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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The great Betfair TMay resignation date row

Last Friday TMay formally quit as CON leader which opened the way for a leadership contest. She is staying on as acting leader whilst the battle to replace her goes on and that won’t be completed until July.
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The problem is that they didn't define the rules clearly enough in advance. You can certainly argue it either way.
Plus the Electoral Commission has a register of who the parties legal official leader is and Theresa May is still [I believe] official leader according to them.
So it seems that in their "reasonable discretion" given that both the 1922 say she "remains" [acting] leader and given that the Electoral Commission says she is leader, that she is still leader.
Then BF started firing off seemingly random observations to punters. That's a false market.
Higher rate taxpayers in London and the south east are by and large either already fiercely committed to Brexit and therefore in the bag or (more likely) think the Conservatives are completely unhinged and a few quid isn't going to buy their votes back.
If VW was British, you can bet they would have been landed with unimaginably large fines. One rule for them etc...
A simple solution would be to say that the date will be settled by when she is no longer listed as official leader by the Electoral Commission. That is an official post she holds which I believe is regarded as official by law and it would not be them adjudicating it but independent bodies. Clear and simple. Before the next edition of this market opens this confusion should be cleared up.
Now they are contradicting these previous rulings and creating more ambiguity. If they defined the market more clearly in the first place they wouldn't have this problem.
Some that Betfair needs to get its house in order on:
1) If a CS bod doesn't know something or other, they need to state that and not just agree with someone over twitter.
2) Other leadership contests need clarifying in the rules which need to be rewritten.
3 i ) US Elections - Turnout needs to have a decisive denominator. This is never clarified properly. Is it eligible electorate or population. The figures are always given nice and neat for UK elections but other countries don't have official figures to hand. A vote denominator is needed in these cases.
3 ii) Settlement of states in the US potentially being too early. The horrifically slow counting in some of the heavy Dem cities and massive rural-urban polarisation of the electorate could lead to the POTUS (Or more likely individual state markets) being settled too early for Trump. A small risk but the Michigan totals were being adjusted ~ 4 days later, crucially after the result had been settled on Betfair. It didn't create a wrong winner but in future it could happen.
5) Next PM market. This one could potentially get... ambiguous. Is it when whoever is received by the Queen, or at some other point that others here have stated.
May is Leader of the Conservative Party.
Having indicated her intention to resign, she has now done so.
Candidates to replace her are currently progressing through the interview process. Until an appointment is made, May remains Leader.
Nothing has changed!
Edit: As a general point anything that costs ~£10bn pa should be something that you would describe as "vital" or at least "necessary". The Exchequer is not so flush that we can chuck around £10bns on things lightly.
She is not leader of the Conservative Party. That position is currently vacant.
Whether that is the the same as the leadership position she very clearly and officially stopped being is another matter.
It's possible to make money by confusing people with tricksy markets, so it's turning into a cat-and-mouse game with the developers who are trying to come up with ways for people to identify bad markets while scammers try to make their tricksy markets look non-tricksy. But in this case the mouse is a cat, called Poyo, whose fur is very soft.
That's why there is a dispute, as the use of the word "officially" implied that a different interpretation would be used.
If there is no vacancy, how can there be a contest to fill it? May didn't resign as leader of the Conservative Party "pending the appointment of my successor". She is gone.
Not that I have a dog in this fight....
Improving on that is for the long term. Getting the status quo right is the baseline point to start with.
To me, it turns on whether there was any gap between May resigning as permanent leader and becoming acting leader. Had there been, I think the market should have been settled with May having ceased to be leader as at that point.
However, this isn't the case. With everything having been announced and arranged in advance, her leadership was continuous as her status changed from permanent to acting leader and as such, her leadership tenure won't end until she steps down following the conclusion of the election to succeed her (black swans permitting).
Johnson has decided my bank account is his priority.
Hunt wants to slash abortions, whilst simultaneously confirming he has no plans to actually do that
Gove wants to replace VAT, for no real reason, with an inferior alternative (probably at the cost of billions).
Each of them called out the other on their idiocy.
Did anyone actually say anything coherent???
None of it would pass let alone with Brexit still to deal with, but still.
It will be very hard for the Tories to keep a coalition of the rich and Tommy Robinson supporters together for much longer. I agree that all the leadership candidates bar McVey will opt for the former over the latter, who will be on the shitty end of Brexit.
All this crap for some undefined "beneficial changes".
