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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Back to basics. Poor administration and its consequences
How Covid-Alert are you? Or, put another way, without checking, can you tell me what the current Covid Alert Level is? And without checking, can you tell me what that alert level means? I expect that most of you will have proven unalert by that measure.*
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The bigger question for me is around philosophy. People are still getting COVID-19 and some are still dying horrible deaths. But the numbers of the latter are small and the media is bored.
Now, that grade A numpty on LBC James O’Brien told one listener in favour of sending kids to school that he’d be responsible if anyone died as a result.
Eventually there will be a fatality relating to the spread of the virus in a school, will that be one too many?
It never got off the runway.
The new system is: watch what Scotland is doing; wait a week during which ministers can build the suspense by denying or trashing the Scottish approach; do the same.
And people in general seem to be getting about a bit more.
The SNP would not be anywhere near as popular without the Tories as a foil. It has been the cover for a lot of other failures.
It is Johnson's malevolent incompetence, as outlined in the header, that will end the United Kingdom.
The end of Transition is set to be a trainwreck too. What else can we expect?
https://twitter.com/QanonAnonymous/status/1299873961828741120?s=09
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1299292809573343232?s=09
IHT particularly in the frame, apparently. What with that and the proposed planning reforms I expect the party shortly to fissure along shire tory vs neo Trump bojoist lines as badly as labour fissured under Corbyn. Brexit developments won't be the principal casus belli because shortly everybody will have given up pretending Brexit is anything other than a clusterfuck (though it may be a pretext).
That's wrong about the nature of conspiracy theories though and is rather silly in its understanding of conspiracy theories - which go against the official version of events by claiming there's a hidden set of facts and links that only those positing the theory understand and have access to that shows the official version of events to be a grand conspiracy and cover-up. In the case of Putin, we know he's hostile to western governments and acts in a way contrary to our interests, because he's said so and acted that way, and our own governments have said so. The official version is that he's a bad actor - then there's speculation over its extent, its effects, whether we are on top of the threat, and if we're not, the reasons why.
In the case of conspiracy theories, whether it's QAnon, the moon landings, 9/11 trutherism, Kennedy's death, Dan Brown nonsense, white replacement or whatever, what unites them and diffrentiates them from ordinary political belief is that they require you to replace one official set of broadly agreed facts and replace them with another conspiracist one. To believe the moon landings were faked, you need to believe thousands of people were in on it and never talked. Same with QAnon, trutherism, Kennedy being killed by the CIA, a Jesus bloodline, or 'white genocide'. It's not an interpretation of the facts, it's a rejection of one set for another.
And their growth is fascinating and worrying for that reason. It's not one person viewing the EU, for example, as benign and another as malign, based on their views of stuff they broadly agree happened but value and interpret differently. It's people living on entirely different mental planets. I think ultimately, their growth is about social media/online, whose effects on our minds we still don't fully understand.
If the Brexiteers are not happy, they will demand the most Brexitist of all.
Traditionally the Tories love a winner. And that goes above anything else.
He was hailed a genius.
Why not try the same thing again?
To be fair, if the only delay is to the collecting of tarrifs at ports then that’s not a problem. The problems are continuing to pay into the EU budget, FoM and inability to make other trade deals.
So the idea of Boris the Showman was acceptable.
If a barebones deal with a six months standstill "implementation" period was agreed in November, that would not allow enough time for a contest.
All major parties now have such longwinded leadership contests that a rapid succession in a crisis is very hard to manage. Imagine how the Norway debate would end now.
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1299811051924578304?s=09
Betting PostGood morning, everyone.
F1: pre-race ramble: https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/08/belgium-pre-race-2020.html
Backed Bottas each way to win 7.5 (8 with boost), third the odds top 2. Surprised by the narrow gap in Q3 but I'm taking the view that he underperformed in that section and the car is just a step ahead of the field.
Also backed Grosjean to not be classified at 3.25, and Ricciardo likewise at 5 (he had technical gremlins during qualifying), splitting one stake evenly between them.
I’m also on No Safety Car at 3.25 (Betfair exchange). They made extensive use of the VSC in the support races yesterday, it looks as if they don’t want to use the full SC unless they really have to, due to the 7km length of the circuit. Against that is the possibility of rain, which is always on the mind at this circuit.
Despite Labour’s new leader bounce/end of Corbynism, a record breaking fall in GDP, a pandemic response that has (to put it politely) failed to prevent tens of thousands of deaths and an apparent impending No Deal Brexit, 40% still say they’d vote for Johnson’s Conservatives. In a no consequence polling survey years from an election.
Yet on here it’s hard to find anyone (HYFUD aside) with a good word to say about the PM/govt. I suspect there’s going to be a lot of disappointed PBers in 2024 if this is any indication of a floor in support.
The Biden premium has shortened: you can get a bigger price on Biden to win than on the Democrats, with the difference covering the risk Biden withdraws before November; as such, the premium should fall as we get closer to the election (it is .03 now, down from .05 throughout last week).
Biden 1.92
Dem 1.89
Trump 2.12
Rep 2.12
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/12/brexit-full-border-controls-on-goods-entering-uk-will-not-apply-until-july-2021
Yes there is a growing band of frustrated Tories, but there is at least the same number of "Boris 'til I die" loyalist posters too.
"Missiles disguised with holograms to look like planes" is not a difference of opinion.
The Government won't want to go after income tax, NI and VAT - too controversial, too obvious - with the caveat that they might scrap the preferential NI rate currently enjoyed by the self-employed, which is something that Sunak has hinted at in the past. They daren't touch the stickbangers, of course, so we are stuck with the wretched triple lock for the foreseeable. Hiking corporation tax at the same time as trying to get us through Brexit might be considered brave, in the Sir Humphrey sense.
