politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Owen Smith’s big hope is with members who joined before GE2

MTimT said:

PlatoSaid said:

Just seen a fabulous docu on More4 - Spying on Hitler's Army.

Transcripts of wiretaps on POWs. Stunning stuff.

Worth finding on catch-up or recording the next broadcast.

If it's the transcripts I am thinking of, it rather puts the kibosh on the claim that the German Army was unaware of the Final Solution and the illegality of certain of the orders they were implementing.

"Hors d'oeuvres... which must be obeyed at all times without question!" - Basil Fawlty

SimonStClare said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Am I the only one here without a middle name?

Yes - peasant

"Impudent Peasant!"

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Am I the only one here without a middle name?

Am I the only one to have added a middle name?

FF43 said:

taffys said:

''Was the archery demonstration on? That was well worth watching when we went a few years ago. Laid a few myths about the use of the long bow - notably holding it in the aim position was physically impossible. ''

I saw something on the box that claimed there isn;t one surviving example of a British medieval longbow. They have to go on drawings, paintings, written accounts etc.

There are plenty of longbows and arrows surviving from the Mary Rose wreck. Well worth a trip to Portsmouth to see

I went to Portsmouth at the late May Bank Holiday, but Mary Rose wasn't open then. But I did see HMS Victory and Warrior, and went up the Spinnaker, and did the Island Line on the Isle of Wight,

Plenty of UKIP supporters prepared to split on Twitter... if Woolfe doesn't make it.

david_herdson said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Am I the only one here without a middle name?

Am I the only one to have added a middle name?

I don't have a middle name either. When my 5y/o son found out he was sad and decided to give me one. I'm Batman now...

Sunil_Prasannan said:

david_herdson said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Am I the only one here without a middle name?

Am I the only one to have added a middle name?

"Danger"?

"Secrecy". Oh, damn.

No, I took my wife's maiden name as an additional middle name when we got married. I didn't want to double-barrel and felt it appropriate given that she'd taken my surname.

taffys said:

''Additionally skeletons of archers have been recovered from battlefield graves and show clear evidence of deformities caused by asymmetrical muscle growth. I think the archaeological evidence is pretty solid. ''

Its fascinating stuff. I once saw a documentary on the discovery of a pit full of bodies from the battle of Towton.

Many of the corpses had old, healed, injuries that suggest medieval surgeons were far more skilled than previously thought. We have a wonderful, rich heritage.

The medieval period has always suffered from bad press, partly due to Victorian sentimentality and partly due to the need to justify the idea of a renaissance. The idea that there was this wonderful flowering of civilisation and then a long period of darkness and ignorance followed by a rediscovery of arts and skills once enjoyed by the ancients is largely bollocks dreamt up by an italian bishop. If ever there was a rediscovery of ancient knowledge then it took place during and after the re-conquest of what is now spain from the Moors (a medieval event).

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Am I the only one here without a middle name?

My middle name is James

Michael Crick UKIP update...

https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/759845269831757824

Sometimes, people in public positions just say stupid things. Why on earth would you say that this is the fastest recorded speed on a Suffolk road? Isn't that just an invitation ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-36953439

Sunil_Prasannan said:

=
@HurstLlama

O/T

Another rail ticketing quirk for you:

Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.

Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!

I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.

Rail pricing in this country is crackers.

tlg86 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.

Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?

Actually, if you are familiar with the "GENSHEET" Yahoo email group, there are two factions of track-bashers,

The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.

And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!

TOPPING said:

david_herdson said:

MarqueeMark said:

SimonStClare said:

SandyRentool said:

Patrick said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.

Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.

(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)

Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.

Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle

Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.

You jest but at one time it was expected that a peer should have the means to live to his title. It's one reason (or justification, if you prefer) why Marlborough was given Blenheim Palace to go with his dukedom. I seem to remember watching a documentary that said that Nelson hadn't progressed beyond a viscountcy because there were questions as to whether he could maintain an earldom - presumably had he survived Trafalgar, he'd have been awarded a substantial cash sum to go with a further progression in the peerage.

Didn't Churchill turn down one (a dukedom) for a similar reason?

Churchill certainly turned down a Dukedom offered to him by the King in person I believe. Whether he did because he was skint (he nearly always was), I am not so sure. I would prefer to believe that, as a great Parliamentarian, he did not want to be excluded from the Commons.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/760449615518900225

That's the building opposite Lime Street station isn't it?

