politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » To force an early election Jezza needs CON defectors – but wou

Not going to happen

A thread all to myself... Hmm, shall I talk about TC4PM, IHT, Spurs and Bale, World Cup Fantasy Footie League positions (despite having no idea what the rules are) or Gordon Brown.

What's Lord Falconer up to these days?

Hell no.

I suppose the ERG mob might if they felt their version of Brexit was being betrayed.

Belgium 1.4
Japan 10.5
Draw 5.1

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.145046387

Fpt

Funnily enough both @archer101au and @Richard_Nabavi agree that commitment to the NI backstop was a mistake. Thus illustrating an unsurprising and surprising lack of knowledge about NI/RoI.

No British PM could have done anything different and the EU knows it. NI is just one of those things that Leave failed to plan for. Not that it is immediately obvious how it could have been planned for. Perhaps a less ambitious Leave means Leave mantra.

Not sure I quite buy Mike's analysis. Of course what he says is perfectly logical, but we are talking about an inherently chaotic situation where the government doesn't have the numbers to get any one version of Brexit through parliament. Some Tory MPs, either strong Remainers or the ultra-Brexiteers, might miscalculate and think that in an election the Conservative Party would not only gain seats, but be able to shape Brexit in a different way afterwards. They'd no doubt be wrong on both counts, but miscalculations are not unknown in politics - see GE2017 for the canonical example.

FPT

We need a second referendum if the end state May is proposing for us is continued compliance with all EU rules with no say in their making forever.

I will reluctantly accept not getting our own trade policy OR not ending freedom of movement. Asking the country to accept both makes a mockery of Brexit, but thanks to negligence we are not ready for a no deal outcome.

There are no good choices anymore. Thanks to the idiotic acceptance of the backstop, we are faced with a similarly dismal choice as Denmark in the 1860s; accept excessive influence in our domestic affairs to hold all our territory together, or go for broke and risk losing a chunk of it altogether.

RobD said:

Isn't it a lot harder to force early elections thanks to the FTPA?

Turns out I should read the header before posting a comment.

AndyJS said:

Belgium 1.4
Japan 10.5
Draw 5.1

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.145046387

Belgium ought to win without breaking sweat but all we can be sure of from the group stage is Belgium beat two minnows and England reserves. The money for Belgium in the outright market this morning seems to have dried up now people have seen Brazil and 6/1 is the general price back out from 11/2. Lukaku is 11/4 to be top scorer which is probably about right. Harry Kane is 6/4 in a place.

It might be worth keeping an eye on the mercury. The Japanese team could be more used to the heat if that becomes an issue later in the game.

rottenborough said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1013818726179856384

This is turning into a Harold Pinter play.

I'm thinking more Prince George in Blackadder trying to define 'B' for the replacement dictionary.

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Ah, that no doubt explains why you think you know more about how Tory members will behave than David Herdson does.

Second time today that David has been told by someone who left the Tory party years ago that he doesn't know much about the Tory party and its membership.

Despite me telling the other person that David's a constituency chairman.

If only all the people from outside the Party who rate JRM joined, eh? Of course, to win, he'd still need to get past the MPs' rounds.

Maybe that is why many do not bother,as they have no say in reality who is leader or anything else for that matter.

Oooh

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1013826265739157505

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

Tories still over 40 seats ahead of Labour

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

AlastairMeeks said:

Joining the dots has got a little easier:

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1013826265739157505

That's joining the prats, surely ?

HYUFD said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

Tories still over 40 seats ahead of Labour

But we could see a Rainbow Alliance to keep out the Tories.

AndyJS said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

The UKIP comparison is a bit doubtful because they only contested half the seats at the general election, but the polls assume they'll contest all the seats.

If May does a BINO they probably will contest all the seats.

DecrepitJohnL said:

not_on_fire said:

QTWTAIN

QTWTAI are we heading for a constitutional crisis? If the third way does split the Cabinet and ruling party, and is also rejected by Brussels, so all that remains is fear of Jezza, what happens then? No stable government and no early election.

The FTPA is an abomination.

MarkHopkins said:

AndyJS said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

The UKIP comparison is a bit doubtful because they only contested half the seats at the general election, but the polls assume they'll contest all the seats.

If May does a BINO they probably will contest all the seats.

Maybe they don't have enough resources to contest them all, even if they want to.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

A direct bailout, sure. But the indirect government guarantee that all financial services firms effectively get also needs to be put on the ledger when looking at the cost/benefits of having a very large financial services sector. A strong financial services sector is undoubtedly an asset. But it does not thereby follow that it should get so large that it unbalances the economy and/or causes other indirect costs, borne by others.

I'm not sure there has been an in-depth study into the costs and benefits of the finance sector. Focusing on tax revenues alone is not sufficient.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

Two of which were old-fashioned mortgage providers who got caught out by over-enthusiastic lending on UK property. Zilch to do with the City as people normally think of it.