Thus, the most obvious targets are tax reliefs enjoyed by the working age population. The prime candidate is a big Brown-style raid on pensions, this time normalising reliefs at the basic rate for all contributions. The FT was suggesting earlier in the year that CGT might be rounded up to a flat rate of 28% for all assets, and my husband was also speculating just yesterday that the annual contribution limit for ISAs might be cut in half.
Of course, the most radical measure would be to go all out with a wealth tax and pocket a one-off levy on all assets - savings, pensions, shares, property, the lot - which could potentially recoup the cost of all the extra borrowing taken out during the Plague. But I think it really would take a Corbyn Government to dare to try something like that!
In replies someone comments that Trump autographs on eBay start at $6.50....
The man is a shameless sociopath. And we are all worrying about Biden and the early onset of dementia.
1. The 5 point scale was a joke from the start. Shagger announced we were at 3.5 on a 5 point scale. No wonder they have rarely mentioned it again
2. The government since admitted they are making the decisions based on science as opposed to following the science. Hence no need for a science based scale
3. This government wouldn't know how to properly manage such a scale anyway. So they abandoned it.
4. As for Brexit, whilst I know the government are indifferent towards the impact of no deal in public, in private they would have to be masochistic on an epic scale. So as with the Irish Sea border I expect Shagger will simply capitulate and announce it as a success. Its not as if Brexiteers know what Brexit is or even read the legislation as IDS revealed. So do a deal to for the *right* to have babies even if we haven't procured the box for the foetus to gestate in. And simply lie about it. The cabinet are good at lying.
Of course, stickbangers are also a growing proportion of the electorate, they vote religiously, and they're the bedrock of the Government's support, so they almost invariably get what they want. As ever, the bills are all passed down the age pyramid. The younger you are, the shittier the deal.
If he can't, I am moving towards Hunt or Raab.
A Government drive to encourage millions of people working at home to go back to the office has been put on ice over concerns of a spike in coronavirus cases, the Telegraph can disclose.
Amid signs of confusion at the heart of Cabinet, ministers are understood to have rowed back on plans to launch a major campaign to urge office workers to return to their desks and start commuting again.
They fear any mass return could send infections soaring, and threaten the planned return of thousands of children to school over the next few weeks.
Mr. Sandpit, I hope it doesn't rain, unless that leads to Ricciardo and Grosjean both failing to be classified.
I do have one issue with your analysis. We, the great unwashed (a nod to Dura Ace's Boris bathwater post) wouldn't know a bad deal if it slapped us in the face. However, Messrs François, Davis, Bridgen, Bone, Cash and Chope may have something to say about a second rate BINO deal, unless they are as dull as the rest of us. And surely Nige will see through the smoke and mirrors.
It might destroy his reputation with hard line Brexiteers but get admiration from many others.Behind the rhetoric how many Tory MP's are really hardline Brexiteers as opposed to careerists?
No more than 20 voted against Theresa Mays 3rd exit bill excluding hardline Tory remainers who also voted against it.Of course some of the new 'Red Wall' MPs may be hardliners too but they may also be pragmatists who recognise following the Corvid Chaos not being in the Single Market could destroy many small businesses
From the same paper, someone senior in No 10 has been telling colleagues they're bored of Covid. Wonder who?
CasinoRoyale may not like Johnson, but he is not in the Lib/Lab pact
BluestBlue - the name says it all
And of course, from North Wales, the ever loyal Big_G ...
(There are a few more recent bots posters but I cannot remember their handles)
I think something like that is likely.
If Johnson's decision making has been weakened by illness, at what point to the men and women in white coats advise him to step away from office. It is going to be hard for someone who has reached the top of the greasy pole, to stand down.
They're actually both getting very similar advice and doing pretty similar things. But the SNP are far better at leaking and acting on it first and at the politics, like making wedge issues out of it.
Google Coronavirus deaths, lockdown, exam fiasco, quarantine and Barnard's Castle. I kid you not, it has been awful!
Thus, if sufficient numbers of kids can be removed from buses, no problem. Will that be practical everywhere? I've no idea, but we ought to know by the end of the week, of course.
He’d take some stick, but the idea that Johnson will get booted for agreeing a three month transition to a new customs regime is absurd.
The sadomasochists will complain, of course.
It wasnt a devastating argument ender when used to push Brexit, and isnt a devastating argument ender when used to criticise Brexit.
By any sensible measure we are now edging down towards 2 with approximately 1000 new cases a day in a country of 65m despite a much more proactive testing regime than we had in the early months where it was reasonable to assume that the true number of cases was a significant multiple of the number found. This, however, would send the wrong message, which is just another illustration of the inadequacy of the scale.
Alastair is right to query the competence of those who ever thought this was a good idea. Similarly, the algorithm for education was just so stupid that the only remarkable thing is not the odd resignation but that so many remain in post.
Our Ministers have not shone in either example but those who retain a delusion that we have a world beating or even competent civil service really need to give themselves a shake. People moan about the number of senior civil servants who are being squeezed out and blame Dom because most things do seem to come back to him eventually but I would rather focus on whether we can change the ethos of the Civil Service to something actual that produces actual results, the quantitative measurement of those results and consequences for failure. Those used to being promoted despite repeated incompetence and finish with a gong and spectacular pension may not like this very much. Welcome to the real world.
can he survive? Maybe the party will let him steer brexit through. Beyond that, I think its doubtful.
And suddenly Sunak's hopes look a bit dented too. Soak this rich taxes? Lol, he won;t get to be leader on the back of those.
Graham Brady is going to reap a whirlwind this week.