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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » With 17 months to go the Scottish #IndyRef YES appears to have a mountain to climb
Latest Scottish poll from Ipsos-MORI has NO in #indyref extending lead to 28% twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
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From UKIP's website:
"UKIP holds all three of the 'governing' parties of the past 20 years responsible for the catastrophic state of the UK's energy strategy, which will see sever energy shortages, soaring prices, brownouts and energy rationing from 2015 onwards. Here, our Energy and Industry spokesman Roger Helmer MEP describes what has gone so wrong – and how to put it right."
I will offer evens that that there will be neither rationing nor brownouts in UK electricity in 2015 or 2016. Any size.
I will also bet that - as global gas prices ease thanks to the US and Canada being able to export cheap shale gas (plus the giant Australian LNG fields of Gorgon and the like come on-stream) - that inflation-adjusted retail electricity prices in 2016 will be below current levels.
Come on energy lovers - take me on :-)
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/05/will-an-eu-referendum-kill-the-scottish-independence-referendum/
Otherwise I would have whipped out the Wayne Rooney / £40 gag.
https://twitter.com/IpsosMORIScot/status/332472738780434432/photo/1
The only thing that can save the SNPs indy ref is the prospect of Cameron winning power in 2015.
Evens on both.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/171915/qep_mar_2013.pdf shows average UK electricity bills in 2012 were £479. Shall we use that as baseline (although we should technically use price per kwh)?
CPI or RPI, either is fine.
By the way, I think we are going to be completely flat on our Japan vs Italy bet. We were 50% GDP per capita, USD and 50% GDP per capita, local currency inflation adjusted. I think I will win handsomely in the USD-denominated one, and you will win by a smaller (but still significant) margin in local currency.
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/wkggt/bradford-city-of-dreams--series-1---episode-1
Not at all. The Scots were a major part of building the Empire. We just realise that being part of the Union allows us to be appreciated on an even larger stage. Better together or some such.
Not sure it a good idea to go through such a messy process, when the world economy is going through a difficult period.
@rcs1000 While I agree with your general point, I find it hard to summon up even the slightest respect for UKIP supporters while they can't agree among themselves on their flagship policy. Do they want to be in the EEA (and thus have to accept the current rules on immigration) or do they want to be outside the EEA (and thus be outside the common market)? Or do they want something that's not currently on offer but that they're 100% sure that they'd be able to get by some hocus pocus?
While their main policy boils down to having their cake and eating it, it's not surprising they're condescended to.
To be honest, as a UKIP supporter, (and member!) if being in the the EEA is almost identical to being in the EU and UKIP want to stay in it, I would regard them as fraudulent as the LDs, Cons and Labour and have to excercise my right not to vote.
Would be interested to know from political experts what the difference between being in the EU and being out of it but in the EEA are. If there is no difference regarding movement of people to settle in the UK what is the point of UKIP?
Mr. Tokyo, 10 years is too close. You can't ask people nation-defining questions every decade. Once they answer then that's got to be it for at least a generation.
Funny, yes, but not very fair.
It's a difficult one. I was in San Francisco with a friend of mine at the weekend and we were chatting about UKIP. He is a historic UKIP voter, and believes Britain would be best off out - as it would be (a) cheaper; and (b) it would allow us to loosen a number of burdensome regulations.
But he looks on leaving the EEA and significantly reducing skilled immigration with absolute horror. His girlfriend runs an international charity in London, and she's Portugese. He genuinely thinks that free movement of labour through the EU is probably the only positive thing the EU has brought us.
As goes your specific point: the EEA includes the provision for free movement of labour. However, it doesn't make it bureaucracy free. So, you can impose a requirement on immigrants to - for example - turn up at the police station to get their card stamped every month. In other words, there are lots of soft measures you can implement that would make immigration somewhat less attractive.
BT is to offer free Premier League football coverage to its broadband customers, the telecoms company has announced.
After winning a three-year deal to show 38 Premier League games a season, BT has signalled its intent to challenge BSkyB's dominance of sports pay-TV.
