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My money is on these people giving Boris a bloody nose – politicalbetting.com
My money is on these people giving Boris a bloody nose – politicalbetting.com
Smarkets have just opened their market on the Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election and the initial odds are very similar to the start of betting Chesham and Amersham in May. I have had a punt on Labour at 20/1 which is the same as my first at Chesham.
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lol.....
(Well, one can live in hope!)
PS edit. Sorry Mike, but I firmly believe the LDs are history.
Bexley is a leave constituency and very much in the mould of others on both sides of the estuary. It has seen a bit of migration from central London so it notably younger and more diverse looking than a few years ago but still feels like Tory heartland.
The only other possible fly in the ointment is that the petrol shortages have been pretty severe around SE London. But they're slowly getting back to normal now so will be ancient history by the time this is contested.
Labour? There?
Don't see it.
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
4m
“Does Labour have a better than 5% chance of pulling this off?”
@MSmithsonPB
asks a #QTWTAIN re by-election in James Brokenshire’s seat https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/10/14/my-money-is-on-these-people-giving-boris-a-bloody-nose/
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1448681326001938432
Full story:
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-trade-deals-should-prioritise-economic-growth-over-environmental-protections-leaked-govt-document-12433808
Meanwhile, if the Tories find a well-known local candidate, who can campaign on continuing the legacy of the well-respected and very sadly departed Mr Brokenshire….
Everyone says look at date of death stats - but the problem is you get fooled by the backdating.
If the rate of backdating is constant then the date of report stats provide the earliest clue of what's happening - and they show deaths now rising.
And even looking at date of death you now see the curve flattening from 27 Sept onwards (graph on website with 7 day average correctly centred) - not completely flat but wait a few more days and add in the backdated deaths and it'll be just about flat and then it'll start rising again from around 10 Oct.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
Naughty!
Bexley was 63% Leave, Chesham and Amersham was Remain by contrast.
There are no HS2 or Nimby issues in Bexley, it is not an area with much greenbelt or with much new housing proposed compared to the Home Counties.
The Tories will romp home, the main question will be whether Labour, ReformUK or the LDs come second. In 2015 UKIP were just 0.8% behind Labour for second place in the seat
DIT's job is the economy.
Let COP26 etc deal with the environment.
157 new deaths reported, giving a total of 138,237. https://t.co/BPuWMl5YlG
https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1448665914514231297?t=GSz9Nz0jD6jZQQZ8hSULcA&s=19
Slightly ominous increase in admissions too, up 11% week on week.
Eek
Why eek? Have been reassured by people on here repeatedly that Covid is Over. That the months of sustained 30-40k new cases a day is no concern. That if anything it would be good if we went out and caught Covid.
Surely the pray the pox away argument can't be false?
Is that the UK now more than double the daily cases of the entire EU?
No its not. But the EU isn't testing and finding its cases in the way the UK is. The UK should copy the EU in this instance and stop all this incessant testing.
Thats a LD winning here graph.
Appears the Country (uk) with 45,000 cases a day and only 157 new deaths is doing brilliantly compared to say Germany with 2700 new cases and 15 new deaths
UK winning here
I don't get that feeling here, so wait and see for now would be my view.
Here we go then...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/145100037@N05/40523142473/in/faves-144639257@N06/
Rejoin/Stay out EU 50/50
NI Tax Rises Support/Oppose 44/27
Trust on social care Con & Lab tied
Satisfied w vaccine Rollout yes no 74/18
Govt handling of pandemic well/poorly 47/45
https://www.kantarpublic.com/download/documents/257/September+barometer+final+tables_v2.pdf
Con 43% (+6 vs August 2021)
Lab 30% (-4)
L Dem 11% (-3)
Green 6% (+1)
SNP 4% (nc)
Reform UK (formerly Brexit Party) 1% (-1)
UKIP 1% (-1)
Plaid Cymru 1% (nc)
Other 1% (+1)
I imagine OGH's book here will be orders of magnitude smaller than at C&A, and with more of an eye to trading. This has more to do, perhaps, with Events than with faith in the awesome prowess of Labour by election campaigning.
But I'm sure he can speak for himself.
That's assuming equally competent candidate selection.
I'm not hearing much about variants in the news. I think we can just about cope with the current variants: but is there a chance that a more transmissible / more injurious variant is sneaking up on us?
Given the excellent genomics here in the UK, probably not. But it's something to look out for. Sadly.
On a reduced turnout of 52.5%, that would pro rata down to 22,500 Con, 8,750 Labour.
So on that reduced turnout, Labour would need say 2,250 of the 3,800 2019 LibDems PLUS 5,750 of those 22,500 as direct Conservative to Labour switchers.
The current polling is showing nothing close to that level of Tory vote evaporating, either in opinion polls or in by-elections.
It's a vision of hell on earth
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1448670876703109130?s=20
one might almost describe it as a winter of discontent..?
I'm not sure society could endure it. Going through it all again
* this is a train joke. Of course I want cases to go down, even if that means a picture of a Class 20.
And we are certainly doing more testing than most.
What you probably should look at is test positivity rates. How many tests come back positive? Because countries with really high test positivity rates are missing a lot of cases.
Ukraine's test positivity rate is 30%. So is Serbia's.
The UK's is 4%.
Portugal is 2%.
Italy and France are 1%.
So, I'm not sure "it's because we're testing more" is the sole answer behind why we're finding more cases.
