politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » This week’s PB/Polling Matters podcasts on Northern Ireland Assembly election fallout, Labour leadership polling, and budget reaction
This week’s episode of the PB/Polling Matters podcast is split into two parts:
Read the full story here
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A £240 hike to NI will be the least of their worries
https://twitter.com/rafaelbehr/status/839505906891116544
Nice one Phil!
Of course this won't make any difference in the short or medium term as there's no opposition but it does tell us who this government's priorities are with...
The consequences are electoral - if you break pledge without adequate explanations, or due to incompetence, you will eventually be made to suffer for it, not least when people don't believe you next time. That seems an appropriate reaction to changing policy, rather than the idea a new pm needs to fight on a new manifesto, particularly as it might be only marginally different. Logically. People react in strange ways.
* It doesn't, it's just the employee is the employer. Regular employers have to provision for in work benefit costs for their employees just the same. If an employee becomes sick and has to be paid SSP that money doesn't arise from thin air.
Seems like he should be laid harder than a discount prostitute, no? Certainly not the 5s or so to win the thing on Betfair.
http://www.politico.eu/article/uk-faces-e2-billion-eu-payment-for-china-fraud-trade/
With Nicola Sturgeon potentially about to call a second independence referendum, despite little movement in the polls since 2014, pundits are already speculating about who could replace her if her gambit fails and she steps down.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15142866.Alex_Salmond_hints_that_he_could_return_to_lead_the_SNP_for_a_third_time/
As predicted by Mr Daisley a fortnight ago:
These strange behaviours, and his undisguised broadside against the Scottish Government’s initial stance on business rates, might lead the more suspicious to wonder if he’s on manoeuvres. Nicola Sturgeon’s grip on power is still firm but not as iron-tight as it was mere months ago. The First Minister has antsy activists to placate, the hardliners who dominate her party’s membership rolls and don’t want a second independence referendum tomorrow so much as a unilateral declaration of independence yesterday. How much longer can she hold them at bay? At what point do the rock star rallies and the smiley selfies begin to lose their lustre? The impatient Mr Salmond would surely be more precipitous in the timing of a referendum do-over.
https://stephendaisley.com/2017/02/25/salmonds-national-party/
Failing to attract a single voter with their budget proposals and ....
losing hundreds of thousands of previously solid Tory voters by breaking election promises?
Probably the most inept Budget Statement in living memory - and I say that as a Tory!
To Corbyn?
Of course the 83% on PAYE will see the impacts of higher personal allowances on lower tax take.....
After the most inept Budget Statement in living memory?
Surely not.....
***** Betting Post *****
So disappointed am I by today's simply awful anti-entrepreneurial budget, that I've wagered significantly on Labour winning the most seats at the next GE.
The disparity between the odds on offer is surprising. While the likes of Paddy Power, Marathon, etc go 4.0, those nice folk at Bet365 price this bet at 5.5, aka 9/2.
I feel sure that sometime over the next 3 yrs and 2 months,Labour's odds will be a great deal shorter than this. Indeed, the electorate's relief were they to choose a centre-left leader to replace Corbyn should in my view put them within spitting distance of the Tories.
On the point of substance, barring black swans, yes, Labour's odds are likely to shorten substantially between now and 2020 - when they replace Corbyn, for example, they're almost guaranteed a bounce - even if the selectorate ultimately pick someone as useless....
Except that anyone who heard the LBC Salmond phone in as I did) would laugh at the Herald's ridiculous interpretation.
Salmond and Sturgeon are and have been for thirteen years a umbilical double act. Clowns like ex Tory press officer Daisley have no idea whatsoever about the SNP and nor does the current Tory press office as represented by you Carlotta.
Salmond is one of the few leaders who left office with astronomical positive approval ratings (plus 35 on MORI). He is the class act of post war Scottish politics and one of the top three of British politics.
What you should take from Salmond's recent statements is clear. Unless Theresa May agrees to Sturgeon's compromise proposal then Sturgeon will call Indy Ref 2 at the SNP Conference next weekend.
If May turns it down the the SNP will win big and the Scottish Tories will be sitting ducks. If she accepts it then the SNP have an even money chance of winning the big prize.
Life is about to get very interesting.
You could imagine the anguished howls as they realised: “They’ve only given us more money to spend — those evil Tory blighters.”
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/695074/you-could-almost-hear-the-gnashing-of-teeth-from-the-snp-benches-at-westminster-on-budget-day/
As for most inept, so far the NI detail is the only detail that seems to have gained any traction, so even if it is bad and is u-turned, or bad but kept, certainly not the most inept total budget.
