Prices and politics – politicalbetting.com
Prices and politics – politicalbetting.com
The war in Iran is going to reshape politics in Britain, and not in a good way. Operation Epstein Fury is so disruptive of oil and gas prices that it is quickly become the singular political issue in countries around the world.
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https://x.com/anitathetweeter/status/2037130680895705585?s=20
How would you describe Trump, the GOP, and his billionaire funders, enablers and sycophants then?
And the fact that it's a War being driven by fundamentalists of the three Abrahamic religions.
Are they not an elite?
As an alternative, he could declare the UK a Republic which would have the same effect and send President Blair over instead.
It’s now just too much . The King and Queen should cancel their trip . Enough is enough .
Russian revolution started with protests over price of bread iirc.
Peronism, for example. Which Trumpism resembles to quite a degree.
FPT My back of the envelope calculation for the local elections is that Reform will gain around 150 seats in London, and around 1,200 outside it. Labour's vote share is down by half on 2022, so they'll likely be losing more than half the 2,400 seats they are defending.
So I fully expect Trump to TACO out any day now.
Even if every ward won by Labour and the Tories in this prediction were in London AND every net gain by the Greens and LDs were in London, Reform would still win most wards in London and every single net gain outside would be Reform and neither Labour nor the Tories would win a single ward.
So for every ward won outside London by Lab or Con and every net gain by Green or LDm Reform have to win by even more in London to counter it .
Tl:dr its almost impossible to make his prediction remotely plausible. He might as well have got crayola crayons out and drawn a picture of a unicorn
What have we done to deserve this malign narcissist President and his cohort of equally bad colleagues
I fear he will have destroyed alliances and economies in the west beyond Putin's wildest dreams, and once broken may never be repaired
This crisis will test every government and not many will avoid the electorate's anger, fairly or unfairly
Prices will go up, energy cost increases have a knock on effect on food and other basic commodities. Hitting the start of March with big increases in fuel and fertiliser is bad news for keeping costs down.
However, its not as big a shock as Ukraine, and could be a slow burner over the summer.
I expect Starmer to try and dig in after the May results, but if the £ in your pocket/online bank account isn't going as far there will be a lot of concerned Labour MPs. A volatile electorate gives them a lot to think about over the summer.
On topic: not sure this will drive voters back to the tories. Labour, maybe.
I just cannot see it. They’ll brief anonymously and angrily and he’ll reshuffle the cabinet.
It will be worse
Ah well, summers not far away.
Swimming against the tide!
Wasn’t that fun, though?
This is fucking up, for a serious amount of time, a major (and not easily replaceable) percentage of global supply of oil and gas.
Two thoughts: The success of, for example, McDonald's in other nations and, for example, KFC in Japan(!) suggests that the two may be in a minority.
Second, anyone who has read Calvin Trillin will know that many of our favorite food choices are tied to pleasant experiences when we were growing up. (There's a good discussion of that in the first chapter of American Fried. )
And that there is much good food to be found in the US if you stop looking for imitation French cuisine:
https://www.amazon.com/Tummy-Trilogy-American-Fried-Helpings/dp/0374524173/ref=sr_1_2?crid=8MZ1M3WRLDB4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GU7hSjG2nir-AGbavebZHpBF-S5GVf3MKm1ZX_9iewYM-UxkhGHelGU5lTOyr0WZV-oyYuBxK8xaBg8YOZsSWyPu9r4wTUoSG15TluPC3rTqx293YxtIc7XSu0BAPb-rc4DA4XsgPz-ugI1QWU-u9rLxF2T8t56DsUast2rxIlF42m7ohErgqKAjvrpzjqEUgYmJYIdGqiXGLbBhSD8CF9CxqnQfETxe-2K4wqP78Uk.e_HBIa6xwE8xKejuFcpIdD5N211h-sweg97gt21ZzG0&dib_tag=se&keywords=American+Fried&qid=1774540460&s=books&sprefix=american+fried,stripbooks,182&sr=1-2 I haven't read the third, but can tell you that the first two are funny -- and informative.
For example, I appreciate his suggestion on how to best cook corn on the cob: First, bring the water to a boil, and then send the fastest boy to the field to harvest the ears
Arrived in Saudi Arabia. Important meetings are scheduled. We appreciate the support and support those who are ready to work with us to ensure security.
