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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If Liam Byrne is right my 12-1 “hung parliament no coalition” bet could be a winner
Last July I got a three figure sum on at Hills at 12/1 that GE2015 could produce another hung parliament but the largest party would would try to govern on its own without a coalition.
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Even now, I am not sure any of us watching on 1st May 1997 quite realised the implications: the paradigm shift in British politics that saw the Conservatives removed for at least a generation.
Will they ever get back? I'm not sure if they will.
Rumi Verjee, a multimillionaire who brought the Domino’s pizza chain to Britain, is top of a list of seven names compiled by the Lib Dems who are expected to be awarded honours within weeks. He has given £770,000 to the party since May 2010. Sudhir Choudhrie, whose family has donated £650,000 to the party since 2004, has been placed on an internal party list of future peers. Until three years ago Choudhrie, who has personally given £95,000 of that sum, was not domiciled in Britain for tax purposes.
Clegg, who has campaigned for a crackdown on offshore tax-avoidance schemes, faces embarrassment because businesses operated by both the Verjee and Choudhrie families have links to foreign tax havens... Verjee used a firm called Brompton Capital to donate to the Lib Dems. Until recently Brompton was owned by Integro Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, based in the Channel Islands, also a tax haven. It is now believed to have been brought onshore.
Verjee’s name was one of those submitted by the Lib Dems to the House of Lords Appointments Commission earlier this month. The commission, which vets potential peers, is considering around 20 names put forward by the three main party leaders..." http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1274708.ece
That probably won't apply in 2015.
Interesting review of Andrew Adonis' book in yesterday's Guardian.
Some people have called for Internet Service
Providers to offer a service that filters internet
sites and automatically blocks pornographic
sites from people's home internet service.
Some people think that customers should have
to choose to have their internet service filtered
(an opt-in service), other people think that
internet services should all be filtered unless
customers ask for their service to be unfiltered
(an opt-out service). Do you think internet filters
should be opt-in or opt-out?
Opt-in (someones internet service should only be
filtered if they ask for it); 46
Opt-out (people's internet service should be filtered
unless they ask for it not to be): 40
DK: 13
And thinking about major internet search
engines like Google, do you think they should...
Not filter out links to pornography: 6
Only filter out links to pornography if people opt-in
(search results would only be filtered if people
asked for it): 31
Filter out links to pornography unless people opt-out
(search results would be filtered unless people
asked for it not to be): 28
Should not link to pornography at all: 26
DK: 8
To what extent, if at all, do you think children
seeing pornography on the internet is damaging
to them?
Very damaging:42
Fairly damaging: 33
Not very damaging: 13
Not damaging at all: 3
DK: 10
Labour want to scoop up the left of the LibDems. They need to avoid talk of a Lib-Lab government, lest those people stop thinking of them as evil Tory collaborators and vote for them, thus letting the Tories win the Con/Lab marginals. But just it's not in their interests to say it's going to happen doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.
What does the last Labour Government imply about that party's fitness for Government.....
What are the odds that AV [ but not other form of PR ] AND HoL reform will be intricately bound in any coalition agreement of the next parliament.
Well quite, Mr, Scrapheap.
There's a danger for the Lib Dems in going for a pure opposition approach when the potential for government with Labour arises (assuming it does).
They could relegate themselves back into the pointless category for lots of voters. They'd have been 'bad' [most people would say] in government with the Conservatives and then refused to govern with Labour. Why vote for a party that says it loves coalitions so much it wants to ruin the electoral system to guarantee them when that same party then refuses to form a coalition?
Plus a minority Labour Government facing a Conservative Opposition with the Lib Dems yapping on the sidelines could lead, after a decade of coalition and then minority government, to a two party squeeze, which would hit the already diminished (presumably in 2015) Lib Dems hard.
http://survation.com/2013/06/what-effect-a-new-eu-referendum-question/
Apparently asking people if they want to "remain" in somethings polls better than asking if they want to "be" in something.
I've been in favour of his participation on here, because I thought he promoted, very effectively, a different strand of opinion. But maybe his views are shared by no more than a few hundred people throughout the whole country.