Yup, St George's Hall.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

tlg86 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.

Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?

Actually, if you are familiar with the "GENSHEET" Yahoo email group, there are two factions of track-bashers,

The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.

And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!

I heard a story that one afternoon the tracks into platforms 1-4 at Waterloo were out of action so the trains were running in through sidings to the south of the running lines. The train planning department at SWT emptied as they were all desperate to ride through the sidings!

''The medieval period has always suffered from bad press, partly due to Victorian sentimentality and partly due to the need to justify the idea of a renaissance. ''

Indeed, though the enlightenment of the period was extremely patchy. There's a huge contrast between the urbanity of Chaucer and the ignorance of other literature of the period, where the writer had manifestly read little except for the bible.

BigRich said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.

The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.

Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.

So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.

No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.

While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.

Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.

When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.

You can define Rational and irrational how you like.

If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.

Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions

See my similar comment at 13:01

BigRich said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.

The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.

Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.

So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.

No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.

While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.

Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.

When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.

You can define Rational and irrational how you like.

If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.

Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions

But all of that is public information, rational actors take account of all public information. The fact that price signals are being 'compromised' is a known piece of information that should be taken into account by rational actors.

The theoretical basis is bunkum and the empirical evidence is scant.

I'm not a massive fan of Friedman but he did the analysis that showed the Austrian business cycle stuff was bollocks and not borne out by empirical evidence (i.e. recession happened when there wasn't artificially cheap money sloshing around)

justin124 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Theuniondivvie said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

grabcocque said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Pop quiz,

1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.

and

2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)

2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.

Elections won: 0

BAD JAMESES

Wrong on so many levels, Leonard James Callaghan doesn't count, and you've forgotten two other James.

2). Brown 0, Wilson 3, MacDonald 1 (but not as Labour leader)?

Yup, MacDonald won the most seats in 1929 but lost the popular vote.

1931 he was head of a Labour party that won a landslide as part of a coalition, that defeated the official Labour party

Back in 1929 winning the popular vote was less significant than today because in quite a few safe seats MPs were returned unopposed - and parties did not fight 100% of the seats. I have not checked the precise figures but it might be that Labour had more MPs returned unopposed in 1929 and also failed to put up candidates in very rural areas such as Cornwall which were still mainly Tory v Liberal contests.

I don't know the figures either but my impression from having looked at the history of quite a few seats local to me is that one party not contesting was far more common than an MP being returned unopposed. Where one party didn't stand, i think it was more because they wanted to back an alternative than that they didn't think the fight worth the candle (or the deposit, which was admittedly more taxing than it is these days).

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

And here's a picture of them repairing the bridge as if it only needs a patch-up:

FF43 said:

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

And here's a picture of them repairing the bridge as if it only needs a patch-up:

Was it the weather wot caused that?

Sunil_Prasannan said:

HurstLlama said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

=
@HurstLlama

O/T

Another rail ticketing quirk for you:

Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.

Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!

I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.

Rail pricing in this country is crackers.

Ahoy Mr Llama! Could say it's piracy on the "high rails"!

Avast, Cap'n Doc. It gets better. Since my ability to drive has been severely curtailed I have invested £30 in a senior citizen's railcard. It is brilliant. Booking online in advance I went up too see my son in Leeds first class (so free booze and food all the way up and back, stopping off overnight at Newark) in a damn near empty train, for not much more than the cost of petrol I would have put in the car. Going to see my niece in Cambridge (short journeys so I didn't bother with first class) was less than forty quid. The trains on that journey were screwed up both ways, but I don't have to worry about time anymore (providing I am in somewhere safe by the time it gets dark), so I didn't get stressed.

Trains can be crazily expensive if you have to travel at the last minute, or have to be flexible, or are aged between 25 and 60. For those of us richer in years they are a brilliant way of getting about.

P.S. Just bought my son a European inter-rail pass. All the travel he wants by train anywhere in Europe for 30 days - 313 euros (he is young so can cope with second class.

idiot124 said:

FF43 said:

BannedInParis said:

...

