I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Fully agreed, the posters suggesting Trump will be quickly marginalised are once again underestimating him. My post would have been more accurate if I had said "the voter base would not be a problem if" rather than "it is not the voter base that is the problem because..."
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
If the market is to be settled on the basis of "projected EC votes", then the courts ought to be irrelevant. If they were determined only to pay out on the actual declared results, they ought to have said so from the start.
What does "shorter Christmas period" mean? Less than five days but more than zero presumably...
A Christmas Day amnesty? You can go see people on the day only. The authorities will be clamping down on travel on every other day. Which would at least stop people going the length of the country.
There comes a point when people will rebel and ignore the state even if it is a serious health issue
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
It's really difficult. Would it have been better to have simpler and consistent laws throughout rather than the chopping and changing of tiers, now almost on a daily basis, to the point that people genuinely don't know what they can and can't do? Of course. Would there have been higher compliance with such rules? Beyond a doubt.
But such rules would have inflicted unnecessary harm on areas with low prevalence of the virus. The tier system and its complexity was designed to mitigate that damage. I am not sure that it has worked but I can fully understand why they felt the need to try.
The failure to have a set of coherent rules across all four countries of the UK has given aample coverage for those claiming to be "confused" by the rules. All so there could be some willy-waving that Scotland did better than England, Wales did better than England....
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole is at the heart of everything.
A leader should be calling for that and trusting the public
BoZo is not a leader.
He torched any chance of doing this when he failed to sack Cummings who not only failed to take personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole, he got a prime TV slot to lie about it
I wonder if Dominic Cummings had received his £45,000 pay increase by then. Or did he receive it afterwards as some sort of bonus for entertaining the nation with tales of his eye tests and the rest?
It is not mandatory to carry a dog on the tube and if you decide not to carry a dog on the tube you are unlikely to get into trouble.
That might be so, had the government not run a media campaign celebrating the way in which it has heroically defended every true born Englishman's right to carry a dog on the tube...
Irony only says that Trump did commit voter fraud (butas it seems that a park bench would count as an address for residency for voting so I can't see it being right).
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
What does "shorter Christmas period" mean? Less than five days but more than zero presumably...
A Christmas Day amnesty? You can go see people on the day only. The authorities will be clamping down on travel on every other day. Which would at least stop people going the length of the country.
There comes a point when people will rebel and ignore the state even if it is a serious health issue
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
No one is suggesting that you be shot for breaching quarantine, Big_G.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
What does "shorter Christmas period" mean? Less than five days but more than zero presumably...
A Christmas Day amnesty? You can go see people on the day only. The authorities will be clamping down on travel on every other day. Which would at least stop people going the length of the country.
There comes a point when people will rebel and ignore the state even if it is a serious health issue
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
No one is suggesting that you be shot for breaching quarantine, Big_G.
What does "shorter Christmas period" mean? Less than five days but more than zero presumably...
A Christmas Day amnesty? You can go see people on the day only. The authorities will be clamping down on travel on every other day. Which would at least stop people going the length of the country.
There comes a point when people will rebel and ignore the state even if it is a serious health issue
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
No one is suggesting that you be shot for breaching quarantine, Big_G.
Might make people have a second thought about deciding to do the big shop at Asda 5 days into isolation ;-)
Personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole is at the heart of everything.
A leader should be calling for that and trusting the public
BoZo is not a leader.
He torched any chance of doing this when he failed to sack Cummings who not only failed to take personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole, he got a prime TV slot to lie about it
I wonder if Dominic Cummings had received his £45,000 pay increase by then. Or did he receive it afterwards as some sort of bonus for entertaining the nation with tales of his eye tests and the rest?
I hate having to defend Cummings but sadly feel obliged (partially).
The normal pay for his role was clearly the £140-150k band that he ended up on. His was lower the previous year because he himself chose a lower amount based on his view that no advisors should be paid more than £100k.
He was entitled to the higher band package in 2019, staff reporting to him, like Cain and Mirza were on it. Was he a hypocrite for taking the extra package in 2020, sure but that is what we know we should expect from him.
It is not mandatory to carry a dog on the tube and if you decide not to carry a dog on the tube you are unlikely to get into trouble.
That might be so, had the government not run a media campaign celebrating the way in which it has heroically defended every true born Englishman's right to carry a dog on the tube...
It is every true born Englishman's right to carry a dog on the tube.
Where I wholly side with @contrarian is that this govt at times has made it an illegal act to do so.
Irony only says that Trump did commit voter fraud (butas it seems that a park bench would count as an address for residency for voting so I can't see it being right).
I can't see it being right, either. If de facto he was using it as a residence, then he can vote there, regardless of whether he should be living there or not.
Anyhow, wealthy older people do sometimes live in hotels, and are still able to vote.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
It's really difficult. Would it have been better to have simpler and consistent laws throughout rather than the chopping and changing of tiers, now almost on a daily basis, to the point that people genuinely don't know what they can and can't do? Of course. Would there have been higher compliance with such rules? Beyond a doubt.