Both Socialism and Britain's 'soft left' are well represented on here.
With the number and intensity of his posts, tim is overly influencing the zeitgeist of the site, to no-one's advantage? He is making PB less representative of those who are politically engaged, not more?
Or is he stating widely-held views in a far more dedicated way than most would choose?
"The Matrix" is so hyped up and has such a cult reputation that I eventually got round to watching it after several years of not doing. It wasn't exactly rubbish, but there was nothing special about it. If you haven't watched it yet, don't bother.
However he also drives away lurkers and occasional posters. As an example this was a post he made last night (I noticed it at the time but didn't respond as it would have derailed the thread):
To fitalass: Any views on interventionist Dave putting our boys at risk or do you only pontificate about geopolitics Pre May 2010?
This isn't a request for views. It's a direct personal attack on someone who doesn't post that often, but seems like a genuinely nice person and an interesting poster. Posts just discourage lurkers from participating and undermine the ethos of the thread.
I don't know the solution, but the last 3 months have seen him become much much worse.
I think Lab are unlikely to fall short however, given how little of the vote they need to secure a majority.
Some of the Conservative posters seem to have disappeared. Whether they are simply busier now they have to run the country, or are disillusioned with the government, or are obeying a central diktat by the anti-Smithson forces at Central Office, who knows?
Some of the spinning seems a bit too frantic now, but perhaps I am getting old. Debate has crowded out meta-debate. For betting purposes, I am uninterested in whether Britain should leave the EU or Scotland the UK: I just need to judge how likely these events are; but there is little analysis and a great deal of partisan persuasion and occasional abuse.
My first two paragraphs can, at least in principle, be tested. Was there a sharp decline around the time of the Vanilla switch? Does the drop in posts mirror the decline of Conservatives in the polls?
As to membership, plenty of folk are still signing-up: http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/activity
The problem, oft mentioned, is the difficulty re-signing-in. People who experience this should try signing-in via the back-end.*
Apart from that: Nothing-to-see. Just carry-on as before....
* vanillaforums.com sign-in menu-option. Alternatively; click a users profile to access the namespace sign-in for Junior's OGH's gaff....
In the next Parliament I think we will have more nationalists, still have the Irish, still have our green, possibly Respect and maybe some UKIP MPs. It is not difficult to come up with scenarios where either Tory + Lib Dem or Lab + Lib Dem does not amount to a majority. In this respect I think OGH has a good bet there.
A Lib Dem party that had just lost 20 seats and in government has lost over 1/3 of its entire local authority base is going to be extremely reluctant to enter coalition again. I also think there would be a very negative reaction to a party that had clearly "lost" still forming a part of the government.
We could do worse than have a Parliament that effectively implements the legislation passed by the Coalition for a time (nothing like 5 years though) but how does such a government make the necessary decisions to continue to cut spending? If it was a minority Labour government having to make those choices they may indeed get Tory support for such measures.
1) I've been very busy with work.
2) There have been a lot of tedious discussions about and between other posters (of all stripes) that have had nothing to do with politics or betting and all to do with the personal merits or otherwise of other posters.
I've still somehow racked up more than 700 posts on vanilla, so I can't have been put off that much.
I don't have a difficulty with re-signing in, in fact Vanilla forces me to do it less often than Disqus and it's easier to do. However the Quote function is nowhere near as easy to use as the Disqus Reply function, which makes replying to a particular post that has scrolled down a bit more difficult. So as an occasional poster that has kept me from commenting as often as I might (although I still check most threads, and I have been a bit busy recently).
Also political discussion seems a bit moribund at the moment.
If he had responded to a fitalass post and accused her of pontificating that would have been rude, but all part of the service. It's the pre-emptive nature of the attack (and one that implies her views are worthless) that I dislike.
Off topic:
I enjoy PB in large part because of the intelliigent opinions expressed from across the political spectrum, and in general good humour. Most political webforums are feasts of flaming and trolling.
I do find tims relentless and repetitive negativity wearing, but quite enjoy engaging with him when he can be persuaded to write intelligently rather than witter on about "red faced fops".