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

Two of which were old-fashioned mortgage providers who got caught out by over-enthusiastic lending on UK property. Zilch to do with the City as people normally think of it.

At the time I was scared and bewildered by the idea of 125% LTV mortgages.

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

Two of which were old-fashioned mortgage providers who got caught out by over-enthusiastic lending on UK property. Zilch to do with the City as people normally think of it.

Northern Rock was anything but an old-fashioned mortgage provider. Its reliance on the wholesale markets to fund its loans was what caught it out. It thought it was being oh so clever but was too clever by half and came a cropper. That's not how old-fashioned mortgage providers operated.

RBS was a disaster waiting to happen. The regulators were warned 18 months at least before it went bust that there was something rotten - verging on the criminal - at the heart of it but did the square root of fuck all, the FSA being more or less unable to take the skin off a rice pudding.

HBOS was run by a salesman who knew nothing about banking and thought that it was all about selling products.

They were all very good examples of what went wrong in the City.

https://twitter.com/patrick_kidd/status/1013831690345680896
https://twitter.com/davidbyers26/status/1013832248989188096

Cyclefree said:

Northern Rock was anything but an old-fashioned mortgage provider. Its reliance on the wholesale markets to fund its loans was what caught it out. It thought it was being oh so clever but was too clever by half and came a cropper. That's not how old-fashioned mortgage providers operated..

Nothing wrong with writing loans based on wholesale market finance, in fact it should be safer than the traditional model as you don't have the risk of borrowing short and lending long. What's more, what they were doing was in theory even safer than that, in that they packaged up the mortgages and sold them to others, which done properly would have been very secure (no loans to pay off, the buyer of the securitised mortgages takes all the risk). But they were spectacularly incompetent in execution.

My main point thought was that the crash had very little to do with what people think of as the City - it was nothing to do with fund management, capital raising, M & A, underwriting, hedge funds, currency trading, clearing, etc etc

Richard_Nabavi said:

Cyclefree said:

Northern Rock was anything but an old-fashioned mortgage provider. Its reliance on the wholesale markets to fund its loans was what caught it out. It thought it was being oh so clever but was too clever by half and came a cropper. That's not how old-fashioned mortgage providers operated..

Nothing wrong with writing loans based on wholesale market finance, in fact it should be safer than the traditional model as you don't have the risk of borrowing short and lending long. What's more, what they were doing was in theory even safer than that, in that they packaged up the mortgages and sold them to others, which done properly would have been very secure (no loans to pay off, the buyer of the securitised mortgages takes all the risk). But they were spectacularly incompetent in execution.

The traditional model worked. NR's one didn't. It wasn't just down to poor execution. The strategy was wrong. There was an earlier mortgage entity - The Mortgage Corporation - set up by Salomon Brothers in the mid-1980's which was based on the model you just described (making loans and selling off the securitised mortgages) and it failed. If people in the City had a memory longer than 5 minutes or bothered getting advice from those who did, these problems could - and should - have been avoided.

Although much political attention in Wales at the moment appears to be focusing on elections within parties, the WelshPolitical Barometer poll has also continued to ask the public about levels of electoral support for the parties.

With the troubles of Brexit looking ever larger, and internal difficulties facing all of our main political parties, what impact has any of this had on how people would vote?

First, let’s look at voting intentions for a general election. This is what our new poll suggests are the latest levels of public support (with changes on the last such Barometer poll, in March, in brackets):

Labour: 44% (-2)
Conservatives: 31% (-2)
Plaid Cymru: 13% (+2)
Liberal Democrats: 5% (+1)
UKIP: 3% (-1)
Others: 3% (no change)

http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2018-07-02/what-the-latest-welsh-barometer-poll-tell-us-about-how-the-parties-are-faring/

Cyclefree said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Cyclefree said:

Northern Rock was anything but an old-fashioned mortgage provider. Its reliance on the wholesale markets to fund its loans was what caught it out. It thought it was being oh so clever but was too clever by half and came a cropper. That's not how old-fashioned mortgage providers operated..

Nothing wrong with writing loans based on wholesale market finance, in fact it should be safer than the traditional model as you don't have the risk of borrowing short and lending long. What's more, what they were doing was in theory even safer than that, in that they packaged up the mortgages and sold them to others, which done properly would have been very secure (no loans to pay off, the buyer of the securitised mortgages takes all the risk). But they were spectacularly incompetent in execution.

My main point thought was that the crash had very little to do with what people think of as the City - it was nothing to do with fund management, capital raising, M & A, underwriting, hedge funds, currency trading, clearing, etc etc

Er..... credit default swaps etc? Look again at what was happening from 2007 onwards. The problems in the wholesale markets which eventually led to the problems in 2008 had everything to do with standard City activity: the trading of derivative products. The trouble was they created products they did not understand, sold them as "you can't lose" investments (rather than as hedges) to people who did not understand what they were buying.

