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In the next general election betting the Tories no longer odds-on to win a majority – politicalbetti
In the next general election betting the Tories no longer odds-on to win a majority – politicalbetting.com
It is some time since we looked at the next general election betting based on Betfair and as can be seen BoJo’s team is no longer rated as a better than evens chance to win a majority.
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The difference in poll lead is always based on labour figure....in one of todays polls they are as low as 30%. Another 33%.
Given Hancock scandal and ongoing covid issues i am very surprised the tories don't appear to have taken any real hit.
Would expect it to be smaller, mind.
The trouble is the wrong ones are being made by the wrong people.
Most seem totally tone deaf to this.
The amount the UK Government spends on pensions and health is set by the triple lock and by an ageing population. This means that it's increased from the high 30s as a percent of spending in the 1980s, to over 50% now. Every year it increases, and that means that there will be continued (and permanent) pressure on other parts of the budget.
Would take cataclysmic events for that to come to pass.
Not sure your average punter is aware just how far away that is without Scotland.
42/30/9
Not only are the living former PMs quite frankly not that popular - but it left open the fairly obvious question as to why Blair found it appropriate to spend 0.36% of GNI when he was PM, but inappropriate for Boris to spend 0.50% of GNI today?
There doesn't seem to be a single good answer to that from anybody at all other than crass appeals to emotion.
And if so, how close is the UK to that descent and is there a way out?
It is quite obvious that the dramatic anomalies in the average earnings data argue towards exceptionally reinterpreting the earnings part of the triple lock, such that pensions keep pace with earnings averaged over several years, rather than ignoring last year’s significant drop off and then increasing pensions by a massive 8% this year.
That Rishi faces a fight to get this piece of common sense accepted as the right way to proceed (and that Labour is mostly interested merely in making what political capital it can from this tweak to the ‘promise’) is a sad comment on the state of our politics.
Worth noting of course that cutting pensions would not just be unpopular but would have a multiplier effect as the money pensioners get and spent in the local economy wouldn't be multiplied and wouldn't be taxed etc - whereas overseas aid probably doesn't have that much of a local multiplier effect.
Until places like Yemen have the rule of law, they're not going to "develop".
0.5% of GDP is still a respectable figure in the western world and of course the Opposition arties can pledge to restore the 0.7% in their manifestos for the next GE (and indeed the Conservatives may well pledge to return foreign aid to 0.7% "as and when conditions permit").
There are valid questions around where the foreign aid budget goes and on what it is being spent.
I'm sure there are many wholly worthwhile projects out there and supporting those who need help to improve their own lot (and some of what can be done may seem trivial to us but for example the provision of fresh clean water is literally a lifesaver) and those of future generations seems a no-brainer.
Or not.
https://twitter.com/ruthdavidsonpc/status/1414972022577324036?s=21
Relatively small amounts of money deployed strategically by our outstanding NGOs like VSO can make a significant difference to the lives of some of the poorest people in the world. As well as helping to promote the UK’s soft power and, in the longer term, reducing the appetite of (for example) Africans to try and relocate to the EU.
The cut in aid is being done solely to humour the prejudices of Tory members with narrow horizons; the dribble of money saved will do nothing to transform our circumstances up here in the rain.
Sounds like they have taken umbrage from William and Kate not hanging around for the medal ceremony.
Have to be careful that we do not develop a reputation as 'poor hosts'.
It isn't going to plug the gap in the public finances, not even close. It isn't going to make a tangible difference to anything, so of all the things to cut, why cut this?
The issue with international aid is that it doesn't do that. It's just heroin for the addict pushed by charities who get rich from doing it.
Supported 14.3 million children to gain a decent education, between April 2015 and March 2019.
Reached 32.6 million people, including at least 10 million women and girls, with humanitarian assistance between April 2015 and March 2019.
Reached 50.6 million children under five, women of childbearing age, and adolescent girls through our nutrition relevant programmes from April 2015 to March 2019.
Supported 23.5 million women and girls to use modern methods of family planning between April 2018 and March 2019.
Supported 51.8 million people to access clean water and/or better sanitation between April 2015 and March 2019.
But hey, we need to get a new national yacht and we've got to find the money from somewhere.
Coupled with the looming disaster in Afghanistan, it's not been a great few days for British/Western Foreign Policy in recent days.