On site traffic, I expect that with no real political events on the horizon for months there is little of betting interest. Mike must struggle for topics at present. Perhaps some general discussion threads on topics of political interest may work. Or perhaps ask some regular posters to submit headers for discussion. There are some real experts on here on niche subjects.
Net doing well - with kids under 18/not
Cameron -16 / -28
Miliband -23 / -38
Clegg -43 / -56
Govt approval -28 / -37
Labour lead 13 / 7
Edit: http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/xnzsm6ut1l/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140613.pdf
I find that incredible. Was he so active before vanilla or has there been an increase? Is it more noticeable given the reduction in volume of traffic? Some of Tim's comments are extremely funny, I remember having 2 good laughs yesterday alone, but it is not healthy that a single view has become so dominant.
antifrank on pensions would be interesting, as would Neil on general green topics. I'd be happy to post on global protein demand or Irish history if people want... ;-)
He's already proved himself a massive liability after his 'no money left' stupidity but these days Blairites (and him in particular) just seem to keep farting out these ever more desperate attempts at positioning. If they aren't triangulating they are positioning because the blunt truth is they have no more idea of what they stand for than Blair did.
You don't posture and shuffle your party to one side of the lib dems or another on some speculative coalition this far out from the GE. It's idiotic. You let the lib dems handle that because they're the ones who have to solve the Clegg problem. The lib dem leadership is what will ultimately decide any coalition should the electoral math fall in the precise manner needed for one to even be possible in a couple of years.
It's like tory MPs talking about a UKIP pact that will never happen because they've somehow still failed to spot that the kippers are their opponents and that FPTP is still in full effect.
Labour obviously have to go after lib dem voters but they certainly aren't going to get them by this kind of think tank style policy wonkery. Wouldn't even have mattered that much if Byrne had said the opposite and that he was disinclined to a minority govt. since it's a such a low salience theoretical issue. Still, it at least keeps the Blairites busy as they try to forget their master's current travails.
Vanilla is just more hassle to follow than Disqus, that's the main issue for me. I know we were short on options so it's not a pointed gripe, but there you go.
I just skim posters/topics I'm not interested in. I don't get time to keep up with what's happening politically, really, so come to PB for an overview re what's going on/read a variety of (preferably knowledgeable/in depth) views. I'm not defending/otherwise anyone in particular, but I don't think the unnecessary personal stuff is one-sided.
On the latter point if someone replied to my comment in a way that I agreed with responding with a "like" was a polite and positive way of acknowledging the contribution without having to make the same point again by replying. I also think it encouraged participation by lurkers (a lot of my likes were by guests) who were in time more likely to speak up.
I would suggest the powers that be revisit this question. I genuinely think it would help.
Interesting party splits in YG on whether the police should be allowed to monitor websites accessed and people corresponded with. Tories say yes, 53-32, LibDem say hmm, 40-41, Lab say no, 51-34, UKIP say no, 46-33.
To respond to David Kendrick: first, I think pb does get boring when we spend too much time discussing each other. But as you ask - tim does usually make partisan points that I agree with, though he expresses them both more succinctly (good) and more aggressively (matter of taste) than I would. To take Charles' specific example - fitalass is even more partisan than I am, very rarely expressing a view directly disagreeing with her party. It's fair comment to suggest that she would take a different view of Tory intervention and Labour intervention, and when people make that sort of point to me I think it's reasonable. For example, my position on the police question above is in reality "hmm" (genuinely unsure), but I did vote for that sort of thing under Labour. Should someone force me to think about that? Yes, probably.
Occasionally tim says something that IMO goes too far and then gets moderated. He is not remotely as routinely nasty to people he disagrees with as, say, SeanT, who doesn't just attack people for their views but will characterise them personally with his memorable vitriol. And others are worse, because their nastiness is unaccompanied by humour and a certain sense of tongue in cheek. It'd be nuts to ban tim and not SeanT, and I wouldn't ban either, just moderate them when they go overboard, as happens now. Let OGH be OGH.