BSkyB's shares fell nearly 6% as BT unveiled its plans, which includes a £10-a-month broadband package.
BT has 6.3 million broadband customers, but just 750,000 pay-TV customers.
The aggressive move is an attempt to establish itself as a major multi-platform provider, offering TV, internet and telephone in one package.
BT Sport's channels will also show 69 live Aviva Premiership rugby matches per season, plus live football from leagues in Germany, France, Italy and Brazil.
BSkyB dominates the pay-TV market with around 10 million customers, but lags behind BT with 4.3 million broadband customers.
BT Sport is also taking on BSkyB in pubs and clubs with a 12-months-for-nine subscription and free installation special offer lasting until 1 July.
Around half the premises taking up the offer will end up paying £135 a month, BT said, while packages for hotels and betting shops could undercut Sky by 75%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22462525
This is great news for Ed who's only articulated Europe policy is to never hold a referendum ever.
Then put your money where your mouth is :-)
Between 2005 and 2010, energy companies in the US and Canada spent tens of billions of dollars building LNG import terminals for the gas shortage that never came.
Over the next eight years, the amount of LNG available for import will increase between 100 and 200%. There is more LNG in-planning or under-construction in Australia alone than the entire world market.
As I said, I'm happy to take bets in any size. (Although for sizes over £500 or so, I think we should both put money in escrow, as I'm not happy with the credit risk.)
In the last Scottish parliament elections the parliamentary aspect of the vote was a delusion, just as much as, or even more than it is in Westminster elections. It might not have been the question which was being asked but the question which the electorate answered was "Who will do the best job at sticking up for Scotland ?" There was only one answer and as a card carrying Tory for nearly forty years, if I had been up in Scotland I would have been struggling not to say Wee Eck.
My fellow Tories look at me as if I have been hit on the head when I say this, but really. Even from just over the border, and fairly obsessed with politics I have barely a clue who any of the other people you mention are.
The appeal to independence might not be rational but it pulls on the heart. Nobody who puts head before heart will vote for independence. However, I would not suppose from that that the independence campaign has lost in Scotland, or England.
Or don't they know / care etc...?
As you may recall, this was launched on May 25 last year. Alex Salmond claimed that, if one million signatures were obtained, then independence would happen. This somewhat dubious claim therefore makes the declaration more important than would otherwise be the case.
The last figures I can see is that 143,000 people signed up, still a long way short of the one million mark promoted at launch. (1)
There are 496 days left to reach one million.
Does anyone have more recent figures?
(1): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20539259
Well the EEA sounds much better than the EU, and I guess the £53million* (not billion) a day is saved?!
Im going to a UKIP meeting in Hornchurch on July 11th, will be interesting to see the kind of people in attendance
Fruitcakes, Loonies & Closet racists I expect!
More evidence that the premiership rights are nothing short of a goldmine. Where would BSkyB's 10 million subscribers be without premiership football? its the key to the universe.
Others with deep pockets may also be circling Sky's premier asset. You mentioned BT, but Virgin Media is now owned by the giant Liberty global. ITV is making a fortune under Adam Crozier. Then there's ESPN, Eurosport, Al Jazeera....
Sky will fight tooth and nail to keep its content. Those UK premiership rights contracts are only ever going one way.
One or two responses and some heavy doses of wishful thinking on the previous thread. I agree the Conservative/Labour combined share is in long-term decline from 97% in 1951 to 65% in 2010 which is pretty good going. One could argue that on the basis of the lowest figures for the two parties it could get down to 60% but no lower.
The problem is the concentration of those votes means the duopoly in terms of seats is much stronger - in 1951 the combined total was 616 seats, in 2010 it was still 564. UKIP has opened up some new fronts in areas which had seen little competition (and that shouldn't surprise) but couldn't break into areas which were already competitive.