It's curious we treat our former Prime Ministers much worse than America treats its former Presidents (or at least that used to be the case).
Jimmy Carter may not have been the most successful POTUS but are we to denigrate the work he has done since leaving office (Habitats for Humanity seems entirely laudable)?
Bill Clinton was involved with George HW Bush on hurricane relief and has done other philanthropic activities. George W Bush seems to be regarded with a fondness which he perhaps wasn't while in office (except by supporters of Trump but they loathe Obama almost as much).
We should, I think, seek to utilise ex-Prime MInisters in some way but that seems not to be how we operate - rehabilitation for their time in office seems to take several decades.
Said that as President (and since then) did so much for the treatment and to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa.
Reckons his policies saved north of 10 million lives.
There's nobody else actually creating value for the nation.
Labour can only get a majority with a real black swan event between now and the GE. That is, something unforeseeable for there is no foreseeable way in which Labour can win. This is not impossible, but not more than a 5% chance. So I would put it at Con 47%, NOM 47% Lab 5% Some other result (LD or Green or Centre Left Rainbow Alliance Party majority, or invasion by Martian Party) less than 1%.
On another issued discussed recently, the stickiness of the Tory numbers in polling; one factor in this (ignore southern byelections) is that with the impossibility of a Tory coalition there is only one party to vote for which gives you a chance of a non centre left government; so whereas in the previous era Tory and LD votes could churn around. If you are Tory there is literally nowhere else to go.
I can respect your POV because you at least have principles and you stick to them. Others here just do what BoJo tells them, one day supporting cutting and the next investing. They flip flop so much I am getting dizzy.
I am sure it must have been painful watching me down the Corbyn rabbit hole, I hope they can get out of the Johnson one, one day!
We need @Malmesbury for a ruling.
You need to be far, far more realistic about the impact of our aid programme and western aid programmes in general not specific to our own. They aren't successful and the only people who benefit are charities and the fat cats that run them.
Still, whatever the history, and irrespective of whether they are right to leave, leaving in such a tearing hurry is a huge mistake.
I'd also raise state pensions at 1% this year rather than the predicted 8% as well as a few other big cost saving and revenue raising measures.
He may soon get the honorific PBUH.
Perhaps when Prince Charles becomes King the new King makes Mark Drakeford the new Prince of Wales, he deserves it.
So would you rather make the young pay that £4bn too? Or was the right decision made?
The problems aren't all to do with aid: East Asia was (fortunately) lacking in oil and metals, while Africa had tonnes of the stuff. This meant that the best way to get rich in Africa was to become high up in government, and then live off a share of the mineral wealth. That's not a sustainable model for economic development.
The mineral wealth also encouraged conflict: the old saying was that to start a civil war in Africa you just needed a satellite phone and to pre-sell the mining rights to BHP Billiton in return for some cash for AK47s now.
There are undoubtedly ways that aid can help. But it seems that focusing on the headline percentage number is extremely unhelpful. Encouraging good governance is probably a better use of money, but the difficulty there is that you are up against China - who doesn't give a shit about anything other that the minerals and the oil.
https://twitter.com/mdbuckley/status/1415011135737274368?s=21
A gang of alleged fraudsters who dressed as cardinals to trick victims out of millions of euros have been caught in an undercover sting operation by police officers disguised as priests.
Italy’s Carabinieri police set their trap after receiving reports of the five fraudsters tricking at least €1.7 million out of victims in 20 different scams.
Dressing as cardinals and priests, the men would offer business owners large loans on generous terms, all backed by the Vatican bank. All they requested upfront was a cash guarantee, only to vanish the moment it was paid.
In one wiretapped conversation, the alleged leader of the group, Lucio Cesaroni, referred to the extraterritorial status of Vatican prelates in Italy, and joked: “How can the Carabinieri arrest me? I am extraterritorial.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/italian-police-disguised-as-priests-catch-fake-cardinals-gang-982k85lks
We've yet to hear from Sunak how he intends to reduce the deficit (a return to more normal economic activity will help) and the wider debt and how that will be serviced/managed on the assumption interest rates start to rise.
I imagine he'll be hoping for a bit of inflation to help things along.
I think Biden is being too rapid on this, but I can understand from a tactical PoV that dragging it out might not work either.
But once the Americans made the decision to pull out, being realistic the British had no choice but to do so too. This isn't a war we could after 20 years win unilaterally.