It's an aggressive pre-emptive attack suggesting to casual readers that the poster's views are worthless. Calling out people as partisan is entirely fine (although the PBTory classification is a little wearisome as it groups a lot of people who disagree into one bucket)
http://ht.ly/m4Hkf
That's right. calling a tory on PB a PB tory is perhaps one of the greatest slanders of our age.
Get a grip. If we REALLY want to start singling out posters by name on who should post here, like the PB tories have been trying for the past few days, then I hope they are fine with getting the same back. Though I suspect posts will start disappearing long before then since some of us actually remember what was said by Mike Smithson about holding forth on who can and can not post on here.
I guess the potential get-out for them would be that unless FPTP does something unexpected, a Hung Parliament probably means the Tories got more votes than Labour, so arguably Miliband wouldn't have a mandate in the way that Cameron did in 2010. But the strategic problem would be the same as it was then: They'd likely end up with fresh elections sooner or later, at which the obvious way for people who didn't like having an unstable minority government to deliver "change" would be to vote for one of the two larger parties.
But the festival only lasts about 4 weeks! Serious editing will be required.
Apparently it is then going on to the Labour conference. Who will be brave enough to go?
Andrea uses Labouriste.
And i agree with DavidL that the lack of "like" button is a significant blow.
So banging on about PB Tories is just tedious and (often) inaccurate. Some of us have "right wing" views. Get over it.
I know not everybody will agree with me, but I think we actually have a better range of opinions than we used to, no particular decline in smart people posting (individuals with interesting things to say come and go), and a generally improved signal-to-noise ratio.
Seriously though - the like button was a plus. The dislike button wasn't. Can we have one back without the other?
Children should be something you have when you can afford it, and we should cut tax for low to middle income tax earners so that someone on average income can stand on their own two feet without needing support from the State.
Clegg's problem is that it rings so true.
Or indeed singling out poster's comments every time they make a contribution in some weird stalkerish campaign.
It's tedious for everyone else to read, its predictable where it ends up and adds bugger all to the to-and-fro.
Threads without it are generally much more interesting - particularly so when all sides have something to add other than name-calling.
Perhaps the blunt truth is that any putative drop in site numbers occurred with the somewhat disruptive forced move to an entirely new system of comments. Then again the one who would most keenly feel that and know it for certain is Mr Smithson and I don't actually see him complaining about it regularly so I doubt any lull is anything more than the usual rises and falls in activity for a political site. Not to mention one like this which is primarily based on betting that has seen some of he biggest events already occur like by-elections, locals and the US elections. Those are where spikes happen and should there be the mooted reshuffle there could be another spike for that.
Well, you have missed the point there big time. I am sure I have used the word "leftie" in the past as a shorthand for those of a leftist tendency. I don't actually see it as a big insult, more as descriptive. There are lefties in parties other than the Labour party, and lefties of no particular party affiliation. But "Tory" is a word which denotes a member of the Conservative party, so you can't equate the two terms.
"Tory" is to "Labourite" as "leftie" is to "?????"
By equating "lefty" and "Tory" as equivalent but opposite terms of abuse you seem to be failing to understand that someone can have considered right of centre views without being a dyed in the wool tribal Tory.
Surely it just depends on how the seats break down. Labour could only form a minority government if they were relatively close to a majority - Should they come under 300 seats they would HAVE to form a coalition if they wanted to govern?
There are plenty of places to talk about politics. PB should aim for quality. It would be better with 50 thoughtful comments rather than an RSS feed of twitter feed posts, cats, F1 and other bits and bobs.
Glad we got that settled though the point still appears to elude you.
That is the main thing I notice from all sides, a lack of humility. Has anyone ever apologised for crossing the line? Or misquoting someone? Or making up statistics? Or when they've been rumbled for having double standards?
Has anyone ever said "fair enough, your argument has bested mine?"!!!
Most of us aren't politicians. Votes aren't going to be lost by conceding a point occasionally.
No you're the one missing a point. I'm happy to be called a libertarian, for example. Just not a Tory. Why? Simply because it's inaccurate.
Do you see me as a "Tory"? If so, why?