Its a pretty bland budget but when there would have been little thanks for a giveaway it definitely indicates no GE for this year (always unlikely in my opinion). "spreadsheet" Hammond tends to reflect this, his time at MOD was on numbers and budget nudges.
All in all, I think it shows the Autumn Budget process has already begun (ie Spring one just minor amendments....until the NIC row) - whether Hammond has built a fanbase remains to be seen, he's different from his predecessor alright.
Whilst the nationalist hardcore will no doubt appreciate such an approach, the rest of us just wish we had a government more interested in acting than agitating.
https://whytepaper.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/ways-and-means/amp/
Is that a "yes" hen?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/09/nicola-sturgeon-autumn-2018-common-sense-time-second-independence/
Nicola Sturgeon's interview was recorded for the BBC documentary Brexit:Britain's Biggest Deal - to be broadcast on BBC Two at 21:00 and on BBC Two Scotland at 23:15 on Thursday.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39213767
It is disruptive, but so is leaving the EU, and the english voted for the latter.
I cannot see the self-employed getting much sympathy, especially when they use phrases to describe the measures such as 'deeply offensive', as someone did on the radio this morning.
It's a test for May and Hammond - will they bottle it given the somewhat negative headlines?
I thought the budget yesterday was the measure of the man. Dull and steady, spreadsheet Phil. He had a lot of additional money to play with given that the deficit was coming in below Osborne's target let alone his own target in November.
And he chose to spend the bare minimum of it on the points of greatest pressure. The OBR also scaled back future growth (beyond this year thankfully) to very cautious levels. That was probably sensible given the uncertainties we face but it was hardly exciting and it meant much of the improvement in public finances stayed under the table. As you might expect at this point in the electoral cycle really.
George Osborne certainly had his faults but his intuitive political gut instinct would have stopped him far short from presenting a budget on anything remotely on the scale of the Tory-bashing version we heard yesterday.
what happens if the demographics work the same as everywhere else ie the older you get the less radical you become ? So all those young active people start to worry more about the security of their pensions and social care and gradually shift their views.
The NIC furore is overdone and i say that as somebody who will be affected.
The cut in the free dividend amount is more serious as this will affect owners of small businesses far more.
Moreover they increased pensions for the self employed by £1800 yesterday. Why arent people talking about that?
I had no real problem with that, it was necessary and the alternative would have been true austerity with completely unacceptable cuts in public spending, something Osborne largely avoided. But yesterday was a mere pinprick by comparison.
Andrew Wilson, who is leading an SNP review updating the case for independence, admitted North Sea income was “baked into” spending plans, rather than treated as a windfall.
The mantra “oil is a bonus” was a key part of the Yes campaign in 2014, and was used to rebut criticism that an independent Scotland would be overly reliant on a volatile industry.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15137800.Salmond_was_wrong_on__oil_is_a_bonus__claim__SNP_review_chief_admits/
It isn't a new tax, it is a rate change.
The economy isn't weakening.
It is progressive.
Amazing that Labour are so high in the polls, tbh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidential_election,_2017
Well said.
This is silly columnists being martyrish.
Im predicting SO will be a conservative councillor by 2020 :-)
Mr. Palmer, huzzah!
Damned shame that limpetine imbecile Fillon's hanging around, though.
Now the reality is that Scotland has a substantially larger deficit than the rest of the UK. Independence would undoubtedly mean fewer doctors and nurses, less childcare and higher taxes. If you think that Independence is the most important thing this is a price worth paying and the argument is that in the long run we would do better making our own decisions. But it is a much, much harder sell to those who are more indifferent. Sturgeon knows this and will avoid a second Indyref if she can until the winds are set fairer.
Poor opposition, poor government
And if he's right about being 30kmh (about 20mph) down on every straight, you can see why.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39212377
Im still sceptical his supporters will turn out in the numbers he needs
too many facebook\twitter types in the mix
Much depends on how brexit goes.
You are making the error that 1) history repeats itself and 2) staying in the UK is the conservative option. Could be independence and joining the EU is seen as the conservative option. As i said the EU referendum outcome was a rejection of the conservative/status quo position
It still strikes me as a silly, complicated and unfair tax (marginal rates go over 50% between £100-£120k)- it'd be far easier to just have the 45p rate kick in at £100k
The Council of Europe wants an Irish Language Act. I can see Sammy Wilson going purple from my kitchen.