It's worth remembering that McDonnell said he and Corbyn would stand down if Labour lost the 2017 election. My guess is that they will actually only go when they feel there is someone from their wing of the party ready to step up and win a leadership election. I doubt that is the case right now.
Because you still need 10% of Labour MP's nominations to make a leadership contest, when the time does come it is likely to be Long Bailey or Pidcock carrying the true Corbynista flame. If it is an all woman contest, then you'd imagine that person would be up against Thornberry and possibly Yvette Cooper. I reckon it would be too close to call, with transfers being crucial. I doubt either LB or Pidcock are that transfer friendly.
The £ is genuinely soaring now. Up 3 cents in a day. Well well well.
More to the point, it's coming up to my go/no-go tripwires. If it crosses them (and I expect it will), I'll trade out of EUR/USD back into GBP. That will give me a high three-figure loss, although (due to an accounting quirk) it'll show up on my accounts as a three-figure profit.
Basically the amount traded out is registered at the worst exchange rate instead of the actual rates they were traded as, so the loss was absorbed some weeks ago. As it is traded back, the amounts revert to the actual exchange rate and - since the loss is far less than the maximum loss - it shows up as a profit.
Insurance coverage between now and Oct 31st will be covered by a bet on no-deal (now 4/1 on Paddy Power, lengthened from 5/2 a week ago. I won't come out of this smelling of roses, but I won't smell like shit either, which I am reliably informed is A Good Thing.
Isn't the trouble with that the same thing we had earlier this year - that there could be an extension followed by No Deal?
I wonder if this will mean more people turning out for Labour thus them holding onto many of the seats they won in 2017? If Corbyn is no longer a threat it removes an objection for some to voting Labour whilst he is leader!
Eh? He's only not a threat if he loses. Voting to make Labour win means he's still there.
Well if Labour are 20 odd percent in the polls i doubt he can win. I suspect in 2017 people were voting Labour tactically to block a big tory majority. It could happen again, if he is going some might conclude they can support Labour to stop the Tories...
A 2019 election was last backed at 1.78 on Betfair.
An election has to be a clear lay if there's a deal surely?
Priority will be to get the deal through, once through it will be job done now lets forget about politics for a bit and enjoy Christmas.
Remember he still won’t have a majority, and he will still probably lose a vote on the Queen’s Speech and Budget.
There again, he’ll be saying “I’m the man that secured a Brexit deal, but the opposition just voted down my proposals for two free owls for every home: we must have an election”. Not necessarily in Corbyn’s obvious interest to say “yes”.
It will have become impossible for any alternative Gvt to have a majority though, if he has secured a deal. Interesting times.
I expect that for Boris's Meaningful Vote any former Tories who vote with the government to endorse the deal will be allowed the whip back if they still want it. That will get him close to having his majority back once more.
But short enough to lose those votes. There again the likes of Soubry might have an incentive to sit on their hands regularly enough to keep him around while they wait for something to turn up. To be honest she might even mostly agree with his domestic agenda as, secretly, might a lot of the new LibDems.
I believe that ultimately the weakness of liberals is that they see politics as a conflict between ideologies, with people acting as their ideologies' mostly good-faith representatives. In reality, politics is a conflict between people (and their interests).
Perhaps this is me suffering that weakness, but I disagree. I think the irrationalists are quite few in numbers. The irrationalists comprise fascists, portion of those who self-describe as communist, and people whose political beliefs stem unfiltered from some kind of extremist religious beliefs: fundamentalist christians, muslims and jews are prominent examples in the west. Everybody else normally tries to ground their arguments in rationality: X is best because history/science shows us that Y. Their views are, in principle, falsifiable.
I am really heartened by the example of the collapse of the Labour party in Scotland. Not as a thing to be celebrated in itself -- that is subjective -- but in that it demonstrates that huge numbers of people are capable of abandoning a party over a single electoral cycle. That means those people are thinking. The 35% who switched from Labour to other parties between 2010 and 2015 is evidence of an absolute floor in the number of people willing to change their minds. Naturally, the churn will be even greater than that, since some people will have switched to Labour from other parties.
So basically the only rational people are secular, liberal Remainers apparently.
We also have fine singing voices, are tender lovers, and will make a sandwich afterwards. With sauce.
It's worth remembering that McDonnell said he and Corbyn would stand down if Labour lost the 2017 election. My guess is that they will actually only go when they feel there is someone from their wing of the party ready to step up and win a leadership election. I doubt that is the case right now.