Some comodities during the 2022 war had a major shock (fertiliser) then recovered, other things (raw building materials) took a massive hike and haven't dropped back to what they were.
It'll be fun when the public realise prices won't be coming back down soon.
The GOP is bankrolled by them.
And it's Trump incompetence rather than intention which has kiboshed the economy.
His intention was to make big corporates richer at the expense of poor nations.
Take housing. There has been a critical shortage of housing for years, seeing prices sky rocket.
However objecting to new construction and cashing in on shortages by seeing assets go up in value means that some people make a quick buck off the suffering of others.
Its grimly amusing to see people who love to see inflation in housing costs bemoan inflation in gas or something else they need to pay.
Trump needs to be sectioned !
When times are bad, people want change.
There's an absolutely brilliant book called Global Crisis, by Geoffrey Parker, and he tracks how the little ice age of the 17th Century kicked off food price rises, which in turn kicked off revolutions and civil wars. When times are bad, people think they have nothing to lose.
Of couse, usually that makes things worse, but that's another story!
They'll be plenty of time to talk more about London predictions over the next six weeks - I could see 400-600 Labour losses in London, mainly to the Greens, Independents and Conservatives. That might not move too many councils as Labour are well entrenched - in six of the Boroughs they currently run, they could lose 20 seats and still keep control and in many of the others, a loss of 20 seats would still leave Labour the largest party.
For example, I appreciate his suggestion on how to best cook corn on the cob: First, bring the water to a boil, and then send the fastest boy to the field to harvest the ears
I do not think that I have commented on American food recently, not least because I have only been there for a week in the last decade. I ate well while in Utah, and indulged my guilty pleasure of chicken fried steak with white gravy, mash and biscuits, something that I always look out for when visiting as it is a trip down memory lane to my youth in Atlanta, as are corndogs, though less luck with that
@rcs1000 lives in California, so may well be a better judge.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwjxx5eyn1o
Church attendance report pulled after YouGov finds 'fraudulent' responses
A report claiming the number of young people attending church in England and Wales had skyrocketed has been retracted, after the underlying data was found to be flawed.
The Bible Society's "Quiet Revival" report had been widely reported on since its publication last year and became an accepted part of discourse among many Christians.
Now YouGov, which carried out the research, has told the Bible Society that an internal review of the data found that some of the respondents who completed its survey were "fraudulent".
It has said that quality control measures, which usually remove such responses, were not applied due to human error.
I see Badenoch has once again visited the Magic Money Tree. "Help with Energy Bills" - well, yes, but what kind of help and from where? Is she going to compel energy companies to reduce prices? Is there going to be Government money to help with bills, if so, how much and from where is the shortfall to be met?
As for drilling in the North Sea, I yield willingly to the knowledge of @Richard_Tyndall and others on the subject. I presume even if we started tomorrow, any new North Sea oil wouldn't be piped ashore for some weeks or months or years? I presume we'd need refinery capacity for example.
To be fair, "Fuel Britannia" is quite catchy albeit meaningless.
It would take many months.
It may get more tax receipts but would be sold at global prices at a loss.
Fuel Britannia lorry with a conservative logo when the pump price is £2 is a real vote winner?
Cue "Clueless Kemi robbin us" stickers
She's clueless
Vast majority of under 30s and majority of under 50s very pro renewables
Like with her rush to war, her rush to oil is the polar opposite of visionary or progressive.
I suspect both Lab and Con will more than double Fishers seat totals in London alone
First, thank you to @RochdalePioneers for the contribution and with most of which it's hard to argue.
Will the oil shock of 2026 be comparable to 1973-74 when, if memory serves, OPEC quadrupled oil prices without losing a single customer and the West endured a recession which arguably put the final nail in the coffin of Butskellism, led to the over reach of Trade Union power and the coming of monetarism under Thatcher and the subsequent re-ordering of Britain, for good or ill?
The search for the "next big idea" continues. The centre-left has had no economic answers since 2008 and the centre-right has seen "austerity" tried and failed in the face of significant demographic, social, technological and cultural changes which mean 20th century solutions no longer work for 21st century problems.
Re-hashed Lafferism continues to be chirped from the sidelines but it's long on generalities and short on specifics - whose benefits will be sacrificed to ensure the wealthy pay less tax in the name of economic growth?
