politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Moore remains odds-on favourite in Alabama even though the Dem
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Moore remains odds-on favourite in Alabama even though the Dems are spending nearly ten times as much on TV ads like these
The biggest current political betting markets in the UK are not about British politics at all. They were about the US with Trump’s survival being number one and the Alabama senate race, which takes place next Tuesday, number two.
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https://twitter.com/iainjwatson/status/938354397226160128
https://twitter.com/make_trouble/status/938354434052063232
Firms like KPMG and McKinseys could also do it.
I'd say it's 65/35 for the Republicans at best.
Pollsters probably aren't used to competitive Alabama statewide elections, and we may see Republicans stay home for a weak candidate... let's see anyway.
I remain of the view that we should wait and see what deal is put on the table.
May's Florence (and previous Lancaster House) speeches acknowledged there would be three categories of UK regulation post Brexit: (1) those where we'd want to maintain alignment (mutual interest - basically shadowing EU); (2) do similar things but in our own way (common goals, I presume w/o dumping, but with a degree of allowance for UK standards), and; (3) areas of divergence (which is the latitude for regulatory innovation over time)
The question is what and how much falls into each category. I'd expect things like cars/aerospace/energy/infrastructure in (1) and agriculture/security/employment in (2) and greater flexibility on services in (3).
Now for the hard part.
I think a lot of the angst on both sides, within the UK and EU is strong emotion overlaying what are usually logically technical common standards, many of which exist also at a global or international level anyway.
The EU insist on sticking their flag onto everything, and pursuing symbols of statehood (presidents, flags and new EU institutions) which does everything possible to get the British goat up, and rouses all their deepest suspicions. They also continue to pursue further integration of the eurozone, under "ever closer union" in the Lisbon Treaty with an activist ECJ, which constitutes the hard evidence.
The UK have gone along with it historically for the basic reason (amongst the elites) that such things "don't matter" because it's purely emotional, and amongst a small minority, the traditional nation state is a bit of an annochrism anyway, and the only thing that matters is the level of inside influence the UK has in shaping global affairs.
But, it does matter. Nation states are fundamentally social and emotional entities made up of real, feeling live human beings. That's how they stick, or don't stick. Same for the UK nationalists. Same for the EU federalists.
So the UK aligning its own standards and regulations via Westminster that are very similar to the EU's (just with a Union Jack on them rather than an EU flag) on things that'd be very similar anyway whilst, at the same time, putting a permanent end to political integration could go a long way to taking the sting out of the issue. And I think we'd end up having some form of informal influence across the EU and in the WTO in the longer-term anyway, on the former, by virtue of our economic and political weight.
So I'm open minded. I'll be looking for how much meaningful latitude we are offered under (3) and the precise terms of (1) and (2).
And I'll be ignoring most political commentators and journalists (who persistently get the detail wrong) and looking at the hard evidence for myself.
I tipped backing Roy Moore at 4/7, he's now 1/6
I am tipster of the year (If you ignore the fact his price went to 10/11 for a while)
An Assessment Of The Economic Impact Of Brexit
We compiled this report back in March 2016 and updated it regularly since then.
FWIW, both reports came to the same conclusion, single market - yes, customs union - no.
Is it seriously not worth trying to predict the effects of the biggest upheaval in 50 years?
Mr. Glenn, unilateral revocation remains open to question, and there's the democratic matter of just ignoring a referendum (which is why I think another remains a credible option).
It is clear that the EU is an organisation no one believing in democracy should have anything to do with.
However, the shear force of remain influence in the EU and the UK is overwhelming the exit process.
Breaking news. Progress between TM and Arlene Foster in phone call
https://twitter.com/stephen_collins/status/180990921083588608?lang=en
One strand of comment that has been common amongst those who oppose Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is that when the alleged difficulties and consequences of Brexit become clear to voters they will come to regret the decision to Leave – or at least will wish to sue for a soft Brexit. The experience of the last six months suggests this logic may be faulty.......
....If the talks about Brexit continue to be difficult and if the economy does indeed begin to suffer, we should not presume that voters in Britain will change their minds about the merits of Brexit. Rather they may simply blame politicians - on both sides of the channel – for their apparent failure to deliver what those who voted for Leave have all along said they want.
https://whatukthinks.org/eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/EU-Briefing-Paper-11-Half-time-brexit-negotiations.pdf
Tell us, Lincolnshire and District Cub Scouts Distinction in Hopscotch aside, what does your service record look like?
I didn't say it was easy.
Trying to run the country on instinct or whatever the Daily Mail headline is today is a recipe for disaster.