But such rules would have inflicted unnecessary harm on areas with low prevalence of the virus. The tier system and its complexity was designed to mitigate that damage. I am not sure that it has worked but I can fully understand why they felt the need to try.
The failure to have a set of coherent rules across all four countries of the UK has given aample coverage for those claiming to be "confused" by the rules. All so there could be some willy-waving that Scotland did better than England, Wales did better than England....
I am not so sure that the differences between countries has been the issue as the differences within them. Some parts of Scotland have had their tier changed 3x in the last month. That is genuinely confusing, not least for those who go from 1 tier to another for work or essential shopping.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
And that leaves sane, intelligent right-of-centre voters with a fairly gruesome choice. Do you vote for the more terrible people on your side, or the less terrible people on the other side? Party loyalty is strong, but not infinite.
Parallels with the UK are left as an exercise for the reader, 'cos I gotta make rent.
What does "shorter Christmas period" mean? Less than five days but more than zero presumably...
A Christmas Day amnesty? You can go see people on the day only. The authorities will be clamping down on travel on every other day. Which would at least stop people going the length of the country.
There comes a point when people will rebel and ignore the state even if it is a serious health issue
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
No one is suggesting that you be shot for breaching quarantine, Big_G.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'...
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
Christmas granny-killing might have been avoidable if HMG had used the line that extended families should gather at Easter instead, which is when it believes vaccination will have reached the stage of allowing a return to normality.
Postpone to Easter would have been an easier sell than foregoing it completely.
They've explicitly said that.
Which granny hasn't heard that message or thought it for themselves?
When and where did the government say that? I cannot see it in the published guidelines. Ah, Jenrick said it on television this morning! Great minds and all that.
Yes, race is just a tool for advancing Marxism that holds better prospects than class since the working class proved themselves to be unreliable class war allies.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
And that leaves sane, intelligent right-of-centre voters with a fairly gruesome choice. Do you vote for the more terrible people on your side, or the less terrible people on the other side? Party loyalty is strong, but not infinite.
Parallels with the UK are left as an exercise for the reader, 'cos I gotta make rent.
You vote for a third party. If there are sufficient intelligent right of centre voters who do so, the Republican party will eventually get the message.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
Personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole is at the heart of everything.
A leader should be calling for that and trusting the public
BoZo is not a leader.
He torched any chance of doing this when he failed to sack Cummings who not only failed to take personal responsibility for your own health, the health of your friends and family and for society as a whole, he got a prime TV slot to lie about it
I wonder if Dominic Cummings had received his £45,000 pay increase by then. Or did he receive it afterwards as some sort of bonus for entertaining the nation with tales of his eye tests and the rest?
I hate having to defend Cummings but sadly feel obliged (partially).
The normal pay for his role was clearly the £140-150k band that he ended up on. His was lower the previous year because he himself chose a lower amount based on his view that no advisors should be paid more than £100k.
He was entitled to the higher band package in 2019, staff reporting to him, like Cain and Mirza were on it. Was he a hypocrite for taking the extra package in 2020, sure but that is what we know we should expect from him.
Since he accepted the lower rate in the first place, I do not see any basis for him taking the higher amount, regardless of whether it was “normal” or not. Indeed if he believed that advisors should be paid less than £100k he should have stated that none of the people reporting to him got more than that.
But as we know he and his boss are a bunch of hypocrites.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
That would require first coming to terms with their delusion, though.
There's been a mix of advice and law since this began.
Indeed. Not helped by the police overstretching and enforcing advice as law and blatantly making up rules as they go along. I recently saw a video where an arrogant fool of a constable arrested an exempt mask wearer in a supermarket for not wearing a mask despite being shown the rules on the matter.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
The fear is, though, that a sufficient large Xmas wave will mean many don't make it into an ICU. I completely sympathise with the individual calculations, but if too many decide caution is outweighed by other considerations, the metrics change for everyone.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
Subsequent events like faithless electors as an example.
Courts are not a subsequent event, they are literally a legitimate part of the process of counting the votes and ensuring they are counted accurately.
CS reps are probably spouting bollocks, I don't want to defend Betfair, but the simple fact is in black and white it always said they could wait for the official results - they paid out on the day of the official results. If they say in black and white in advance they could wait for the official results I don't see what is wrong with waiting for them (and the purpose of doing so is in case the projection changes legitimately due to eg recounts or court cases, not faithless electors).
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Yes, the Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers and the French Navy only one, so we win! Although the Charles de Gaulle has fewer leaks and more planes.
We're down to one. A high pressure leak in a sea water line flooded the PoW and fucked 50% of the power generation capacity of the IEP system. She's going to be a harbour queen for many months to come.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
The terms and conditions explicitly said "official" projected results, excluding faithless electors. The network's aren't official they're unofficial (and have been wrong in the past). The results became official in American law on Monday the day they paid out.