Labour = England
I will believe that Rishi is serious when he proposes a balanced budget.
Whose figures have - so far - always proven to be false. Largely because they are bunch of third rate lying scum pushing a mad agenda who should be locked up.
So I would say nobody has proved Jackie Baillie is lying.
Can you find the accurate figures.
Easterly and Moyo for me. And Polman for on the ground stuff.
The debt will erode over years so long as the deficit is closed. That is what matters.
Prepare for a new wave of refugees. Any Aghan with the wherewithal will be getting out, and rightly so. They would be crazy to stay.
But for what it’s worth, I’d be looking at the triple lock, NI for working pensioners, a temporary e-commerce tax, and I’d change inheritance tax so that the beneficiary pays income tax on it.
I’d also change council tax for a property tax, although I’d aim for it to be fiscally neutral in the first instance.
The cost of all those extra pensions can be borne for a while by cuts elsewhere, borrowing and hiking taxes, but eventually it'll become unbearable and then the electorate will be faced with two alternatives, both of which most voters will find unpalatable:
1. Open door immigration for young families from low and middle income countries (the Ponzi scheme option)
2. Rapid and substantial increases in the retirement age (the work until you drop dead option)
Theoretically there's also 3. Mandatory euthanasia at age 80, but this might be considered a little too radical.
Anyway, I wouldn't entirely rule out (1) but I'm expecting (2). I'm supposedly entitled to the state handout at 68, but if I actually get it this side of 70 I'll be surprised.
So all things being equal you'd expect Wales and Scotland to be ahead of England, and Northern Ireland to be in the rear. As is the case. To see if anyone is really lagging you'd need to look at vaccination rates for age bands.
Just eyeballing it Northern Ireland might be going a bit slower than expected, and Scotland should be a bit closer to Wales, or Wales is doing better than expected.
EU migration has increased the overall level productivity and hence GDP *per capita*
For example.
https://developingeconomics.org/2018/11/12/historicising-the-aid-debate-south-korea-as-a-successful-aid-recipient/
The Korean total of $6 billion in U.S. economic grants and loans, 1946-1978, compares to $6.89 billion for all of Africa, and $14.89 billion for all of Latin America’
Marcus Rashford is an intelligent and excellent role model and the whole country should support him, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka against this racist abuse
The overseas aid cut is presented more as an “own the libs” policy than a fiscal measure.
The Sunak-Johnson tension is going to be wonderful to witness.
There are no good options for America in Afghanistan, they may as well do the one that doesn't involve bleeding itself dry of treasure and troops.
It really is filling in the leadership gap Britain has progressively vacated since 2016.
Rashford is an apparently pleasant chap, with a tough and interesting backstory, who has done really positive things, in his status as a multi-millionaire. He's not a saint, but he is a force for good, on the whole
These pillocks in the photo saying Black Lives Matter can do one
https://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/about/
Unfortunately every such intervention only makes things worse.
George W. Bush will forever be tainted by Iraq, but Afghanistan was a much worse mistake.
I mean, did Marx himself take the knee? Did Lenin? Stalin?
FFS!
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/18/what-does-woke-mean-britons
I have difficulty myself as I haven't heard a convincing and coherent definition.
And the right will win the current electoral battles, but the left will win the hearts and minds of the younger generations, so are the long term winners.
The current debt is £2,206 billion - the deficit in 2019-20 was £65 billion (in terms of what the Government had to borrow). I appreciate 2020-21 will look a lot healthier but are you suggesting we will have a surplus ?
I'm not going to argue £4 billion won't help but it's not some game changer. It's one step out of many we will need to take if we are serious about reducing borrowing and eventually being able to reduce the debt.
The attitude of some in the pro-Johnson camp last year was we can keep borrowing ad infinitum - perhaps but one day it will catch up with someone somewhere.
It's already clear some of the exaggerated promises of the "levelling up" vanity projects are going to be revisited - that's unfortunate and Covid was unforeseeable - but there have been and will be fiscal consequences.
If the pro-Johnson line is going to be to shrug and blame it on Covid between now and 2024, it may be honest for someone to come out and say so.
But according to Theresa May today, “Fewer girls will be educated, more girls and boys will become slaves, more children will go hungry, and more of poorest people in world will die” as a result of the cuts.
It was a Tory manifesto promise, too.