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Is Mark Drakeford the new Winston Churchill? – politicalbetting.com
Is Mark Drakeford the new Winston Churchill? – politicalbetting.com
Ladbrokes have a fascinating market on the Senedd seat of Cardiff West, looking at the odds above it seems a very easy Labour hold, you’d expect Mark Drakeford, the incumbent First Minister, to hold this seat thanks the excellent rollout of the vaccine he has overseen in Wales which has been seen in the polling.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgend_(Senedd_Cymru_constituency)
I've just taken this up: betting on both the Cons and PC in Cardiff West. Got boosts on both stakes with Ladbrokes.
I've also just had a small bet with Ladbrokes on the tories to win most seats in the Welsh assembly at 8/1. I think that's value too.
Looks to me like the tories are on a bit of a roll in Wales. Nationally too. The vaccine success is being linked not to Drakeford but to the UK's policy decisions which, this year, have been pretty good. Combine that with Spring time post-lockdown euphoria and I think the tories will do well next month, or, rather, do well for a mid-term Gov't anyway.
It's that which I think Labour need to tap into. Someone mentioned that they need their Remain supporters but I'm not sure that's true. What Labour need back are the Red Wall voters. So they need to go Blue Labour. English workers in the north and east.
The Remainers will either stick with Labour or, in despair, vote LibDem or Green. Both of which are fine for Labour. It doesn't matter if they put yellow or green MPs into Parliament as long as Labour regain their old core. A coalition of Lab-LibDem-SNP-Green is probably Labour's best hope for route to power.
I also expect Vale of Glamorgan to go Tory and Bridgend to be at least competitive.
The ones I can’t make my mind up over are the seats in Newport.
But I will be amazed if Drakeford loses Cardiff West, and given he’s not put himself on the list it’s clear he doesn’t expect to. If Labour lose Cardiff West my tip for Tories - most seats is a certain winner.
Whilst on there I noticed the tories are 4/7 favourites to win Hartlepool. Wow. When did they become favourites there?
Also spotted on the French Presidentials that Marine Le Pen is 3/1. I'm not really tempted but thought I'd mention it. Reasonable value.
Tories were betting favourites in Hartlepool the moment the by-election was moved.
Le Pen isn’t value in the French election because although she’s likely to make the final two, around 60% of the electorate will back her opponent - whoever that is - to keep her out.
F1: tip(s) may be delayed as there's a big spider in this room, just out of reach for me to crush. Damned thing.
Edited extra bit: it has now vanished.
Anyway, making some progress. Weird that there's no safety car market on Ladbrokes. Think it must be an oversight.
"Probably."
'If you want to live and thrive
Let a spider run alive'
And Hello Everybody. Sunny, and JUST above freezing, this morning.
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/552983/
Her father was like Farage. She's more like... well, I don't really know.
Perhaps a rather more pro-EU version of Johnson.
He father wanted France to leave the EU / EEC.
She wanted France to leave the Euro. And she campaigned on this in 2016. (Or, technically, for a referendum on leaving the Euro.)
Now Le Pen wants the EU to be a Christian balwark to bolster Europe against Islam, and leaving the Euro is no longer in the FN manifesto.
This has led to a bunch of parties springing up to the right of the FN. And I think means Ms Le Pen has more of a chance than people think of winning the Presidency. But it probably also means she won't be as revolutionary as might be expected, if she does win,
Betting PostF1: backed Russell for points at 3.75 and Mazepin to not be classified at 1.57.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/04/imola-pre-race-2021.html
Russell starts 12th, on pace, no flukes, and gets tyre choice. Overtaking's hard and pit stops long, so that will help, and he did well here last year.
Mazepin spins. A lot. And Imola is not a forgiving place.
When I started going to Lancashire I discover3ed that some of my prospective relations drank a (non-alcoholic) brew called dandelion and burdock.
