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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » BREXIT backer George Galloway enters the race for Manchester G
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » BREXIT backer George Galloway enters the race for Manchester Gorton – which voted 62-38 for REMAIN
The controversial ex-LAB and RESPECT MP, George Galloway has announced that he’s standing in the Manchester Gorton by-election. He’s no stranger to shock by-election victories as we saw five years ago in Bradford West.
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I'm green on both the Lib Dems and Galloway, but I'm praying to Allah that I don't collect on the latter.
Glad Tissue Price tipped her ages ago as Corbyn's replacement.
Oh f**k.
There goes the neighbourhood.
I've done both.
"De Volkskrant, a respected Dutch newspaper, has published a long article about the negotiating strategy the EU will adopt during Brexit. It appears under the headline:
Dit is de geheime EU-strategie voor scheiding van de Britten
or, as Google Translate puts it,
This is the secret EU Strategy for separation from the British
And that article says it is based on information provided by insiders about what it says is the draft negotiating strategy that has been drawn up. It says these will come out when Theresa May presses the “Brexitknop” (Brexit button?). Based on feeding it through Google Translate, here are the key points.
The EU will insist access to the internal market depends upon accepting the four freedoms, including freedom of movement, de Volkskrant claims.
The EU will propose a deal guaranteeing the reciprocal rights of EU nationals in the UK and Britons in EU countries, de Volkskrant claims.
The EU will demand an exit “bill”, de Volkskrant claims. Interestingly, it says that David Cameron is partly responsible for the possible demand being so high. Cameron demanded cuts to the EU budget for 2014-20. But, in return for spending going down in the early years, planned spending in the future rose sharply. There is an argument now that the UK is obliged to contribute to those future spending commitments.
The EU will demand that the UK loses some of its existing trade advantages, de Volkskrant claims.
The EU has yet to decide whether to allow talks on the withdrawal deal and talks on the future trade deal to take place in parallel, as the UK wants, or sequentially, de Volkskrant says.
If the UK tries to leave without a deal, the EU could take it to court at the Hague to try to recover the money it thinks is owed, de Volkskrant says.
Only six people, including Donald Tusk, the European council president, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, have seen the 10-page draft negotiating guidelines, de Volkskrant claims."
But I'd tip her again at the current price.
We know that the UK and EU are going to have to look at say FoM on a far more granular level than a binary yes/no. What would be interesting to know is to what extent the EU is prepared to accept that. And member states - I see 10 people can't be 26 national leaders...!
I think come Christmas I might have backed or laid 50 people in the next Lab leadership race.
I'm currently on 33 runners and riders.
I'd still say the Labour vote should be big enough here to withstand the dubious charms of George Galloway. Hopefully enough so that we can amuse ourselves at the sight of the party joyfully congratulating itself for holding its tenth safest seat.
Labour should be huge value here. Yet I can't bring myself to bet on them.
There is another world in our movement, alas. A world of skulduggery, smears and secret plots.
That is where you will find Tom Watson. When Labour has needed loyalty he has been sharpening his knife looking for a back to stab. When unity is required, he manufactures division.
It is small surprise that he has then worked to split the Party again this week. He has form as long as his arm. And now his sights are set on abusing the internal democracy of Unite.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/len-mccluskey/tom-watson-len-mccluskey_b_15511506.html?1490096318&
Not much new there. Reading between the lines, that suggests to me that EU citizens rights will be taken off the table fairly quickly, and a future trade deal is there to be made at the same time, provided we pay a decent divorce bill and the EU can point to how whatever trade deal we strike is inferior to full membership, which will probably target services.
Which figures. But I expect little movement on the latter (but a lot of piss and wind) until the German elections are over in the Autumn.
"On current prices UKIP seem way too short and the Conservatives seem a bit too short. By default, therefore, Labour look quite a bit too long. Rarely has a value bet looked less appetising. Backing a party that is in disarray and in the doldrums in the polls is rarely rewarding. But you should probably hold your nose and do it."
We get free trade and partial customs union or customs alignment in Goods. We get extra non-tariff barriers for services, including loss of financial passport. We get a three year transition deal post A50 expiry to 2022.
We leave ECJ, we formally leave EEA, we get all other powers repatriated, we line up new trade deals during the transition period.
Job done.
I'll be profitable on any outcome except a Labour Lib Dem 1-2 in that order.
Turnout would have to go down a very long way before Labour lost somewhere like that. And the muslim community will almost certainly turn out, even if no-one else does.
The Tories won't win their in my lifetime, and I can't see the Lib Dems managing it either.
To listen to the radio this morning you'd have thought that Martin McGuiness had been elevated to sainthood for, finally, doing something to clear the mess he he'd been so instrumental in creating.
Still, the bastard died in his bed. Unlike:-
- Jonathan Ball, the three year old boy killed in Warrington while out shopping for a Mother's Day card. His mother died of a broken heart.
- Jean McConville, a mother of 10, "disappeared" and killed for showing kindness to a wounded British soldier.