If you keep the "keep signed-in" check-box ticked there are no problems. If, like me, you like to larf at the Telegraphs' Scottish items (with "added" trolls) then you need to clear the cache every ten days or summinck.
On Aurora it is impossible (via copy-n-paste password) to log-in via the form provided above. [This, also, seems to be an issue via Galaxy/Android* (with "added" alcohol, hic)!] The only way I log in now - sans flushed Torygraf cookies - is via Vanilla.
Oops...,
:anecdote-alert:
* Unsure if one-login-binds-them-all &c....
I think Philip Hammond got this right in his interview yesterday (not that I think Cameron will necessarily have appreciated his comments). After the shocking failure of Iraq and the depressing imminent failure of Afghanistan there is absolutely no enthusiasm for any Syrian adventurism in this country.
I think Cameron and Hague are trying to push the Russians into being more reasonable and to back off in their support of Assad but it is a bluff that was going to be called. I am really not sure whether Obama is bluffing or not. It is going to be somewhat problematic for Cameron if he isn't.
Apart from me you may recognise a few others! *innocent-face*. Think before posting: They makes us all look like wee-lickle-kittens when it comes to debating-skills....
I think Cameron and Hague are trying to push the Russians into being more reasonable and to back off in their support of Assad but it is a bluff that was going to be called. I am really not sure whether Obama is bluffing or not. It is going to be somewhat problematic for Cameron if he isn't.
I sincerely hope Hague and Cameron are bluffing - I want nothing to do with arming either side.
What I thought was rather silly re Afghanistan and Hammond was referring to it as our Vietnam. He may have been quoted out of context as I only saw a snippet - but its nothing like Vietnam.
In theory it's possible to have an agreed program for a minority government, which would include concessions to the LibDems, without letting LibDems into the cabinet. The problem with that is that they're going to be left out of both the planning and the implementation, so:
1) It's more likely the LibDems will sound like they'll support something at first, then change their minds under pressure. This happens a bit with the coalition and must annoy the hell out of the Tories, but it would be a whole lot worse if they weren't involved early on.
2) Labour would actually need to give the LibDems _more_ concessions on the substance of the legislation than if they were in coalition, since they won't be able to make more consensual, win-win tweaks on the implementation.
The alternative to both of those is a minority government without any particular agreement on what parliament would pass, probably lurching from crisis to crisis as everybody maneuvers for what happens when it breaks down and there's a new election. But in this situation that would be most likely to help the Tories, as the voters will tend to be unimpressed and will take it out on both Lib and Lab.
What I thought was rather silly re Afghanistan and Hammond was referring to it as our Vietnam. He may have been quoted out of context as I only saw a snippet - but its nothing like Vietnam.
I can see the analogy to the extent that we have had a very sharp lesson on the limitations of what our military forces can achieve, that superior technology and firepower does not always win, that the price of failure is high, that wars are expensive, that public support is needed to win wars and wars without public support carry a high political price.
Of course Vietnam was on a totally different scale and the social implications of draft soldiers going through that (as opposed to an all volunteer force) are radically different marking the US in ways that still play out today but I could see what he was getting at.
The government wouldn't let us run our report on data surveillance, so here are some pictures of penguins.
https://twitter.com/Ercanica/status/346139329296490496/photo/1
I was simply making the point that you shouldn't use PB Tory as a catch-all for right-of-centre posters because it is a tribal term and not just a shorthand for a political viewpoint. Which was a point you appeared not to understand.
I probably agree with only 30-40% of a typical Tory manifesto, just less of everyone else's. I could simply not vote, but as long as I can draw a distinction, however slight, between candidates, I tend to feel I should. I do tend to find a Tory government less malevolent than a Labour one - I am only grudgingly in favour of the Coalition government yet was virulently anti-Brown.
There is also a possibility of a Minority Labour govt proving surprisingly competent, and going for a majority to support their mandate in an early election (as per 64 and 75 I think)
The real problem is if a further election delivers a further hung parliament.
I think Cameron and Hague are trying to push the Russians into being more reasonable and to back off in their support of Assad but it is a bluff that was going to be called. I am really not sure whether Obama is bluffing or not. It is going to be somewhat problematic for Cameron if he isn't.