I actually think recessions tend to help the incumbent. Have a look back -

2008-09 - Labour do much better than expected, enough to stop a Tory majority
1990-1991 - Major wins a massive mandate
19 80-1981 - Thatcher wins in 83
1974-1975 - election in the middle of it.
1961 - Tories did enough in 64 to reduce Labour expected landslide to 4 seat majority
1956 - nearest election in 1959 saw the Tories increase the number of seats that they had.

Obviously, other events might intervene but the one clear case was where there was an election in the middle of a recession. Everything else? Not so much.

That's logical. "Don't risk change" is the argument of an incumbent. When you feel vulnerable - perhaps because of a recession - chances are you don't want change.

But there were no recessions in 1956 or 1961 - or at anytime in the 1960s!

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy

Usual definition is "2 quarters of negative GDP growth".

Qs 2 and 3 1956, Qs 3 and 4 1961.

Next you'll be telling me that there was a double-dip recession.

MTimT said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

Alistair said:

BigRich said:

To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.

The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.

Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.

So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.

No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.

While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.

Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.

When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.

For many actual decisions when there are innumerable factors, even more interactions, insufficient time to fully enumerate and evaluate all the available options and imperfect data, the very terms 'rational' and 'irrational' become meaningless. We fall back on heuristics, which we may or may not be able to articulate, but which is a very rational (and mostly effective) thing to do.

Yes, that's true in reality - in reality people act as a best guess at rational not wholly rational. But Austrian economics relies on market actors performing perfectly rationally.

So once again Austrian Economics fails the "any actual relationship to the real world in practice" test. It is a theoretical construct based on unreal premises with not practical application to reality.

FF43 said:

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

And here's a picture of them repairing the bridge as if it only needs a patch-up:

The equipment looks kind of light to repair the damage. This isn't a pothole they're fixing up >.>

foxinsoxuk said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

FF43 said:

tlg86 said:

Someone's going to be in trouble:

http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk

They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.

And here's a picture of them repairing the bridge as if it only needs a patch-up:

Was it the weather wot caused that?

The Soar valley between Barrow on Soar and Mountsorrel often floods in winter, so it may have had a part to play.

Locals have been complaining for years about the bridge.

It's a road over rail bridge so responsibility is probably with the County Council.

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/edconwaysky/status/760470185182724096

Interesting the peak if +3.5bn and that happened a year ago.

MTimT said:

MarqueeMark said:

SimonStClare said:

SandyRentool said:

Patrick said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.

Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.

(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)

Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.

Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle

Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.

Perhaps there should be a set of tests and trials for qualification for a peerage, not just one. I quite like the idea that jousting ability is integral to holding a noble title, as is castle ownership. But shouldn't also the ability to swim the moat of the castle in full armour be included?

It used to be a requirement of peerage that the new peer had enough capital to sustain the rank through succeeding generations. In an extreme case, the new peer would be given capital to support the title: hence the gift of Blenheim Palace to support the Dukedom of Marlborough. The origin of the law lords was the need to give a peerage to clever men without having to endow a hereditary title. The first experiment (which failed) was a life peerage to Chief Baron Lord Wensleydale. When the Conmittee of Privileges refused to allow him a seat in parliament with a life peerage, he was then given a hereditary title but that was OK as he had no sons. Law Lords after him were given a new fangled title by Act of Parliament which long preceded the Life Peerages Act for non judicial life peers.

Alistair said:

Yes, that's true in reality - in reality people act as a best guess at rational not wholly rational. But Austrian economics relies on market actors performing perfectly rationally.

So once again Austrian Economics fails the "any actual relationship to the real world in practice" test. It is a theoretical construct based on unreal premises with not practical application to reality.

"The Austrian School theorizes that the subjective choices of individuals including individual knowledge, time, expectation, and other subjective factors, cause all economic phenomena"

Not sure how the words 'subjective choices' and 'subjective factors' fits with your description of the Austrian school requiring perfect rationality.

Economics is, in my view, too complex a system to be truly amenable to a perfect description based on a few interacting formulas. Even if it is, it is too complex for us to devine those formulas by empirical observation.

That said, I think both the Austrian and the Keynesian schools have added to our understanding of how individual actions and choices are aggregated into what we see as 'the economy'. I am unwilling to either accept completely or write off completely either of the school's contributions.

TheWhiteRabbit said:

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/edconwaysky/status/760470185182724096

Interesting the peak if +3.5bn and that happened a year ago.

After the election

...