And to think David Davis said these impact assessments were important in helping to work out the details of the FTA we want.
At the very least, someone, somewhere, would know someone at DExEU working on putting them together.
The fact they haven't leaked makes me inclined to believe DD. Either that, or DExEU is a very tight ship, which seems implausible.
However, it was the experience of going to war three times in nine years that aided me on my ideological journey to EU arch-federalism.
PWC Report on Brexit for CBI
OF course, it didn't model the EEA option - based on the idea that it wouldn't show any significant economic divergence and that wouldn't have supported the CBI's stance in the referendum.
Or alternatively [WARNING EXPERTS HAVE A HAND IN THIS NEXT BIT] - use a gravity model to understand and predict bilateral trade flows.
https://twitter.com/alastairjam/status/938333748227133441
The UK economics forecasting profession should have had an almighty reckoning in the last year and a half. Not a single one of the forecasters used by the Bank of England has got it right. We have full employment, low interest rates, company after company building new London HQs and a hiring boom in the City. And yet people double down on insisting economic forecasts are the gospel truth and all policy should be formed around them.
I guess people just can't handle being wrong on such an emotional issue, and certainly can't readjust their understanding of the world.
But I've never let ignorance hold me back from offering an opinion in the past...
The Democrat looks to be value here. Why? Because I think black turnout will be high (see Virginia senatorial election), and I think turnout of typically Republican white women will be low. I would also note that opinion polls in Virginia and New Jersey last month underestimated the Dem margin pretty significantly.
All that being said, I require at least 2-1 to bet on Alabama, simply because this is such a Red state.
Edited extra bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian
In 2015, according to the European Commission website customs duties on imported goods worth €1,727bn entering the EU from non-EU countries, collected €23.3bn, of which €18.6bn were transferred to the EU budget. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in 2015-16 customs duties collected in the UK amounted to £3.1bn paid to the EU.
If, like the Treasury report on Brexit, the report turns out to be wrong the EU will suffer more than it thought. But that will be too late, the die will have been cast. What is needed is for the EU Commission to be convinced that their report can not be accurate and that the outcome is unknown, including that WTO would be worse for the EU than for the UK.
On the other hand, people's wages are falling in real terms and we've gone from being the fastest growing in the G7 to the slowest.
Someone to convert from Leaver to Remain and change the course of human history.
Indeed I have heard that very gambit praised to high heavens by some on here in relation to the UK's approach.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/12/06/ashes-gone-not-coming-back-2-0-englands-bowlers-have-no-pace/
Though I do like the idea that all these Remain-favouring economic think tanks failed because they failed to take into account the EU. And that it had the effect of getting the immediate impact of the Leave vote wrong by miles when they had all the economic date from just a few weeks before.
What actually matters is what arrangement we negotiate with the EU. On that side, hopefully some progress is about to be made. The signals look quite encouraging.
People don't always get what they deserve.
Which is why the EU wants a deal. It's worried that once we get through an tungsten-tipped Brexit (bad for several years) we won't come back for seconds for a while and, when we do, it'll be a different game.
If the RoW doesn't give that much of a sh*t about the UK and Brexit (0.7% global population), it doesn't care much more about the EU either (6% population) in a world where 80% of economic growth will come from outside both.
To say that it is too complicated is not really a grown-up way forward. If nothing else, such "working in the margin" allows us, the voters, to understand the basis upon which any particular decision was made. That the assessments don't exist confirms that it is gut feel and hope that has fuelled the decisions that have taken us to where we are now.
Now of course, we have voted for precisely this situation, so there really should be no cause for complaint, but we can at least make observations.
May is Scipio, whilst everyone thinks she's finished, she's about to launch an incursion into the heart of Carthage and defeat him at the Battle of Zuma.
Genuine question - Can someone provide the Hansard quotes verbatim..
Presumably there are some competent Brexit-backing Tory MPs somewhere. It would be good if one or two of them could be in the Cabinet.
We are the ones looking to restrain our own success: many people voted Brexit to close off the flow of cheap and plentiful EU brains and labour which has driven a lot of our recent growth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1494155/Climbing-towards-the-top-and-refusing-to-look-down.html
There are two main criticisms of Mr Davis made by some MPs. The first is that he is lazy - a tag he dismisses out of hand by pointing to his track record as the hyperactive chairman of the Commons public accounts committee.
"It doesn't stack up, but maybe it's a compliment," he says. "I've made my way to what I do now from a reasonably lowly background and didn't break a sweat. Fantastic."