Because you still need 10% of Labour MP's nominations to make a leadership contest, when the time does come it is likely to be Long Bailey or Pidcock carrying the true Corbynista flame. If it is an all woman contest, then you'd imagine that person would be up against Thornberry and possibly Yvette Cooper. I reckon it would be too close to call, with transfers being crucial. I doubt either LB or Pidcock are that transfer friendly.
This ties in, however, with all the rumours flying about, that Corbyn has had enough, he's 70 years old, he wants to retire to his allotment, where he will be lauded as the grand old man of British lefty politics, and wheeled out for his adorable commie wisdom on Question Time.
It's a tempting fate for someone keen to relax. He looks tired.
McDonnell is giving a clear steer to the Momentumites. Go for a woman. It has to be a woman.
I think he's right, it will be a woman. So that rules out the favourite, Keir Starmer. Next on the list is Rebecca Long Bailey. I just can't see it, she's too young and too obscure, and too unrehearsed.
Which means the third on the list is likely: Emily Thornberry.
Right now she is 10/1 which seems to be VALUE
Thornberry isn't a Momentum type though. They don't trust Thornberry. And Labour members are more than willing to put in their ideological preference over electability or competence.
I believe that ultimately the weakness of liberals is that they see politics as a conflict between ideologies, with people acting as their ideologies' mostly good-faith representatives. In reality, politics is a conflict between people (and their interests).
Perhaps this is me suffering that weakness, but I disagree. I think the irrationalists are quite few in numbers. The irrationalists comprise fascists, portion of those who self-describe as communist, and people whose political beliefs stem unfiltered from some kind of extremist religious beliefs: fundamentalist christians, muslims and jews are prominent examples in the west. Everybody else normally tries to ground their arguments in rationality: X is best because history/science shows us that Y. Their views are, in principle, falsifiable.
I am really heartened by the example of the collapse of the Labour party in Scotland. Not as a thing to be celebrated in itself -- that is subjective -- but in that it demonstrates that huge numbers of people are capable of abandoning a party over a single electoral cycle. That means those people are thinking. The 35% who switched from Labour to other parties between 2010 and 2015 is evidence of an absolute floor in the number of people willing to change their minds. Naturally, the churn will be even greater than that, since some people will have switched to Labour from other parties.
I think that the voting system in Scotland has a large part to play in that as it made it safe to vote for a third party without that risking the Tories winning ona split vote. Then once Holyrood elections showed what was possible the FPTP election to Westminster could follow suit.
A change to a voting system that would allow more parties to be represented would, I think, help our political debate.
Nothing better illustrates who is pulling Corbyn's strings than the fact that that person is feels able to announce this with impunity.
In a normal political party, how could the announcement of the circumstances in which a party leader would step down be a matter for anyone other than the leader to announce?
McDonnell is giving a clear steer to the Momentumites. Go for a woman. It has to be a woman.
I think he's right, it will be a woman. So that rules out the favourite, Keir Starmer. Next on the list is Rebecca Long Bailey. I just can't see it, she's too young and too obscure, and too unrehearsed.
Which means the third on the list is likely: Emily Thornberry.
Right now she is 10/1 which seems to be VALUE
Thornberry isn't a Momentum type though. They don't trust Thornberry. And Labour members are more than willing to put in their ideological preference over electability or competence.
Perhaps. If so, that's fine by me, I don't think Pidcock or Long Bailey are remotely electable. They would continue Labour's decline.
Thornberry, however, can appeal to centrists, soft Tories, and liberal Remainers, she's a real threat and I reckon she'd win the next GE but one.
McDonnell is giving a clear steer to the Momentumites. Go for a woman. It has to be a woman.
I think he's right, it will be a woman. So that rules out the favourite, Keir Starmer. Next on the list is Rebecca Long Bailey. I just can't see it, she's too young and too obscure, and too unrehearsed.
Which means the third on the list is likely: Emily Thornberry.
Right now she is 10/1 which seems to be VALUE
Possibly but she is in real danger in Islington, the LDs were within 8% in 2010 and won at the Euros. Angela Rayner is a better bet, she will hold comfortably in greater Manchester
Thornberry is a convinced and plausible Remainer. She's safe in N1.