I presume it did start out as some sort of exercise in bluffing/negotiation to try and force Assad into concessions and start ratcheting down the supply of arms on both sides but it doesn't appear to have worked. There are still pre G8 talks so maybe there could be some progress. Doesn't look very likely right now though.
Cameron did seem to indicate a commons vote would happen before any such move which would be a get out clause of sorts. If he didn't have that vote then 'problematic' would be putting it lightly. We'll have to wait and see.
Surely the "new election in a year's time" is much harder to achieve with fixed term parliaments? OK they could attempt to repeal the Act but a minority government might not be able to, and it the opposition could sell it to the electorate as an act of pure self-interest. Surely that mitigates in favour of a more stable approach - either a coalition or supply-and-confidence deal.
As the represent a request/response (albeit AJAX one) scrapping them has probably drop the service-costs of this site. If - for every post - there were two "button_click" events* per posted-comment then it is highly unlikely that this site would survive under current funding.
But you smart folks know that, dontchya....
* One wonders how Vanilla handles edits? Is a "render" a view...?
Here is the link tweeted to me by the ONS on fathers day:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/further-parental-characteristics--england-and-wales/2011/sty-fathers.html
I presume it did start out as some sort of exercise in bluffing/negotiation to try and force Assad into concessions and start ratcheting down the supply of arms on both sides but it doesn't appear to have worked. There are still pre G8 talks so maybe there could be some progress. Doesn't look very likely right now though.
Cameron did seem to indicate a commons vote would happen before any such move which would be a get out clause of sorts. If he didn't have that vote then 'problematic' would be putting it lightly. We'll have to wait and see.
Cameron could not possibly have such a vote in the Commons unless he was sure to win. It would be a resigning matter. And I am not sure he would win right now.
So I think our contribution, if it comes to it, will be everything up to but below lethal weapons, such as armoured vehicles, mine detectors, body armour, communications etc etc with the US providing the teeth.
Personally I am with Danny Alexander on this. A long way from being persuaded but probably persuadable depending how the chips fall. The only thing I am completely against is any British or indeed western forces on the ground. Been there, got the T shirt and it is full of holes.
'Donside doddle' expected as SNP roll out big guns for by-election
LABOUR all but conceded defeat in the Aberdeen Donside by-election last night, as senior party sources said they were not expecting an upset in a seat with a 7000-vote SNP majority.
Bookmakers William Hill predicted a "Donside doddle" for the SNP's Mark McDonald, quoting odds of 33/1 on, compared to 10/1 for a Labour win, and all other parties at 150/1.
Labour pessimism was underscored by Johann Lamont's decision not to campaign in the city over the final weekend of the by-election. Labour's leader is not due there until Tuesday.
In contrast, SNP leader Alex Salmond and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon were yesterday in Donside, which the party hopes to retain following the death of MSP Brian Adam in April.
What the Fixed Term Act prevents in the case we're discussing is Labour running a minority government for a while, getting a bounce then calling a new election where they'll win seats of Lib and Con. At that point if it looks like that's going to happen, Lib and Con will get back together and form a new government themselves, and Ed Miliband will end up back on the opposition benches looking like a chump, waiting for someone to launch a leadership challenge against him.
Edited to add: Maybe Ed Miliband ending up back on the opposition benches looking like a chump, waiting for someone to launch a leadership challenge against him is Liam Byrne's master plan.
Really? He's been pushing the message that arming the rebels is a possibility and one he could definitely see himself agreeing with (which he'd have to do anyway for any bluff to work) but he's not exactly put everything on the line saying this is utterly vital to national security and absolutely must occur. (unless I've missed that kind of extreme posturing)
It only becomes a resigning matter if he starts running around with the whips telling his MPs that if he doesn't get what he want's it will be a resigning matter. (which might not be a threat he wants to make to those backbenchers to be honest) You're right that he doesn't look to have the numbers so if he didn't want it to get to a vote then he certainly shouldn't have indicated a vote is on the cards if he is dead set on arming the rebels.
So it could indeed come to backing down on arming them which avoids the vote altogether.