When do you think the results became official? Since the word official was always there what was official about the 7th?
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
The fear is, though, that a sufficient large Xmas wave will mean many don't make it into an ICU. I completely sympathise with the individual calculations, but if too many decide caution is outweighed by other considerations, the metrics change for everyone.
For sure. That's the dilemma for a situation like this, where the personal risk (of both getting it, and of not living to regret it) is very low. For each individual the decision to do stuff is rational, given such. Yet for society as a whole those little risks add up to a very big risk. Which is the logical argument for lockdown rules, of course.
For a 90-year old facing Christmas, the decision is mostly emotional, in any case.
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Oh I know my first argument didn't stand up to any scrutiny - it was there to emphasis how stupid the argument they were using was (it will timeout will before any court got round to hearing the case).
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
The terms and conditions explicitly said "official" projected results, excluding faithless electors. The network's aren't official they're unofficial (and have been wrong in the past). The results became official in American law on Monday the day they paid out.
When do you think the results became official? Since the word official was always there what was official about the 7th?
Philip you are trying to dance on the head of a pin there - there was an ambiguity in the terms and on that basis the market should have been suspended but not settled. By not suspending the market Betfair have seriously screwed things up.
Yes, the Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers and the French Navy only one, so we win! Although the Charles de Gaulle has fewer leaks and more planes.
We're down to one. A high pressure leak in a sea water line flooded the PoW and fucked 50% of the power generation capacity of the IEP system. She's going to be a harbour queen for many months to come.
Must have been the same shipyard that built the IOW floating bridge.
There seems to be some view here that court cases are a subsequent event to the Electoral College votes but they're not in American law, they're part and parcel of the process, have been for centuries. Hence the Safe Harbour law etc.
Faithless electors are given as an example as a subsequent event but court cases are not and American law provides they are part of the process prior to the Electoral College meeting.
This is America, lawyers have to be involved somewhere.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
Just de-lurking to say that in my many years of reading PB.com that is the single best post I've read. Hats off to you Robert for articulating superbly and succinctly the best rebuttal of the scourge of identity politcs I've ever heard.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
The terms and conditions explicitly said "official" projected results, excluding faithless electors. The network's aren't official they're unofficial (and have been wrong in the past). The results became official in American law on Monday the day they paid out.
When do you think the results became official? Since the word official was always there what was official about the 7th?
Philip you are trying to dance on the head of a pin there - there was an ambiguity in the terms and on that basis the market should have been suspended but not settled. By not suspending the market Betfair have seriously screwed things up.
What ambiguity?
What settlement date did the terms give? The only settlement date I can see that they say they could wait until is the date of the official results.
When did they pay out? The date of the official results. As the terms said they might.
Betfair terms exclude subsequent events like faithless electors but had a PRIOR event to the Electoral College meeting changed the official projecred results, eg a court case or recount, then under their terms the official projected winner would be the winner.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
Identity politics is the scourge of democracy because it prevents argument and debate - views are cancelled solely on the basis of the author and irrespective of their intrinsic merit.
Identity politics is not just about minorities, it is at the heart of Trumpism, Le Penism and Brexit. Yes, it is toxic to democracy, with its othering of non believers as traitors.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
I recently discovered, thanks to a Corbynista, that I have something called 'Public schoolboy privilege.'
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
I did see many reports that they said they were waiting for reports they were waiting for the Electoral College meeting.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
In which case the message from the government needs to be stern. "We can't stop you gathering. If you do, you may be gathering again in January to bury your family members".
Generally, extreme messages like this are counterproductive in public health, even if true. They have a tendency to make people switch off and ignore.
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Oh I know my first argument didn't stand up to any scrutiny - it was there to emphasis how stupid the argument they were using was (it will timeout will before any court got round to hearing the case).
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Agreed.
The Trumpsters have a case. Break my teeth to say it, but they do. As a punter, I want and need fair and regulated markets, even for Trumpsters.
Betfair moved the goalposts and kept the market open long beyond its natural termination point. If they get sued to buggery it will be no more than they deserve.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
Superb post.
And quite extraordinary given the left of the party he applauds into government in America, soon to be in full control, are diametrically opposed to this view.
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Oh I know my first argument didn't stand up to any scrutiny - it was there to emphasis how stupid the argument they were using was (it will timeout will before any court got round to hearing the case).
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Agreed.
The Trumpsters have a case. Break my teeth to say it, but they do. As a punter, I want and need fair and regulated markets, even for Trumpsters.
Betfair moved the goalposts and kept the market open long beyond its natural termination point. If they get sued to buggery it will be no more than they deserve.
Can I just ask 2 questions please?
1: When it says they could wait for the official results what does the official result mean to you if not the Electoral College meeting?
2: Do you accept that under American law court cases are a legitimate recognised part of the process facilitated prior to the Electoral College meeting and not like faithless electors?