Possibly the worst bet anyone on here has ever had was my £25 at 100/1 that I win that seat for UKIP in 2015, only to not bother going through with being a candidate about a week later
Just for info the Telegraph say they have seen a poll conducted for the Tory Party presented at conference. Done by Comres, 2050 respondents.
Summary figure at end is the + or - for a maj.
Leave with deal after extension -14 Leave with no deal after extension -18 Revoking article 50 remain in EU Labour -39 short Leave with deal on 31st +118 Leave no deal on 31st +114
So Brexit Deal or No Deal on 31st October remains the best position for the Tories and if they revoke Corbyn likely becomes PM
Until it actually happens, of course. Then, when it becomes clear that it's still not over, that - if a Deal - we're in a fuzzy "transitional period" where the unknown future state still needs to be negotiated and nothing's actually changed and Oh God we're still talking about Brexit and now instead of "What happens on the NI Border when the A50 period runs out/what happens to supply chains when the A50 period runs out/what sort of relationship do we have when the A50 period runs out, we're asking exactly the same questions but substituting "transition" for A50, but we have less legal sway and less power as we don't have Revoke in out back pocket - what then?
Or with No Deal, which leaves us just as above, but with everything on fire and needing unanimous agreement with 27 countries.
I'm not completely convinced that the extrapolation and question fully take that on board...
isam: "Possibly the worst bet anyone on here has ever had was my £25 at 100/1 that I win that seat for UKIP in 2015, only to not bother going through with being a candidate about a week later"
Ha ha - truly a crap bet.
One would hope that you had some inside knowledge.
isam: "Possibly the worst bet anyone on here has ever had was my £25 at 100/1 that I win that seat for UKIP in 2015, only to not bother going through with being a candidate about a week later"
Ha ha - truly a crap bet.
One would hope that you had some inside knowledge.
I know! Ridiculous
I didn’t even keep the slip for posterity. I was also on oddschecker at 200/1 to be next UKIP leader with Ladbrokes... didn’t screenshot it 🙁
McDonnell is giving a clear steer to the Momentumites. Go for a woman. It has to be a woman.
I think he's right, it will be a woman. So that rules out the favourite, Keir Starmer. Next on the list is Rebecca Long Bailey. I just can't see it, she's too young and too obscure, and too unrehearsed.
Which means the third on the list is likely: Emily Thornberry.
Right now she is 10/1 which seems to be VALUE
Possibly but she is in real danger in Islington, the LDs were within 8% in 2010 and won at the Euros. Angela Rayner is a better bet, she will hold comfortably in greater Manchester
Thornberry is a convinced and plausible Remainer. She's safe in N1.
Possibly the worst bet anyone on here has ever had was my £25 at 100/1 that I win that seat for UKIP in 2015, only to not bother going through with being a candidate about a week later
Arndale attack may be terrorism. Been a while with terrorism rather than gang violence for stabbings it seems.
Evil either way.
Sky reporting North West Counter Terrorist commander leading investigation.
From the footage of the suspect on social media, he looks too old to be in a teenage wannabe hard man gang.
Thankfully, GMP were on the scene instantly. Luckily, XR don't know where the north of England is, so the police weren't distracted by Crispins and Tabithas supergluing themselves to the front of a tram.
The fact they immediately said it was a 40 year old man makes me think they might be somebody already on their radar.
As others have pointed out, the suspect in the video rather confuses matters by having a black face and a white leg. So it may be the first attack that is motivated by Muslim terrorism and white supremacism at the same time.
A Caucasian Muslim white supremacist Islamist is theoretically possible.
The £ is genuinely soaring now. Up 3 cents in a day. Well well well.
More to the point, it's coming up to my go/no-go tripwires. If it crosses them (and I expect it will), I'll trade out of EUR/USD back into GBP. That will give me a high three-figure loss, although (due to an accounting quirk) it'll show up on my accounts as a three-figure profit.
Basically the amount traded out is registered at the worst exchange rate instead of the actual rates they were traded as, so the loss was absorbed some weeks ago. As it is traded back, the amounts revert to the actual exchange rate and - since the loss is far less than the maximum loss - it shows up as a profit.
Insurance coverage between now and Oct 31st will be covered by a bet on no-deal (now 4/1 on Paddy Power, lengthened from 5/2 a week ago. I won't come out of this smelling of roses, but I won't smell like shit either, which I am reliably informed is A Good Thing.
Isn't the trouble with that the same thing we had earlier this year - that there could be an extension followed by No Deal?