- Robert Nairac, the British soldier kidnapped from a pub, tortured and killed in 1977.
- Heidi Hazell, a German girl sitting in a car with British number plates outside an army base in Germany and shot 14 times at point blank range.
- Royal Air Force Corporal Maheshkumar Islania and his 6 month old daughter who were shot dead in their car outside an RAF base in Germany. The baby was being held in her mother's arms.
And all the many many other victims of the IRA.
May they rest in peace.
Apologies for reposting. But those victims had names and lives and did not get acres of obituaries. So if we are to recognize what McGuinness did and did not do we should also recognize those who suffered at his hands and had no choice about that suffering, unlike him - who made a choice. People like McGuinness dishonoured Ireland, dishonoured Irish nationalism, dishonoured those who had tried to remedy the very many faults of the Northern Irish statelet and who tried to do so without violence and dishonoured all those Irish people - in Ireland and here - who were tainted by the violence that McGuinness and co., unleashed.
Still, it will be interesting to see if we get any more information about the rumours that he was a British agent.
And finally, someone in HMQ's household has a (black) sense of humour. The pudding at the state dinner which McGuinness attended was Bombe Surprise.
I'm focussed on the French presidential election, and receiving my A50 invocation winnings next week.
» show previous quotes
" This weekend the clocks go forward an hour, next Wednesday we put the clock back fifty or sixty years........"
If this is an Eagle original it's brilliant.
Edited extra bit: indeed, Miss Cyclefree.
Since all of this is perfectly obvious, one has to wonder what the EU are playing at. The only logical explanation is that they think they can extort a large payment for restricted access to the Single Market. (The useful idiots in the Lords may have encouraged them in that belief). That's probably a dangerous misreading of the UK political position and the economic realities.
This isn't looking good, unless it's all childish bluff.
*vomits*
Both sides are adopting hardline positions (May: tungsten-tipped Brexit; the EU: massive divorce bill, no deal until after you Leave and an exceedingly crap one at that) but it's not too hard to work out what the grounds for compromise are.
And that compromise deal will provide plenty of tedious argument for years to come with both sides claiming victory, and the other pointing out how crap it is. Because that is what is needed to achieve the political objectives of both.
I think that bill and the ongoing payments would be unacceptable to too many Tory backbenchers.
I also don't think allowing EU citizens to come if they get a job will fly... Even with an emergency break. Control surely means choosing who comes... Not saying anyone with a job up o a certain number.
https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/843950642100158464
Anyway, I'm off. Play nicely.
The sums being discussed are really not that great in the grand scheme of things (though politically important, of course).
The most worrying thing about that leaked negotiating position is how vague it is. If it's accurate, it sounds as if they haven't really started their thinking yet.
Luckily I'm a raging atheist (who regularly attends church) so I'll do no praying either way.
What she doesn't seem to have realised is that they can undermine this strategy simply by making it clear that we're welcome to stay if we still want comprehensive free trade, frictionless borders, etc.
https://twitter.com/EmmaMMcNamara/status/844158149720526848
In general I think it's a pretty good principle to take the views of people on the spot over those of the long distance fulminators & sermonisers.
I still think the smart money is on Anna Soubry's prediction: that there won't even be any meaningful "negotiations", that both sides are going to be too inflexible to even agree some basic terms in order to get round the table, and that we're going to basically be kicked out of the EU without any deal at all or any preparation time by the end of this coming summer.
- To damage the UK, pour décourager les autres;
- Not to damage the UK, so as not to damage their own rather fragile economies;
- To continue to get a chunky contribution to their budget from us.
I'm really a Muslim two days a year, just to keep my parents happy.
The LD ground game will tear large numbers of votes away from Labour and for those Labour malcontents who cannot bring themselves to vote LD after the 2010 coalition, they have a ready made home for their protest vote in GG. So the Labour vote will be squeezed pretty strongly from both sides.
Whatever you think about George, he is an excellent orator and campaigner and will certainly be taking votes away from Labour.
Whether the combined efffect of votes draining to LD and GG is enough for Labour to lose the seat is something we will have to wait for to find out. But without doubt, this by -election is now a live one and the result could be a lot tighter than many would think, especially if George gets his game together.
It's very much a long-shot, but it is not outside the bounds of possibility that Labour could even end up in third place in a tight finish, in what should be a very safe seat for them.
In practice even if the negotiations break down completely, they'll just let us stew in our own juice while watching the clock tick down.
But it's a difficult election to read now with three candidates in the running. Lab should start favourite but Galloway's intervention throws the cat among them and you can see a number of ways that Labour could lose.
They could demand a payment for a deal, and argue it met criteria one - you are paying for nothing with no say. Haha.
Perhaps Tissue Price could give us a Tissue Price.
The litmus test is: if we're arguing about it on here - with Remainers and the EU saying it's shite and Leavers and the UK saying it's fine - then we have the right pitch point for the deal.
Yes, I said something nice Mrs May.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/french-presidential-election-poll-tracker-odds/