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
I recently discovered, thanks to a Corbynista, that I have something called 'Public schoolboy privilege.'
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
You haven't got that bad a case, though, otherwise you'd be wearing a pair of beat up but originally expensive shoes that you bought years ago.
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
Whilst that is true they can't possibly argue that. They know that They are *right* and the fake news is *wrong*. Trump won, its a massive fraud, and they cannot lose.
Same certainty that Jezziah and his friends had with the leader of the Peace and Justice Party.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
Superb post.
And quite extraordinary given the left of the party he applauds into government in America, soon to be in full control, are diametrically opposed to this view.
Hashtag reparations
I am an optimist. This current bullshit will be expunged, and we will get to the sensible equilibrium Robert describes, but it might many years to get there - with much social and political damage done first.
That's why it's important for moderate people to speak out against it, and use the right language to do so.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
I recently discovered, thanks to a Corbynista, that I have something called 'Public schoolboy privilege.'
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
Lol You needed a Corbynista to point out that going to a private school gives you privilege?
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
Unless you’re Welsh, then it’s all Drakeford’s fault.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
I did see many reports that they said they were waiting for reports they were waiting for the Electoral College meeting.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
I did see many reports that they said they were waiting for reports they were waiting for the Electoral College meeting.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
Betfair said many different things at different times, some contradictory. If they had wanted to include the EC Vote in the rules they could easily have done so. If it was an accidental omission, they could have clarified that later. They didn't. They remained vague and elusive up to the point they settled the market.
You would need to see the documentation but it is quite common for international trading companies to specify that English Law holds, especially when they trade significantly in the UK. I really don't know what the case is with Betfair. Do you? I suppose we could ask but they are not good at answering.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Yes it would be a similar result as the European elections here last year where the Tories got 9% but Farage's Brexit Party got 31%, Farage of course being a key Trump supporter.
Under FPTP it would not happen anyway, Trump needs the GOP vehicle and the GOP needs Trump voters
They do want to fight, they are fighting for the Senate and the 2 Georgia run off seats in January, the Presidency has now been decided by the EC for Biden
Apologies if this has been linked to before but this is amusing/scary/frightening in equal measure.
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
Whilst that is true they can't possibly argue that. They know that They are *right* and the fake news is *wrong*. Trump won, its a massive fraud, and they cannot lose.
Same certainty that Jezziah and his friends had with the leader of the Peace and Justice Party.
The republican party is going to be out of office for ever. McConnell got a storm of criticism for congratulating Biden. McCain repubs are going to be targeted with primaries. Trumpists will not turn out for old style repubs, as Loeffler and Purdue are about to find out. And why vote if the system is fixed?
American government is going to the left. For the foreseeable. Big time.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
I did see many reports that they said they were waiting for reports they were waiting for the Electoral College meeting.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
On topic, I'm sure the Iowa expereince of 8 years ago affected Betfair. I had money on Santorum then and I have no significant complaints about their handling of the Presidential market this time. They should look at the wording they use in the rules though.
There are really 2 things. If the wording was the same as this time they were right to pay out on Romney because he was the projected winner. They need to be much more precise about where the winning post is. Secondly, there was not 8 or 34 votes in this, there were 7m or 74 EC votes. This was not close and there was zero risk that Trump was ever going to turn over enough states to reverse it.
There was a non-zero risk SCOTUS with 6 conservative Justices could play silly buggers and toss out millions of votes. They shouldn't but they could which could have potentially made Trump the projected winner by last Sunday before the Electoral College met.
It shouldn't happen but there was a chance it could until SCOTUS ruled.
No there wasn't except in Trumpist fantasies. It was so ridiculous that they declined even to hear it.
Yes but why should Betfair preempt the Courts?
It is the Courts job to issue rulings, it is not Betfair's. If Betfair starts preempting rulings then where do they draw the line?
The law provides a cut off date and the Ts and C's explicitly mentioned waiting for the official results. They paid out on the day of the official results as their Ts and C's explicitly mentioned.
There was nothing about the courts in Betfair's original rules. All 'subsequent events' were ruled out. They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff. In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs. Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
That's right, and the creation of false markets is just one of the problems they caused themselves and their clients.
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
Their original terms said projected electoral votes once made official.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
Citation needed,Philip, because that is an argument Betfair did not run themselves. Had they done so they would of course have been obliged to indicate what benchmark they would use for 'official'. There would have been numerous alternatives, the actual (as opposed to 'projected') vote being just one.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
I did see many reports that they said they were waiting for reports they were waiting for the Electoral College meeting.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
Betfair said many different things at different times, some contradictory. If they had wanted to include the EC Vote in the rules they could easily have done so. If it was an accidental omission, they could have clarified that later. They didn't. They remained vague and elusive up to the point they settled the market.