That's what the Paddy Power bet is for: to cover that eventuality. However you do raise a valid point: when does one trade out? I am prone to indecision so my tripwires (thresholds, whatever) were designed to reduce stress by predeciding. Since at some point a decision must be made, it seems wise to stick to that.
IIRC currency trading is flat over the weekend, so I have about 60hours to make a decision. I will keep you appraised.
McDonnell is giving a clear steer to the Momentumites. Go for a woman. It has to be a woman.
I think he's right, it will be a woman. So that rules out the favourite, Keir Starmer. Next on the list is Rebecca Long Bailey. I just can't see it, she's too young and too obscure, and too unrehearsed.
Which means the third on the list is likely: Emily Thornberry.
Right now she is 10/1 which seems to be VALUE
Possibly but she is in real danger in Islington, the LDs were within 8% in 2010 and won at the Euros. Angela Rayner is a better bet, she will hold comfortably in greater Manchester
Thornberry is a convinced and plausible Remainer. She's safe in N1.
Yep. Spot on. It’s Europhilia Uber Alles down here.
Arndale attack may be terrorism. Been a while with terrorism rather than gang violence for stabbings it seems.
Evil either way.
Sky reporting North West Counter Terrorist commander leading investigation.
From the footage of the suspect on social media, he looks too old to be in a teenage wannabe hard man gang.
Thankfully, GMP were on the scene instantly. Luckily, XR don't know where the north of England is, so the police weren't distracted by Crispins and Tabithas supergluing themselves to the front of a tram.
The fact they immediately said it was a 40 year old man makes me think they might be somebody already on their radar.
As others have pointed out, the suspect in the video rather confuses matters by having a black face and a white leg. So it may be the first attack that is motivated by Muslim terrorism and white supremacism at the same time.
Massive incentive to vote tactically anti-Labour I reckon.
Indeed but all it does is makes Richard Burgon's coronation inevitable.
John McDonnell argues that it must be a woman. Is Richard Burgon willing to go that far to become Labour leader?
It all points to Thornberry.
I don't actually know alot abut her.
Is she "nationalise all pencil manufacturers" or more realistic and attuned to how the world actually works?
Well she despises the working class so she is the future direction of what is laughingly called the Labour Party. Perhaps she will change it to the “Vote for us you disgusting oiks” party?
Comments
Because you still need 10% of Labour MP's nominations to make a leadership contest, when the time does come it is likely to be Long Bailey or Pidcock carrying the true Corbynista flame. If it is an all woman contest, then you'd imagine that person would be up against Thornberry and possibly Yvette Cooper. I reckon it would be too close to call, with transfers being crucial. I doubt either LB or Pidcock are that transfer friendly.
It's a tempting fate for someone keen to relax. He looks tired.
A change to a voting system that would allow more parties to be represented would, I think, help our political debate.
https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1182230603741253633
It was the Benn act what did it!
It was the imposition of a deadline that did it!
Chicken, meet egg.
In a normal political party, how could the announcement of the circumstances in which a party leader would step down be a matter for anyone other than the leader to announce?
Thornberry, however, can appeal to centrists, soft Tories, and liberal Remainers, she's a real threat and I reckon she'd win the next GE but one.
Get Brexit done, straight in to a GE, see the back of JC, get back to normality.
Then, when it becomes clear that it's still not over, that - if a Deal - we're in a fuzzy "transitional period" where the unknown future state still needs to be negotiated and nothing's actually changed and Oh God we're still talking about Brexit and now instead of "What happens on the NI Border when the A50 period runs out/what happens to supply chains when the A50 period runs out/what sort of relationship do we have when the A50 period runs out, we're asking exactly the same questions but substituting "transition" for A50, but we have less legal sway and less power as we don't have Revoke in out back pocket - what then?
Or with No Deal, which leaves us just as above, but with everything on fire and needing unanimous agreement with 27 countries.
I'm not completely convinced that the extrapolation and question fully take that on board...
Ha ha - truly a crap bet.
One would hope that you had some inside knowledge.
I didn’t even keep the slip for posterity. I was also on oddschecker at 200/1 to be next UKIP leader with Ladbrokes... didn’t screenshot it 🙁
IIRC currency trading is flat over the weekend, so I have about 60hours to make a decision. I will keep you appraised.
Perhaps she will change it to the “Vote for us you disgusting oiks” party?
Was as high as 6.5ish not long ago.