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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Review 2017 – how the parties have performed
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Review 2017 – how the parties have performed
To describe 2017 as a year of two halves would be absolutely correct, as the general election held on June 8th marked a distinct dividing line not only at Westminster (between a Conservative majority of 12 and no majority) but also in local by-elections with the electoral pendulum swinging rapidly from one side to the other and so therefore it is best to look at the year before and after the general election
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Dr-FauxSuks mob ahead of some plastic 'Yorkshire' team (from Scotland). Early-days yet.
FPT - if only HMRC would do more on tax dodging:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5234597/gary-lineker-and-david-beckham-lose-court-battle-claim-back-480million-tax/
With UKIP collapse and a quiet LD recovery.
In that, I include this year's county council elections which is in my view the pivot point of the year.
I recall mentioning to a local Labour bigwig at my county council election count that John Claude Juncker was Theresa May's greatest ally. It was his interfering comments in the county council election polling week, played on effectively by Mrs May, that had driven Conservatives out to vote.
I said to the Labour bigwig that he needed to get Labour HQ to get on the blower to Juncker and tell him to keep his mouth shut.
Whether they did or not, JCJ became a trappist for the rest of the General Election campaign while Mrs May along with her advisers took all the wrong messages from the county council election results with all that flowed from that.
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/947122561002983425
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-42512023
Sceptics will argue that Osborne now has too much bad blood with former colleagues, that the editor of a newspaper won't ever make it to Number Ten. But in an era when a reality TV star can become president of the US, anything is possible. And if the political comeback doesn't work, he's always got his media career. There are even whispers that there's one other newspaper he would like to run, a paper where he reportedly once spent an evening after the 2010 election sitting on the editorial "backbench" alongside its editor, Paul Dacre. That's right: the Daily Mail.
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/george-osborne-westminster-comeback
But if it ceases to seem inevitable for any reason, there will be a tipping point and sentiment could quickly change. Catalysts could be a big fallout in the Cabinet, or a major blockage by the HoL, or an intervention by Macron (please stay), or serious FTA problems.
In seat terms though it is interesting that the biggest gains from both the Tories and UKIP have been by the LDs rather than UKIP taking the year as a whole and it will be interesting to see if that continues next year especially as the LDs have more scope for growth in London and are leading the Opposition to local plans.
If you did a scatter chart, with last twelve month share price performances on one axis, and forward three year economic growth on the other, I suspect you'd see (at best) zero correlation, and it's quite possible you'd see a negative one. Stock prices (and unemployment too) tend to be lagging indicators. So, Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Greece, the UK and the US in 2007 would have been in rude health on these measures.
The big issue the UK has as an economy is that we've gone from major net creditors to the world (i.e., they owed us money), to being debtors.
This has happened because we've run a treble deficit: our government has spent more than it's brought in; the people spend more than they earn; and we import more from abroad than we export.
None of these things have anything at all do with Brexit.
Countries who have had pretty awful economic slowdowns typically have two or three of those deficits. Greece, Spain and Ireland in 2007/8 ran treble deficits. (Although at least Spain and Ireland had very low government debt-to-GDP, which we do not.)
We do have the distinct advantage of not being in the Euro. We also have better demographics than, for example, Italy.
But the future economic indicators for the UK are flashing at least yellow, and possibly red. Worse, politicians are so determined to avoid any risk of a Brexit slowdown that they are allowing inbalances to grow. This means that when the inevitable recession comes, it will likely be extremely painful.
The bump in Brexit support after the interim deal actually suggests there is a bigger latent majority for Brexit, which is held down by them thinking the negotiations are being screwed up.
Is that possible? Yes.
Is that - despite all my negativity about the British economy - likely? No.
Isn't it also the case that a lot of this is the flip side of foreigners wanting to invest in the UK?
Besides the information from the Australians, the investigation was also propelled by intelligence from other friendly governments, including the British and Dutch.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html
But net household indebtedness, despite improving significantly between 2010 and 2014, has not. Between the end of Q2 2014 (it's post crisis low) and Q2 2017 (the latest numbers we have available), unsecured personal debt has increased 25%. As a percentage of income, we're now only just below the levels of 2007.
I think the OECD gross savings rate data makes the point that we are spending above our means: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS?year_high_desc=true
The good news is we're ahead of Greece (just). But we're miles behind everyone else, and our rate has continued to fall and to fall and to fall.
Desperate, much?
https://twitter.com/LordAshcroft/status/947154054635053056
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/946669644621996034
Denmark: +47
Sweden: +41
Germany: +34
Finland: +31
France: +1
The trouble is that EU membership isn't a trivial side issue. Just about any national policy you care to mention is affected one way or another by what is happening elsewhere on the continent we live on. Giving up our influence might not sound too drastic in the abstract. When it gets down to specific cases it will look a lot less sensible.
For The Libdems it was a Year of 3 halves :
a slow rise to around 20% in April
a collapse to 8% in early July
& a rapid rise to maybe 21% now.
I make no predictions as to what happens next.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/andrew-adonis-theresa-may-eu-resignation-rejoin-brexit-a8134671.html
Helpfully 2nd vote / abandon Brexit entirely got about the same number of responses, so you can double the numbers if you want a full picture of "no Brexit"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/asian-embassies-cut-by-boris-johnson-to-fund-eu-diplomats-gl72m0gh7
Edit: some of the other results show a worryingly stark generational gap. Two nations, really.
Spot on.
The tories need to apologize to this chap and beg him to come back on board.
http://www.nickpalmer.org.uk/
"This Account Has Been Suspended.
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible."
Government needs people who can offer solutions to problems, any idiot can point out the problems themselves.
Sir, I salute the most awesome post in the history of trolling.
That's even better than my suggestion that Labour should bring back Blair.
Let's say we increase supply through more building, lower demand by cutting immigration, and therefore reduce the price of housing by 30%. This makes it much easier for millennials to end up home owners, which is good.
But it also results in dramatically lower labour mobility, as people with negative equity can no longer move house. It also means that people up their savings rate to compensate for no longer having as much equity in their home. This would result in a significant reduction in the level of aggregate demand, likely tipping the economy into recession.
Gordon Brown and George Osborne made a terrible mess of the UK economy. It will likely take another decade, and a Chancellor of the caliber of Howe, Lawson or Clarke, to turn it back around.
https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto
Page 65/66: "An ageing society" ... was a good start.
*I don't claim to have succeeded yet.
Is it Christmas again already?
My local election prediction for 2018 is that the Kippers will lose every seat they are defending in May, just like last time.
I'd rather buy a house for say 200k at 3% interest than 100k at 15% interest. The money I'm losing is the interest.