You would need to see the documentation but it is quite common for international trading companies to specify that English Law holds, especially when they trade significantly in the UK. I really don't know what the case is with Betfair. Do you? I suppose we could ask but they are not good at answering.
They did include "official" results in the rules all along, in black and white. Its not an accidental omission, it was always there. The question then surely to be answered is "since the results are disputed are they official yet"?
Absolutely English law holds, but I don't know of any English law that determines when American election results become "official" - do you? When under English law did the American election results become legally "official"? In American law it was Monday.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
I recently discovered, thanks to a Corbynista, that I have something called 'Public schoolboy privilege.'
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
Though you are exempt from it if your surname is Milne for example, if you worked for the Messiah Jeremy Corbyn you are forgiven a Winchester and Balliol education
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
The fear is, though, that a sufficient large Xmas wave will mean many don't make it into an ICU. I completely sympathise with the individual calculations, but if too many decide caution is outweighed by other considerations, the metrics change for everyone.
For sure. That's the dilemma for a situation like this, where the personal risk (of both getting it, and of not living to regret it) is very low. For each individual the decision to do stuff is rational, given such. Yet for society as a whole those little risks add up to a very big risk. Which is the logical argument for lockdown rules, of course.
For a 90-year old facing Christmas, the decision is mostly emotional, in any case.
This is true. My mum has decided she's not going to take any risks before her vaccination.
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
Superb post.
And quite extraordinary given the left of the party he applauds into government in America, soon to be in full control, are diametrically opposed to this view.
Hashtag reparations
I am an optimist. This current bullshit will be expunged, and we will get to the sensible equilibrium Robert describes, but it might many years to get there - with much social and political damage done first.
That's why it's important for moderate people to speak out against it, and use the right language to do so.
Best of luck with that. The 80 million Americans who were so....erm....inspired by Biden's...uh... vision and drive are going to be disappointed soon.
Harris and a triple Majority. Changing America for ever. Ooh..er....
Some insight into the No 10 thinking from Telegrph:
"While Downing Street acknowledges that allowing more household mixing from December 23 to 27 may push up infections, the feeling is it would be even worse to cancel Christmas and face the prospect of a disgruntled public abandoning the rules altogether in the New Year."
Listening to 5 live this morning the consensus seemed to be we will do what we want as it is Christmas
I doubt the politicians can resolve this problem either way and it is time everyone took responsibility for their own safety
What the government should have done is say, early on, from September that it is too early to say what will happen at xmas, instead of feeding newspapers with stories about 'saving xmas'.
Then when it was clear there would be a problem, say late October, started saying it will not be illegal to gather but we strongly urge against on medical grounds and that is the message we will be delivering until the xmas arrives.
But we are were we are. Far too late now to tell people the rules are changing again. That way does lie mass disobedience and so on. Travel plans have been made now etc etc.
The mistake isn't Christmas - it's all the chopping and changing and shifting of sands that they've inflicted on us meantime. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run the second lockdown consistently through to the end of this week, and then let those who want to enjoy Christmas, as they always were going to do. My mother at 90 within months is counting her Christmasses and after the year we have had the focus should have been on allowing those elderly people who want to, to meet their families.
THIS. Lockdown or at least a national T3 should have been run right till christmas. Family is more important than pubs, non essential retail and gyms.
Absolutely. Christmas is the only time she gets to see her family together.
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
Nice (ok, gruesome but necessary) calcs. The chances of someone getting it if their family has taken even halfway sensible precautions and the person is not fraternising here there and everywhere (so arguably the area/tier they are in matters less) is low.
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
In my case the key percentage is the probability that she reads PB. Which I estimate at 0%.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
a) regarding reading PB - LOL (I daren't tell my mother about it or she would be highest volume contributor within a week). b) true
The fear is, though, that a sufficient large Xmas wave will mean many don't make it into an ICU. I completely sympathise with the individual calculations, but if too many decide caution is outweighed by other considerations, the metrics change for everyone.
Of course. But the whole thing is about risk vs benefits. At some stage you have to get off the fence and assess the actual likelihood.
They do want to fight, they are fighting for the Senate and the 2 Georgia run off seats in January, the Presidency has now been decided by the EC for Biden
140k vaccinations isn't too bad. Better than a kick in the teeth.
I'm not a medical man or statistician *but* if we assume that 5% of those might otherwise have been infected with a 10% fatality rate, due to the most vulnerable groups being targeted first, then that has already saved 700 lives (+/- MoE).
It's like self identifying with gender, except that with race, somebody else identifies you, and you have have to fit in with their decision.
You know what: I believe that white people are - on average - more privileged than people of colour. I believe that - on average - men are more privileged than women, that the straight are more privileged than the gay, and that the able bodied are more privileged than the disabled.
But you know what else I know: that those with parents who give a shit about education are privileged; that those with parents that stay together are privileged, that those born in the UK are privileged; that those who came into being in the late 20th Century are privileged, and should I go on?