For any third or fourth party to break the vote/seat stranglehold of the Conservative and Labour parties is a massive undertaking. Even if you got the Conservative and Labour parties down to 29% each they'd still have around 375 seats betwen them by my reckoning. Realistically, the insurgent party needs to be looking at 35-40% of the vote to make "the breakthrough" and drive the other two parties down to historic low numbers in terms of votes.
The only other option is a schism in either of the two parties - Labour suffered one in 1981 which arguably put them in Opposition for a decade or more. The Conservatives suffered the same in the 19th Century. Both parties know that hanging together is infinitely preferrable to hanging separately. Some thought or hoped Labour would split apart after 2010 - they haven't. The Conservatives held together in Opposition for an unprecedented thirteen years.
As regards EFTA, as Alex Salmond keeps forgetting, it takes two to tango. We can only rejoin EFTA if the current members agree, and in practice on terms negotiated with the EU.
None of this is insurmountable, of course (except the immigration point, which I suspect is). However, you have to be honest: if we leave the EU, we will have to carry out much the same negotiation about terms of access to the Single Market as we would if we stay in and negotiate opt-outs. Nothing is automatic; it's a question of haggling and trade-offs.
What is Ed's policy now then?
@BBCNormanS: Labour deny that John Cruddas among signatories to Tory EU referendum motion
The only real fallacy is the Tory one (and I presume yours) which pretends we can remain inside the EU and change it to suit our needs against the wishes of the rest of the bloc. As evidenced by the last few days more and more people are seeing the idiocy and dishonesty of this claim and are coming to the only logical conclusion which is that we must leave.
Does that £479 include VAT?
You soak them in brandy; wrap them in tin foil; store them in a dark cupboard; and they will come out in a decade as solid as the day they were made.
@GuidoFawkes: Guido understands that the BBC have confused Jon Cruddas with John Cryer. Jon Cruddas has not signed.
Oh.
That's just dishonest, isn't it?
How exactly is the supposed pro-business bloc in the ascendancy right now? They can't even form a blocking position to demanding we pay for billions in EU overspending.
After what Dave said today about 'pessimists' I wonder if the powers that be in the EU have already quietly intimated to Dave he will be thrown a bone on this issue....
Re VAT, I have no idea. Shall we just use the UK average electricity bill as quoted in www.gov.uk. It's probably not a perfect metric (and benefits you as - presumably - there is growth in the number of kwh used per household thanks to rising penetration of electrical devices), but it is at least a consistent number we can use.
(Which means that based on our history of betting, probably means it'll lag the CPI and beat the RPI...)
That's just dishonest politics, isn't it?
" the fallacy of their position is so ludicrous that it won't last a whole two years."
good to see Cameron and UKIP have found some common ground.
"Our monthly estimates of GDP suggest that output grew by 0.8 per cent in the three
months ending in April after growth of 0.3 per cent in the three months ending in March
2013"
http://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/gdp0513.pdf
It's high time someone took on Sky in winning back some of the highly-prized sporting events which the BBC wantonly let go in order to keep their overpaid executives in the manner to which they had grown accustomed.
The thing is, if your starting point is the latest YouGov poll, this means you also have to look at where a few percent of support from Labour and the Conservatives is going to drift to, not just in terms of what UKIP voters are going to do when faced with a forced choice.
Something like Labour 34%, Conservative 30%, UKIP 14%, Lib Dem 14%, Others 8% would be my rough guess now. That has a bit of swing-back from Labour and UKIP to Lib Dem and Conservative.
The big two parties end up with more seats between them, even with a smaller share of the vote, according to electoral calculus. I don't dispute that as a likely outcome, but that's the joy of FPTP for you.
... thanks to rising penetration of electrical devices...
Is this what Mr. Brooke would refer to as import substitution, Robert?
I'm wrong. It appears free if you're a BT broadband customer. For now.
"three brazillian soldiers have been killed"
"My god how many million is that?!"
I have discovered the British Retail Consortium are as confused by the Visa Consumer Expenditure index as I was.
There seems little doubt though that retail sales did fall in April.
The question is why and what does it mean.