Also labour have been in power for 22 years since devolution and poverty in Wales is as bad as ever as is the health service and education
My granddaughter was top student in her year last year and has been told that due to deprivation in part of her post code and the poor achievement level of her school she is guaranteed a place in the university of her choice
Wales needs a new start but I am not expecting a conservative led Senedd partly due to Andrew RT Davies who is a poor conservatives leader
However that risks a repeat of the 2019 European elections results and them falling to third behind the LDs if their Remain vote goes LD while the Brexit party vote then is now voting for Boris and the Tories and likely to remain doing so
But they still might well hang on to one or two in the north east - Vale of Clwyd and Clwyd South both have local factors working in their favour - and the way Llanelli is churning right now the result is anyone’s guess.
Old loyalties die hard, and then go suddenly, as we saw in 2015 and 2019. But I don’t see that Labour are at quite that stage in Wales yet.
That would lead to an interesting situation. Would Vaughan Gething be negotiating with Plaid Cymru merely to try and fill the executive? Would Adam Price ask for the FM’s post as the price of his support?
The warning from Sir Bernard Jenkin, chair of the powerful Commons liaison committee, is evidence of mounting concern in Conservative ranks about the potential electoral damage to the Tory party, particularly in so called “red wall” seats, from any further revelations like the David Cameron lobbying scandal.
She is a very talented young lady who has the world at here feet
However, the danger for labour is that they could over the next few years see that sudden event that renders them like they are in Scotland
Labour would be wise not to take the Welsh for granted
And they thought the tories wouldn't make much of that?
I mean what the hell's happened to Labour? Do they still not get what happened in 2016 and 2019? The idea that it's all now past won't even be true in 20 years time let alone in 2 weeks.
A network of Labour Party 'spies' is operating at the heart of Whitehall, feeding secret information to Sir Keir Starmer's team to destabilise the Government, senior Tory sources claim.
The moles – Labour-sympathising civil servants – are believed to have played a key role in triggering the lobbying scandal which has allowed Sir Keir's party to construct a narrative of 'Tory sleaze' by leaking details of David Cameron's contacts with Ministers and officials.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9482297/Hunt-Labours-No-10-moles-Network-spies-feeding-information-Sir-Keir-Starmers-team.html
It kind of comes across to me like another example of bitter blues. They're almost hoping to take down Boris but citing all the wrong reasons.
One day Boris will fall. Every politician does. Especially those like Boris with feet of clay.
But at the same time, Boris is continually underestimated. For all of his many faults he's a populist who wins.
The dangers for government are becoming clearer by the day. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who met Cameron and Greensill for a drink during which they lobbied him over a potential contract, came under scrutiny over his shareholding in a family firm approved to bid for NHS contracts. He insists he has broken no rules.
Two of Johnson’s most senior advisers – his deputy chief of staff Simone Finn, and Francis Maude, who has been conducting an unremunerated review of civil service reform for the prime minister – are facing questions over whether their private financial interests are advanced by their public roles.
Cameron’s defenders say he has no interest in taking revenge for the Greensill leaks. But he may not need to. There is already a sense that if those who leaked against him were doing so from inside government, the tactic has misfired. “If they thought it would stop with Cameron then they were plain stupid. This could now end up exploding on their own government,” said a senior figure who has straddled the Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson premierships in Whitehall.
There are now no fewer than seven disparate inquiries into Greensill and wider lobbying issues. Lobbying rules now look certain to be tightened. Suddenly, as a result of the Greensill-Cameron affair and the fallout from it, the political mood in Westminster has changed. The Tories are reeling while Labour – which had seemed to lack a line of attack since the turn of the year as Conservative fortunes rebounded thanks to the successful vaccine roll-out – has an issue to focus on that it knows could damage Johnson, his government and his party.
In the Good Old Days it used to be the Conservative MPs - them and the sense of duty and innate honesty of the Conserative leaders.
Anyone who has been watching the way information has emerged throughout the virus crisis already knows we have government communication by leak to the press. The only extra ingredient needed is the PM, or someone in his camp, deciding it is time to score a point or two off Cameron.