I'm a believer, as I thought you were, in Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Of the three so-called radical Governments of the 20th century, two significantly expanded the power of the State and while the third claimed not to economically, it was significantly centralising in other areas. My view has long been we need to redefine the relationship between Government and governed or State and citizen if you prefer. That's no easy or simple task but starts from the premise many feel aspects of both public AND private no longer work in their interests.
Trump:
I heard the head of Germany say, “This is not our war” for Iran.
I said, well, Ukraine is not our war—we helped.
I thought it was a very inappropriate statement to make, but he made it, and he can’t erase it.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive:
Lord Mandelson has not been asked to hand over WhatsApp messages or texts from his personal phone amid mounting concern about the limited nature of the government’s disclosures
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/2037210961975578759
Well the US is now Bankrupt as well in news that strangely didn't get reported very much..
https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fiscal-crisis-fix/
His strength is his global standing.
There is no one with his current gravitas on the global stage in any Party near him.
The more Trump attacks and he doesn't bite but makes subtle digs the more his dire ratings improve.
He is respected in Europe.
With the exception of Trump and Netanyahu, the rest of the world would see Farage as a disaster and Badenoch as a Farage light gobshite. At least Farage can turn on a sort of charm when he needs to.
I don't see anyone in Labour other than the hard laft or twats like Lewis being a stalking horse.
The most likely replacements, Streeting, Jones, Rayner, Jones, Thornberry, Cooper all have good reason to bide their time for various reasons.
It's a poison chalice with the Middle East in turmoil, Reform are in decline, the Tories are irrelevant, lDs stagnant. The Greens are where Labour need to pay most party political attention in the next year. Like Reform, they may suffer from the exposure and failure of having more Councillors.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/2037072004793217400
We know you have a weird anti Kemi issue but you are not convincing anyone, even labour supporters
And the US political system has become completely money dominated.
The Electoral Commission should dig hard into Farage's, and to a lesser extent the Tories, dealings, lest we go the same way.
When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Tories used to make great play with the fact/allegation that Labour was under the control of the Union bosses. Now very big business is playing the same role, and when it was the Unions, at least there was some semblance of member control.
So far (and based to be fair only on the tweet you linked, but an official Con one, so should mean something) I haven't got a clue as the tweet text, Kemi and the tanker slogan all said different things.
Brexit, Trump and some parties on the European continent have successfully sold themselves as the 'safer' option at various points in the past decade. People generally don't like chaos, but what they view as chaos (or as more chaotic) doesn't necessarily chime in with conventional wisdom.
Except for the fact Trump has opposed and stopped support for Ukraine.
And the fact Trump has belittled and insulted allies, and mocked their dead.
And threatened to invade a NATO member.
But apart from that, good point.
The views aren’t bad
From the policy
Users
4.4 BYOD shall not be used for anyone in scope of the Government Security Group (GSG) VIP Mobile Phones Policy. This means Cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries, junior ministers, senior officials, Private Offices and individuals in other critical roles deemed to be higher risk at the organisation’s discretion (for example, special advisers and those working in National Security roles).
http://theoildrum.com/node/2899
It's worth reading. More amusing yet is some of the hysterical comments underneath the article.
Especially confidential government communications.
💥 Dismantling the system, node by node.
Operators from @1usc_army, alongside the broader Defense Forces, struck the Kirishi Oil Refinery (KINEF) — a core link feeding Ust-Luga and Primorsk export ports.
From crude to processing to shipment, the chain is being systematically degraded. Less production, unstable exports, shrinking cash flow for war.
Also major data privacy issues around private phones too
It appears that the system we have now is functionally the same.
Cultists gotta cult.
Furthermore any current Tory who tells you they will invest in renewables are taking the absolute piss given their hatred on bet zero
https://bsky.app/profile/thebulwark.com/post/3mhxwtychqh2k
We (and Europe) need to quietly disentangle ourselves from dependence on them. Trump is not an aberration, Americans are very likely to elect an equally malign President again, quite soon. I doubt the US will never really be seen as a reliable ally again given what we have witnessed over the last couple of years.
https://www.skynews.com.au/lifestyle/travel/new-eu-trade-deal-to-make-it-easier-for-australians-seeking-change-of-scenery-to-live-and-work-in-europe/news-story/438ae4930bd72df6c8bcde90db9548dd
I can see approval dropping below 40%, at which point even the GOP might start to develop a spine.