That's a better description of the US part of the crash than the UK one.

Richard_Nabavi said:

Cyclefree said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Cyclefree said:

Northern Rock was anything but an old-fashioned mortgage provider. Its reliance on the wholesale markets to fund its loans was what caught it out. It thought it was being oh so clever but was too clever by half and came a cropper. That's not how old-fashioned mortgage providers operated..

Nothing wrong with writing loans based on wholesale market finance, in fact it should be safer than the traditional model as you don't have the risk of borrowing short and lending long. What's more, what they were doing was in theory even safer than that, in that they packaged up the mortgages and sold them to others, which done properly would have been very secure (no loans to pay off, the buyer of the securitised mortgages takes all the risk). But they were spectacularly incompetent in execution.

The traditional model worked. NR's one didn't. It wasn't just down to poor execution. The strategy was wrong. There was an earlier mortgage entity - The Mortgage Corporation - set up by Salomon Brothers in the mid-1980's which was based on the model you just described (making loans and selling off the securitised mortgages) and it failed. If people in the City had a memory longer than 5 minutes or bothered getting advice from those who did, these problems could - and should - have been avoided.

The traditional model didn't work. History is littered with examples of building societies and mortgage banks which went bust, although pre-Gordon Brown we were very smart at rescuing and dealing with the problem. In the 2008/9 crash German mortgage lenders - supposed to be the most boring on the planet - got into massive trouble, including some spectacular failures. The Spanish property lenders went bust. The Irish banks went bust through property lending. Most of the root causes of the crash come back to property lending.

German banks got into trouble because they bought a vast number of the rubbish derivative products the City was selling. Irish banks were rotten through and through and had been for years.

But there was far more to the crash than simple over-extended property lending. It was the very complicated derivative products which were sold and resold in a cycle no-one understood which vastly extended and magnified the risk even while those buying thought they were eliminating or managing their risk. In some ways, what happened resembled what had happened to Lloyds (the insurance market) some years earlier.

People forgot that banking is fundamentally about trust and managing risk. They stupidly thought that complicated products could eliminate risk and they didn't; they did the opposite.

AndyJS said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

The UKIP comparison is a bit doubtful because they only contested half the seats at the general election, but the polls assume they'll contest all the seats.

Who gives a cat’s toss? Midterm polling is a pile of steaming horse turd.

Scrapheap_as_was said:

A thread all to myself... Hmm, shall I talk about TC4PM, IHT, Spurs and Bale, World Cup Fantasy Footie League positions (despite having no idea what the rules are) or Gordon Brown.

What's Lord Falconer up to these days?

He took the unprecedented step of resigning this morning on a point of principle.

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Belgium 1.4
Japan 10.5
Draw 5.1

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.145046387

Belgium ought to win without breaking sweat but all we can be sure of from the group stage is Belgium beat two minnows and England reserves. The money for Belgium in the outright market this morning seems to have dried up now people have seen Brazil and 6/1 is the general price back out from 11/2. Lukaku is 11/4 to be top scorer which is probably about right. Harry Kane is 6/4 in a place.

It might be worth keeping an eye on the mercury. The Japanese team could be more used to the heat if that becomes an issue later in the game.

If I were betting at the moment I'd probably put a small bet on Japan and another one on Belgium winning with 4 goals or more.

AndyJS said:

Anazina said:

AndyJS said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1013714487206187008

The UKIP comparison is a bit doubtful because they only contested half the seats at the general election, but the polls assume they'll contest all the seats.

Who gives a cat’s toss? Midterm polling is a pile of steaming horse turd.

This is a site which is heavily based around polling so I suppose people are usually going to be talking about it.

Unwise. You would be better off with divining rods.

Cyclefree said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Cyclefree said:

German banks got into trouble because they bought a vast number of the rubbish derivative products the City was selling. Irish banks were rotten through and through and had been for years.

But there was far more to the crash than simple over-extended property lending. It was the very complicated derivative products which were sold and resold in a cycle no-one understood which vastly extended and magnified the risk even while those buying thought they were eliminating or managing their risk. In some ways, what happened resembled what had happened to Lloyds (the insurance market) some years earlier.

People forgot that banking is fundamentally about trust and managing risk. They stupidly thought that complicated products could eliminate risk and they didn't; they did the opposite.

I don't disagree, but it's a big mistake to think (as the more naive do) that crashes wouldn't happen or wouldn't affect us if we didn't have the City, as the Spanish, German and Irish examples show. In the case of the German banks, although part of the problem was duff derivatives, a large chunk of it was very simply paying stolid German citizens low rates of interest and lending their money out to Irish speculators on dubious property deals. Nothing very exotic.