When Arafat died his legacy had a greater value than the West Bank's GDP.
However, they may face their own problems over corruption in the coming months, not least when details of the issues in Liverpool are made public
It isn't the right wing that had a kneeling fetish for overtly Marxist, anti-nuclear family, anti-capitalists.
It is in danger of becoming received wisdom that the Greensill affair is an example of “Tory sleaze” similar to that which polluted the party’s reputation in the late 1990s. They do not compare. The Greensill affair is several orders of magnitude more serious. A former prime minister is at the heart of this scandal that points to something rotten about how we are governed and is now embroiling not just politicians, but also the civil service.
Conversations with MPs, officials and others suggest to me that Greensill is just the tip of a fatberg. Many MPs and advisers – Mr Cameron being one of them – were corporate lobbyists before they got a perch at Westminster. Many ex-MPs and former advisers work in paid advocacy. This is a very hectic revolving door.
There are now more than half a dozen inquiries of various kinds. The government will probably be forced to rewrite some of the rules. Yet I struggle to believe that there will be a thorough clean-up so long as Boris Johnson is prime minister. Much as he may be relishing the humiliation of “Dave”, a rival since they were at Eton together, anything concerning conflicts of interests asks questions about the current tenant of Number 10. He sees nothing wrong with Jennifer Arcuri securing financial sponsorship for her business from City Hall when he was mayor of London and they were lovers. We still don’t know the identity of the mystery benefactors who paid for the expensive makeover of the Downing Street flat. Robert Jenrick remains seated in the cabinet despite expediting an “unlawful” planning decision that saved Richard Desmond, the property developer and Tory donor, £45m in taxes. The government continues to resist a comprehensive accounting of which friends and contacts of Tory ministers, MPs, peers and advisers were given first-class berths aboard the Covid-contracts gravy train, the crony express. Five months have passed since the resignation of Sir Alex Allan as the invigilator of the ministerial code in protest at Mr Johnson’s refusal to accept his findings about bullying by Priti Patel. The position of ethics prefect remains vacant, which tells you all you need to know about how much priority the prime minister gives to policing the integrity of his government.
This Augean stable needs mucking out, but it is unlikely that Mr Johnson will be a vigorous shovel.
... maintained business links with a number of companies including a Saudi think tank, two investment funds and a Chinese freight operator, mainly as an adviser on China or a member of the governing board.[79] According to Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong, his commercial interests in China could have been one of the reasons why he denounced the democratic reforms introduced in the run-up to the handover of Hong Kong...
Also, he was a backbencher for a quarter of a century after losing power, and had no dependents. In that context, £5m isn’t a huge amount of money for an ex PM.
(Also, a fellow organist, recall, so not entirely bad.)
Of course, it may just be an "enterprising" journalist who simply made up the quote themselves in the best traditions of our PM.
My.money is now on a Labour/PC arrangement, but Drakeford could certainly be a casualty and the Conservatives being biggest party in both votes and seats is not beyond the realms of probability.
People who vote for these scumbags again are easily pleased.
The way he looks, sounds and dresses is at least 40 years out of date; like he's a junior minister that's been plucked out of Wilson's cabinet of 1975 and temporally transported to 2021.
NOW it makes sense!
I agree that he has a good shout for points today though.
A very likely loser but it feels more like a 8/1 shot to me, so I've gone in at 25/1.
Sorry, I got the thirty-seven Italian Grands Prix of 2020 mixed up
However, my point stands on his good pace in qualifying, and the tyre advantage.
Edited extra bit: off until after the race.
https://twitter.com/AVMikhailova/status/1383526585916002311
The notion that the UK is behind America when it comes to stamping down on grubbiness is utterly farcical.
They're not remotely in the same league, in comparison between the two America is more Butch Cassidy and the UK is a toddler with chocolate on his face claiming he hasn't eaten the cake.