Privilege is ultimately individual. One cannot simply look at a single measure and say that person is privileged. Indeed, when you do so, and you say that to a white person living in poverty in Appalachia with a father that left long ago and a mother addicted to opioids, you know what you're going to get: insurrection and violence. You can't look at them and say they're privileged, because compared to the average American, they're not.
It's time to start thinking of people as individuals and recognise their own struggles, rather than chucking them in some big bucket and saying "lo, you are the bucket."
I recently discovered, thanks to a Corbynista, that I have something called 'Public schoolboy privilege.'
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
Lol You needed a Corbynista to point out that going to a private school gives you privilege?
TBF this Corbynista, she went to a bog standard comprehensive (then onto a decent university.)
I was shocked to learn that people see former public schoolboys as posh, immodest, arrogant, and elitist as I'm the antithesis of those four characteristics.
To be honest with electric planes, and more sustainable aviation fuels and carbon-neutral methods of ground construction, it should be possible to expand Heathrow in the long-term without too much environmental impact.
The bigger tear in my view is levelling the villages.
They do want to fight, they are fighting for the Senate and the 2 Georgia run off seats in January, the Presidency has now been decided by the EC for Biden
Those tweets only show how utterly divided the Republican party is. The Trumpists despise the McConnell wing more than the democrats. Will they turn out to keep a man they cannot abide in business? not in enough strength.
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Oh I know my first argument didn't stand up to any scrutiny - it was there to emphasis how stupid the argument they were using was (it will timeout will before any court got round to hearing the case).
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Agreed.
The Trumpsters have a case. Break my teeth to say it, but they do. As a punter, I want and need fair and regulated markets, even for Trumpsters.
Betfair moved the goalposts and kept the market open long beyond its natural termination point. If they get sued to buggery it will be no more than they deserve.
The implication of Betfair keeping the market open is that they would have paid out on a Trump win, had he successfully stolen the election. And I guess that rather disturbing thought will be the foundation for their defence to any such case.
To be honest with electric planes, and more sustainable aviation fuels and carbon-neutral methods of ground construction, it should be possible to expand Heathrow in the long-term without too much environmental impact.
The bigger tear in my view is levelling the villages.
Absolutely agreed.
The way to get to 'net zero' is to get to sustainable clean alternatives - not to all live in Greenpeace/XR approved mud huts.
Levelling the villages is an issue, but it is an issue for the government to resolve with compulsory purchase orders and the law if need be - not for Greenpeace and XR etc to halt in the courts.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
They've definitely picked the wrong argument by focussing on the idea that Trump will be inaugurated on January 20th - come Jan 21st the bet will definitely be lost.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
No, the bet won't be lost on Jan 21st 2021. It was either lost when the Networks announced the result (about Nov 7th, depending on which Networks you focus on) or it is never lost, for the reasons I gave earlier.
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
Oh I know my first argument didn't stand up to any scrutiny - it was there to emphasis how stupid the argument they were using was (it will timeout will before any court got round to hearing the case).
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Agreed.
The Trumpsters have a case. Break my teeth to say it, but they do. As a punter, I want and need fair and regulated markets, even for Trumpsters.
Betfair moved the goalposts and kept the market open long beyond its natural termination point. If they get sued to buggery it will be no more than they deserve.
The implication of Betfair keeping the market open is that they would have paid out on a Trump win, had he successfully stolen the election. And I guess that rather disturbing thought will be the foundation for their defence to any such case.
Had he won his court cases and become the "official" projected winner prior to the Electoral College meeting then I don't see how they could have avoided doing so.
Comments
There's a Deal, folks.
If they were determined only to pay out on the actual declared results, they ought to have said so from the start.
BBC News - Covid-19: Singapore migrant workers infections were three times higher
New data shows that 152,000 foreign workers - 47% - have been infected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55314862
And how is this all to be policed
I do think Christmas should be treated with care and common sense but we are not living in North Korea
https://twitter.com/RonHogan/status/1339089656793665538?s=19
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/16/covid-19-cases-hit-new-record-high-in-south-korea
Strip the emotion out of it and look at it statistically.
At 90 her life expectancy averages at five years. She has a collection of health issues, none of which are likely themselves to turn fatal, and her health appears reasonable, so hopefully she'll beat the average. Nevertheless her chance of not seeing another Christmas after 2020 must be in the region of 10%.
R4 More or Less says that catching Corona roughly doubles the chance of death during the year that you already have. But the IFR for older men is about double that of women, and US data suggests the chance of a 90-year old woman dying from Covid are somewhere just above 5%. So we have a 5-10% range. But that's if she catches it. Her chance of actually catching it are objectively low; the area she lives in is reasonably safe, the area she'll be visiting is very safe, the chance of me giving it to her are low, the biggest risk is from my brother (and his kids) who runs a restaurant and will be opening on Xmas day. Whatever reasonable chance of getting the virus you'd estimate multiplies by the 5-10% to produce a number surely below 1%.