The other point which shouldn't get lost is that the boring banks were being heavily pushed by regulators into buying duff derivatives, because of box-ticking risk-analysis rules which gave ridiculous weight to credit agency ratings and ignored common sense.

Agreed. We are all affected but the UK does need not to be so dependant on the finance sector. Regulation was poor.

How to get decent regulation that incorporates more common sense and less box-ticking..... well, there's a challenge!

Common sense isn’t enough. Common sense was at fault in the run up to the crash, which was forseen by next to no one.

Jonathan said:

Common sense isn’t enough. Common sense was at fault in the run up to the crash, which was forseen by next to no one.

The aim isn't to foresee crashes, but to make sure you're not kiboshed when the inevitable crash hits you out of the blue, as they invariably do. Pre-Gordon Brown, we in the UK were very, very good at that. With Osborne's changes to regulation we're now back to a sensible solution where the BoE is responsible for overall systemic supervision, a role which should never have been taken away from them, let alone taken away and not given to anyone else.

AndyJS said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Belgium 1.4
Japan 10.5
Draw 5.1

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.145046387

Belgium ought to win without breaking sweat but all we can be sure of from the group stage is Belgium beat two minnows and England reserves. The money for Belgium in the outright market this morning seems to have dried up now people have seen Brazil and 6/1 is the general price back out from 11/2. Lukaku is 11/4 to be top scorer which is probably about right. Harry Kane is 6/4 in a place.

It might be worth keeping an eye on the mercury. The Japanese team could be more used to the heat if that becomes an issue later in the game.

If I were betting at the moment I'd probably put a small bet on Japan and another one on Belgium winning with 4 goals or more.

How has Lukaku missed that one?

Jonathan said:

Clearly if an opportunity arises Corbyn will grab it, but it suits him well to watch this govt rot.

He doesn’t need defectors, abstainers and fools will do just as well.

To get an overall majority he almost certainly needs Tory defectors

williamglenn said:

ttps://twitter.com/davidschneider/status/1013836551879643138?s=21

I find it rather amusing that when we wanted to join the Common Market, all we heard was "Non".

Now we want to leave the EU, all we hear is "Non/Nein/No".

Good evening, everybody.

AlastairMeeks said:

Joining the dots has got a little easier:

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1013826265739157505

Must admit an out and out "sinner" like Boris and a "man of god" like JRM don't automatically seem like natural bedfellows... More like #TheOddCouple

GIN1138 said:

AlastairMeeks said:

Joining the dots has got a little easier:

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1013826265739157505

Must admit an out and out "sinner" like Boris and a "man of god" like JRM don't automatically seem like natural bedfellows... More like #TheOddCouple

Much like the Leave vote united libertarian free traders and nationalist protectionists

Japan are going to surprise Belgium tonight, aren't they.

AndyJS said:

Japan are going to surprise Belgium tonight, aren't they.

I expect Gareth Southgate hopes so

HYUFD said:

logical_song said:

Corbyn is unlikely to be able to force a General Election, but I suppose the Tories could decide that a General Election is the best way to get them off the hook of their own making.
If Labour won any GE the question would then be what could they do that would be acceptable to the E U and the people.
It's such a mess and there are so many contradictions.
A 'People's Vote' is looking better and better.

Polls suggest another general election would practically repeat the last general election result, a 'people's vote' could be even closer than the EU referendum, neither would solve a thing in fact arguably they would leave us even more divided than we are now. Just imagine a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs and the SNP with the Tories still largest party and a 'people's vote' won by 51% either way

If May was clever she'd see that a 2nd referendum would very likely give her the chance to land a softish Brexit:

Agree a sensible compromise deal with the EU and call a referendum to confirm acceptance with 'no deal' the alternitive if her deal is rejected by the voters. Much as I'd like her to offer Remain as an option she really doesn't have to do that. I suspect a soft Brexit would win by a country mile but if it were rejected then quite honestly the country would only have itself to blame.

Alistair said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Cyclefree said:

FPT: I could not leave this colourable statement from @TSE about banks unremarked upon:-

"Blame Gordon Brown who set up an awful regulatory system.

It was only one or two bad apples.

I'd have let them fail."

It most certainly was not one or two bad apples. Pretty much every bank was involved in the LIBOR and FX scandals and nearly all of them in PPI, for instance, as well as some of them having additional scandals of their own. And that's just the ones that are in the public domain. When you add in the others, well, the entire sector was riddled with a culture which had lost sight of what it should be about.

I meant in terms of needing a bailout.

Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS.

Two of which were old-fashioned mortgage providers who got caught out by over-enthusiastic lending on UK property. Zilch to do with the City as people normally think of it.

RBS and HBOS were not old-fashioned mortgage providers except in the most legacy sense.

I worked for one of them and I can assure you it was.

Turning Japanese....