Here is some "spinning" from the BRC:
The value of UK retail sales was down by 2.2% on a like-for-like basis in April versus a year ago, when they declined by 3.3% on the preceding year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
On a total basis, sales were down 0.6%, against a 1.0% decline in April 2012.
Helen Dickinson, Director General, British Retail Consortium, said: "On the surface these are really poor figures but they're hiding another respectable month (…) this was actually a better month than March, especially for non-food sales.”
Sales were negatively impacted by the timing of Easter, which fell in April last year but in March this year. The 3-month total growth average, which irons out the Easter distortions, was 2.6%, above the long-term 12-month average, which continued on an uptrend to reach 2.5%.
Online sales were up 8.3% compared with April 2012, when they had risen by 9.0%.
"There's a sense that people are more prepared to spend than they were but Chief Executives are telling me that's volatile. A convincing trend towards revival is hard to spot and competitive pricing is still critical to generating sales (…),” Dickinson added.
My view is that the shopping malls were cleared to allow passage for Boy George's 'March of the Makers'. A bit like London and the State Opening of Parliament except in the provinces it becomes the Community Opening of Factories. The local mayor travels in a Nissan Qashqai rather than a state coach drawn by horses.
On Scotland - whilst understandably keen not to lose part of the country he was in charge of, if he is sensible, he will keep quiet and let the various discussions re. currencies, trade zones, etc play themselves out. Of course the result is foregone so his job is not to antagonise anyone in the meantime so he can look magnanimous when he then gives Scotland the right to set minimum banana curve parameters, or whatever.
And yes, yes, I know - you think he should ditch Osborne....
To be fair, I suspect our division is one of what we consider major reform. If they reduced some of the social chapter, brought in some extra transitional controls on migration, and gave us a financial sector veto, I suspect you'd probably argue that was a huge transformation of the EU. I would not.
If it became a serious prospect, I'd expect mixed feelings. The average view would probably be that it'd be a pity if the Brits pushed off, and if minor concessions would prevent it then they're worth making, on the lines of Harold Wilson's "renegotiation", which rearranged the furniture a bit without doing anything drastic. There is no appetite for a major rethink of the EU to suit Britain. The more senior politicians would take it more seriously, but are also more irritated by British tactics and keen to avoid a precedent that being awkward pays dividends, so again a major rethink is not on the cards.
we are on the road to recovery, though there will be some bumps and bends along the way. However realistically when we're still borrowing the GDP of New Zealand every year it would be a bit scary if we weren't. Still let the recovery continue, real good news never hurts.
http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/when-ideology-meets-economic-reality.html
"First, there is a report from the Deutscher Aktieninstitute (DAI), an organisation representing German listed companies and investors, which warns that the FTT will cost German companies up to €1.5 billion per year. Blue-chip companies, including Siemens and Bayer, say they will face tens of millions of euros of additional cost from the tax due transactions they make to hedge currency and other risks.
What makes this intervention to significant is that we're talking wholesome, exporting German businesses - in the German public mind the very opposite to ‘speculative’ finance. As DAI chief-executive Christine Bortenlaenger put it, the tax is “a direct strike against the export-oriented German economy”.
This comes not long after the important intervention by Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann where he warned, as we did a few days before, that the FTT could impact monetary policy. With the German elections only a few months away, these concerns will be hard to dismiss. "
Plus, we've got massive LNG coming on-stream from Australia (Gorgon, etc.). Longer term there is Tanzania, Mozambique, etc.
Oh yes, and let's not forget that Ireland is about to become a major gas producer when Corrib (finally) comes on-stream.
Post Sept 14 there will still need to be a renegotiation of powers amid the wider issue of proper devolution for England. By that stage all the main parties will be in GE mode so nothing much will move until we get new govt.
Currently I see more Chance of Salmond being sat at the negotiating table than Cameron. So it will be another Labour mess\stitch up on England.
It's central to understanding UKIP's current polling ratings that it is a state of mind rather than a political party.