So meeting the family likely pushes up the chance of this being her last Christmas from 10% to 11%.
Gruesome calculations, but they make the point.
In all seriousness, I pointed out yesterday all the briefing of each side saying the other are been meanies had stopped, suddenly and absolutely.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
They've still not closed out the Arizona special election, and no it's not linked to the GA runoff.
In addition, various cs reps have been spouting nonsense contradicting their own rules particularly to the MAGAs.
Now going forward - particularly if the GOP continues to be very Trumpite and they get control of the House if reps there is a non zero chance of a huge false market for 2024
I also have a 90-yr old mother and she and I are going through the same sort of calcs - then again she is a Cambridge mathematician who retains all her faculties and hence explains it to me most of the time.
The normal pay for his role was clearly the £140-150k band that he ended up on. His was lower the previous year because he himself chose a lower amount based on his view that no advisors should be paid more than £100k.
He was entitled to the higher band package in 2019, staff reporting to him, like Cain and Mirza were on it. Was he a hypocrite for taking the extra package in 2020, sure but that is what we know we should expect from him.
Where I wholly side with @contrarian is that this govt at times has made it an illegal act to do so.
Anyhow, wealthy older people do sometimes live in hotels, and are still able to vote.
The other point is that, even for 90-year olds who get covid, the death rate appears about 5% for women and 10% for men (this is US data, where they seem to have a lower IFR than us, so far - but it's probably close enough). Talk about "death sentences" for elderly people who get it is overstating the risk. Even if they go into ICU the survival rate is somewhere around 50%.
Parallels with the UK are left as an exercise for the reader, 'cos I gotta make rent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quSBkFCjTaQ&feature=emb_logo
Selected highlights.
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unfazed when Joe Biden was declared the victor.
She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day.
“To be honest, the more likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast.
Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly €2.7 million euros, according to screenshots of her Betfair account. But Betfair and other gambling sites closed the books on their 2020 presidential betting on Monday, after the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory. Now Helen, who says she’s lost approximately €140,000 and believes the election results will be overturned, is joining other bettors in accusing gambling sites of wrongly calling the election for Biden.
Some of those Trump bettors are turning to conspiracy theories about election fraud—and threats to visit the homes of gambling company employees......
....“Billy Bets,” a U.K.-based gambler and owner of a small pro-Trump forum, told The Daily Beast he and 15 other people in his new anti-Betfair Whatsapp group were pursuing legal action against the company for paying out Biden bets.
“I have a background in political betting over 5 years, and I can say that over this time I have never experienced the scope of passion of the people voting for Trump,” he told The Daily Beast. “Big tech, the mainstream media, and pollster[s] all said Trump had no chance, people believed in Trump so much so that they went against the status quo to vote for him.”
He claimed he ”personally 'lost' ￡9,500, so I am committed to getting it back.”
In the anti-Bet365 Telegram group, one anonymous person appeared to threaten company employees. “I have the geo location of where some members of Bet365 live just so patriots know,” the person wrote. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another user replied that the suggestion was “fucked. We’re not antifa.”
“Maybe it's time we became them,” the original poster wrote back. “They are trying to take everything.”
The only certainty among many of the bettors was that Trump would be re-inaugurated on January 20. Which, of course, he will not be.
“I figured it would be either a void election and get my money back or it would be a Trump win via the terms of the 12th Amendment,” Helen, the Amsterdam woman said. “Either way Trump will be inaugurated on 20th January and I expect Betfair to pay out accordingly.'
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gamblers-bet-big-on-trump-and-now-they-now-claim-fraud
Although, when there is a deal, it will be down to our threat of using the Royal Navy.... 😉
Mike is wrong, I think, to believe they can learn from their mistakes. Past performance suggests otherwise, and it isn't just the Santorum case. They are often very sloppy with rules and when you communicate with their representatives you begin to understand why. They have little experience of their subject and are frankly not terrifically bright. They are preoccupied with 'throughput' and if you ask them a sensible question - like 'What does projected electoral vote' mean? - you are likely to be met with blank incomprehension and a non-reply. They are simply not interested in subtleties.
I think they may be in serious trouble this time. Sure, I'm happy I have finaly been paid out, but if I were a fanatical Trump supporter and backer I'd have something to say about the way the market was settled. Once Betfair failed to pay out on the terms of their original rules there was no reason to do so when they did. Challenges, counterclaims, court and civil actions are likely to persist indefinitely; likewise Trump's refusal to concede. By Betfair's own erratic logic they should not have paid out until all such possible objections have been eliminated.....which kind of means never.
The words don't come easy to me, but I think the Trumpsters have a case. Certainly those that staked with Betfair do. I suspect we will be hearing more from these disgruntled punters in due course.
b) true
If there are sufficient intelligent right of centre voters who do so, the Republican party will eventually get the message.