See https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing for details
"A police constable who took two packets of Jaffa Cakes from a charity stall without paying full price has been sacked from West Yorkshire Police."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-58904606
To go from a R=3 -> 4 variant raises herd immunity raises herd immunity bar by 8%
To go from an R=6 -> 7 variant raises herd immunity bar by 2%
And one imagines as one goes up the R scale that there are fewer possible genetic variations that achieve this lesser result.
The variants I'd be looking out for are (i) one that is more optimised to infect younger children as older children are vaccinated (ii) one that is far better at reinfection, which implies milder illness (because immunity still helps), lower R (genetic trade off), but inevitably creeps a little further each time into the non-immune.
Nevertheless, 20's doesn’t strike me instantly as value. C+A did, although I expected it to be a loser.
Why eek? Have been reassured by people on here repeatedly that Covid is Over. That the months of sustained 30-40k new cases a day is no concern. That if anything it would be good if we went out and caught Covid.
Surely the pray the pox away argument can't be false?
Is that the UK now more than double the daily cases of the entire EU?
No its not. But the EU isn't testing and finding its cases in the way the UK is. The UK should copy the EU in this instance and stop all this incessant testing.
Thats a LD winning here graph.
Appears the Country (uk) with 45,000 cases a day and only 157 new deaths is doing brilliantly compared to say Germany with 2700 new cases and 15 new deaths
UK winning here
Were back in 1,000 deaths a week category.
150k deaths by Xmas at this rate
Didn't one of the people who helped create the AZ vaccine recently say the chances of a variant emerging that gets around the vaccine is very low?
Just an idea.
But we don't.
For the Greens to be the third party in the UK, they need to start winning seats and byelections. They need to be fighting Labour to win in Old Bexley & Sidcup.
But they simply don't seem that bothered by winning power.
And nature abhors a vacuum. If the LDs are fighting the byelections (both council and parliamentary), and the Greens are not, then the LDs will continue to be the third party in England.
James Brokenshire was a top bloke.
There are plenty of initiatives encouraging reduction in Co2 emissions etc.
I thought C&A was a value loser, and the right price should be around a 15% probability, not a 5% one.
I don't think 20-1 is value, because I don't think the Labour Party is setup to fight a byelection on the Conservatives' turf. I think this will be a fairly comfortable Conservative hold.
Maybe around 53%?
But I think you're wrong here.
I reserve the right to change my mind if I see Labour throwing everything at this.
A police boss whose comments on the Sarah Everard case sparked outrage has resigned hours after a no-confidence vote.
North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Philip Allott had faced sustained criticism for urging women to be "streetwise" in a radio interview. The backlash culminated in the unanimous vote passed by the county's Police, Fire and Crime panel.
In response Mr Allott said he would "do the decent thing" and leave his post.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-58915325
The 37-year-old was arrested on Wednesday in the town of Kongsberg, some 42 miles from Oslo, following a rampage which took place in different locations in the town.
In a video on his Facebook, which Norwegian media said was flagged to police in 2017, Bråthen said in English: "Hello. I'm a messenger. I come with a warning. Is this really what you want? And for all who want to make up for themselves, so it's time. Bear witness that I am a Muslim."
Norway's intelligence service deemed the attack an "act of terror". Police have said suspect was a “convert to Islam” who had been “radicalised”. Bråthen reportedly attended an Islamic centre in Kongsberg two years ago.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/14/norway-bow-attacker-muslim-convert-known-police-radicalisation/
"Starmer has got to seize this opportunity and claim what would be an enormous symbolic scalp – taking the former seat of Ted Heath. A victory would transform his leadership."
I doubt many people care who was MP for a seat decades ago. And mid term by-elections may provide a glow for a few weeks, but won't overcome Starmer's cowardice, dullness and lack of political judgement.
Not convinced it is a value bet, but events do make it hard to price. Wait and see for me.
Its like saying which is more important: Water or Dom Perignon?
It is not.
I just haven't seen Labour really throw everything at a byelection in years - probably not since the 2012 Corby byelection. (Although I'd argue they threw everything at defending Batley & Spen.)
Yes, they won B&S but they threw everything at it because, if they hadn't, SKS would have faced a challenge. Plus they had a strong candidate. Plus they already held the seat. Plus they had quite favourable demographics. And the Tories will probably get a sympathy vote.
Nor does Old Bexley have the HS2 issue, the housing planning issue and so on to help the LDs. And the Tories will be a lot more wise to the game.
I just do not see how this is anything other than a Tory hold unless there is a major problem before polling day.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Bromley_and_Chislehurst_by-election
If LD supporters actually wanted the grinding responsibility of power they would have turned out early and often in 2015, 2017 and 2019 to make sure they did even better than in 2010, and had a greater say in government. Instead, faced with the actual compromises of reality they didn't.
If the left of Labour wanted power they would be reaching out to Tory voters with reasoned argument. They just need a few million of the scum to be persuaded, and they are home and dry.
I just don't see what hook the labour party has in Bexley and Sidcup. How would anything be any different with a labour MP? Or, for that part, a labour government?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/were-going-to-make-her-life-unpleasant-activists-arent-finished-with-kyrsten-sinema/ar-AAPtVW0?li=BBnb7Kz
The logic of that is that everything else must stop. No going outside. No cooking boiled heggs for breakfast. No building a new local park. No driving down to the shops. No holidays. No building new houses. No other scientific research.
Surely there must be a balance and a list of priorities?
For me, C02 use in space research is probably de minimis in the scale of things anyway, and may well help dealing with the 'climate crisis'.
But William has walked away from the Royal Family, so unlike the environment he is of no interest to me at all. Yes, I think it is a stupid question.
To harass with nasty intentions.
It also means to steal another guy's girlfriend.