-delayed-chips-shortage-rztj9r7mc
Prices rose by 0.4 and 0.2% last February and March, and then a massive 1.2% in April, so I would expect to see the annualised rate broadly stable over the next couple of months followed by a big drop driven by lower energy prices in April
I looked at the last 20 by-elections; see above.
The Liberal Democrats have never come last. Even when doing very badly and losing their deposit, they've still been above the minor parties. Their lowest position was 2nd from bottom in Kingswood, where there were only 6 candidates. When there have been 10+ candidates, their lowest position was 7th from bottom. I don't think 100/1 is value.
The Monster Raving Loony Party has stood in 14 of these elections and were bottom thrice and second from bottom four times. I think they might be value at 8/1.
Rejoin EU has stood in 6 of these by-elections and were 4th from bottom 4 times, 6th from bottom once and 8th from bottom once. I don't think they're value.
I also looked at the SDP. Out of 4 by-elections, they came bottom once. Maybe 4/1 is tempting?
Independents and "no description" often come bottom, but we have none standing here. I don't think it's a surprise that the Communist League and Libertarian Party are favourites.
DYOR.
These are choices we have made and they are nearly all bad ones. None of them are a consequence of Brexit, they are a consequence of mind blowing ineptitude and incompetence. If you don't want higher unemployment, don't vote Labour. Its that simple.
Communist League got 27 votes when it was Manchester Gorton in the GE from a 46k turnout - and that was a good result for them!
I did go there myself, and NZ, but came back in 1991, but the opportunities that I had to get into Specialist Training (albeit on sleep depriving hours) no longer exist. There's no way that I would have got in nowadays.
So it is Labour socialism causing it not Brexit, whereas Italy has a rightwing government, Germany has a centre right led government, France basically has a centre right liberal government and only Spain is anywhere near as leftwing as our hapless government is at the moment
Zero chance they are last.
We've seen squeezes to take major parties under 1%, but how many votes is last place in an 11 horse race? 50? Even for a longshot, it'd need at least a Liberal party candidate adjacent on the ballot paper to stand a chance.
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/imgs-increasingly-relinquishing-medical-licences-finds-gmc
Tories equally made mistakes
This issue is a substantial trend.
It's a shame that once again tribal tories are economic with the truth
We missed one (I think) the other day.
We also have a National Rebirth Party:
https://nationalrebirthparty.org.uk/
Here's the manifesto.
https://nationalrebirthparty.org.uk/Agenda/
TLDR: Neo-Nazi groupuscule.
But Brexit has removed a key source of funding, which the area desperately needs. County Durham received £154m of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, about £22m a year. Since the UK left the European Union, it receives about half that amount, £12m annually, under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Well done pit yakkers, you got the Brexit you deserved.
The claim actually seems to relate "pensioners who live in households with a total household wealth of more than £1 million".
https://fullfact.org/online/pensioner-millionaire-households/
Taking out weather and climate impact on food and consumables and the first year of Trump this is a clear sign of genuine progress.
I'm in the former camp, you are in the latter. Most couples have shared finances.
And that data is from 2018-2020, since then there has been significant asset inflation so may be true on an individual basis too.
Regardless a large chunk of "where the money has gone" is into the hands of the richest 20-30% of pensioners.
The abolition of the different rates for young workers is being "delayed". Hopefully indefinitely or at least until we have a serious labour shortage.
If 2 people share a household wealth of £1m, then I think it is clear that they are demi-millionaires.
Given the data, I don't see any need to reinvent the definitions for the sake of the argument; imo that will undermine it. Especially as the wealth numbers include all pension wealth, which is not equally accessible to all members of the household.
He's sailing far too close to ethnic cleansing of the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6g57j3meo
I do agree with you that the money has gone to the richest pensioners however.
"One in five or one quarter of pensioners are millionaires."
I think that qualifies as debunked.
(I'm stopping there; we will not agree on this.)