I would be using a duty of care argument against their own rules by allowing betting to continue once the prediction was confirmed by all media outlets on the basis that the result was known but it made sense for Betfair not to settle until the certified result.
But as we know he and his boss are a bunch of hypocrites.
I completely sympathise with the individual calculations, but if too many decide caution is outweighed by other considerations, the metrics change for everyone.
Courts are not a subsequent event, they are literally a legitimate part of the process of counting the votes and ensuring they are counted accurately.
CS reps are probably spouting bollocks, I don't want to defend Betfair, but the simple fact is in black and white it always said they could wait for the official results - they paid out on the day of the official results. If they say in black and white in advance they could wait for the official results I don't see what is wrong with waiting for them (and the purpose of doing so is in case the projection changes legitimately due to eg recounts or court cases, not faithless electors).
The Duty of Care argument is a strong one though. By continuing the market beyond its proper settlement date Betfair induced punters to place bets on an outcome that was already known. I think they could be compelled to reimburse all punters who subsequently placed bets on Trump. Messy, eh?
Even if things don't come to that, they are in any case likely to be in deep shit with the Gambling Commission over their incompetent and irresponsible management of a major betting market.
They paid on the day the projected electoral votes were officially finalised. Until Monday it was at least theoretically possible the projected votes could change (as they have in the past it must be said), after Monday it was no longer possible, Biden had won officially.
It only became official under American law (which is why American lawyers got involved) on Monday.
When do you think the results became official? Since the word official was always there what was official about the 7th?
For a 90-year old facing Christmas, the decision is mostly emotional, in any case.
The duty of care one is the killer argument - the market should have been suspended as soon as the last media company confirmed Biden had won.
Faithless electors are given as an example as a subsequent event but court cases are not and American law provides they are part of the process prior to the Electoral College meeting.
This is America, lawyers have to be involved somewhere.
How do you know why they referred to US Lawyers? At a guess I'd have thought the matter would have been subject to English law. For all I know, they turned to the lawyers because somebody at Betfair kecked their pants but as with much else at Betfair, their reasoning remains obscure.
We need the carriers for the invasion of mainland Spain surely?
What settlement date did the terms give? The only settlement date I can see that they say they could wait until is the date of the official results.
When did they pay out? The date of the official results. As the terms said they might.
Betfair terms exclude subsequent events like faithless electors but had a PRIOR event to the Electoral College meeting changed the official projecred results, eg a court case or recount, then under their terms the official projected winner would be the winner.
With his health and the revived Hunter probe, it won't be long, surely.
Apparently public schoolboy privilege is much much worse than white privilege.
Why would the official winner of the US election be subject to English law? When the projection of the Electoral College votes becomes official is a matter for American not English law. Hence American law has things like Safe Harbour etc.
The Trumpsters have a case. Break my teeth to say it, but they do. As a punter, I want and need fair and regulated markets, even for Trumpsters.
Betfair moved the goalposts and kept the market open long beyond its natural termination point. If they get sued to buggery it will be no more than they deserve.
Hashtag reparations
1: When it says they could wait for the official results what does the official result mean to you if not the Electoral College meeting?
2: Do you accept that under American law court cases are a legitimate recognised part of the process facilitated prior to the Electoral College meeting and not like faithless electors?
Same certainty that Jezziah and his friends had with the leader of the Peace and Justice Party.
That's why it's important for moderate people to speak out against it, and use the right language to do so.
You would need to see the documentation but it is quite common for international trading companies to specify that English Law holds, especially when they trade significantly in the UK. I really don't know what the case is with Betfair. Do you? I suppose we could ask but they are not good at answering.
Under FPTP it would not happen anyway, Trump needs the GOP vehicle and the GOP needs Trump voters
American government is going to the left. For the foreseeable. Big time.
I suggest Bitcoin.
Absolutely English law holds, but I don't know of any English law that determines when American election results become "official" - do you? When under English law did the American election results become legally "official"? In American law it was Monday.
My mum has decided she's not going to take any risks before her vaccination.
Harris and a triple Majority. Changing America for ever. Ooh..er....
Good.
Chris Grayling acted lawfully - he actually did something right. Hell hath frozen over.
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1339146463495000065
I'm not a medical man or statistician *but* if we assume that 5% of those might otherwise have been infected with a 10% fatality rate, due to the most vulnerable groups being targeted first, then that has already saved 700 lives (+/- MoE).
I was shocked to learn that people see former public schoolboys as posh, immodest, arrogant, and elitist as I'm the antithesis of those four characteristics.
The bigger tear in my view is levelling the villages.
They have very little chance in Georgia
And I guess that rather disturbing thought will be the foundation for their defence to any such case.
The way to get to 'net zero' is to get to sustainable clean alternatives - not to all live in Greenpeace/XR approved mud huts.
Levelling the villages is an issue, but it is an issue for the government to resolve with compulsory purchase orders and the law if need be - not for Greenpeace and XR etc to halt in the courts.