Tory candidates are ready
One for all and all for one
Fooling everybody
One for all and all for one
Could sound pretty corny
If you have a Brexit Plan
Think how it could be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-xO72s5EBY
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7121909/Boris-Johnson-vows-raise-40p-income-tax-threshold-80-000-10billion-pledge.html
I've never heard anyone say we should replace it with some sales tax.
They have to go for it, because political careers work on an "up or out" basis.
But the next PM will face the same Brexit hell that TM did, only worse. So there's a reverse Catch-22; anyone wanting to the PM hasn't enough grip on reality to be allowed to.
So what's a boy or girl to do? Campaign seriously and hope that one's unsuitability comes to light.
It's probably a wrong theory, but how can you distinguish it from the current reality?
Given that these are politicians I'm sure they'd decide that any opportunity to be PM, regardless of the circumstances, is better than none. And, who knows, something may turn up, May was crap, so there's also upside potential.
More to the point, does anyone _not_ think Boris Johnson would say anything to become Prime Minister, and would break his word without compunction if he succeeds - restrained only by a calculation of his personal interest?
..............................................................................................................................
Time marches on and we are basking in balmy July sunshine. Roger Federer has lost the Men's Singles Final to Nick Krygios. England lose the Cricket World Cup on the final ball as Mark Wood's excellent yorker hits the stumps, fails to remove the bails and runs away for four byes and India win by one wicket.
Tuesday 25th 5:30pm - Sir Graham Brady announces that Boris Johnson has won the Conservative leadership beating Jeremy Hunt by 65,092 to 45,281.
Wednesday 26th 10:00 - Sky News Breaking News .... Boris Johnson announces his resignation as Conservative Party leader after overnight revelations in the Guardian.
Thursday 27th 7:00pm Buckingham Palace - Theresa May advises the Queen that she has been asked by acclaim to remain leader of the Conservative party.
Friday 28th - The Metropolitan police announce an investigation into the spontaneous combustion of some members of the ERG, including Peter Bone, Steve Baker and Mark Francois.
Again, speaking on the narrow point of third country deals, not the EU trade deal. We are clearly in a better position than we were in for the 10 or so that have been rolled into bilateral agreements and with SK coming to the party it probably paves the way for Canada, Japan and the other major ones to be pushed over the line before October 31st.
Whether you want to admit it or not isn't relevant because it is true.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1138007777618661376
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-leadership-boris-johnson-leads-the-field-in-race-to-succeed-theresa-may-as-prime-minister-6vxc6pg7b
It's the only source quoted (Stuff on Twitter refers to his chairing of her 2016 campaign) for Tim Loughton to be backing Leadsom
In the case of the US, yes it's clear that being the larger party helps in negotiations as Trump is showing wrt Mexico and China. But there aren't 27 other nations to contend with there so it's a bit easier to weild that power.
As I said, a bilateral deal works better for us as we don't need the permission of 27 other nations to open it up for changes. That's a tangible benefit.
On Boris: he's clearly on a mission to impress his current electorate, without caring a jot for the next (possibly imminently so). It's probably not a bad short-term plan. But he's making difficult-to-deliver promises like No Deal Brexit by Oct 31 which will entirely alienate the 48%, and higher-rate income tax cuts which will alienate a different 48 (or whatever) per cent. The boundaries of those two groups are unlikely to be co-terminous. Team Boris may shrink more than he's predicting. (Although he may also gamble.. possibly rightly.. that Corbyn's even less attractive).
Wonder when it becomes a 'technical recession'?
I subscribe to the view that agility is more important than brute strength.
Presumably Boris and a nimber of MPs are in the 100% tax bracket, like myself due to with drawal of personal and pension allowances. Not that I expect much sympathy, but it does create some incentives to take it a bit easy.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1136141052220452865?s=19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48579630
1. Assume that a hostile Martian lands today and says, "I will destroy your planet unless I can have a meeting right now with the leader of the Conservative Party". Who will be wheeled out? Theresa May. The 'Acting' neither adds nor subtracts anything. Of course she is acting. It goes without saying. She is 'acting' in her capacity as party leader to meet the Martian and save the planet. Ergo Theresa May is the leader of the Conservative Party.
2. The key date (per the Betfair rules) is the one on which "Theresa May OFFICIALLY ceases to be the leader of the Conservative Party". Note that it does not feel the need to say 'officially' twice. It does not say "officially ceases to be the official leader" of the party. OK. So last Friday it was announced that "Theresa May has OFFICIALLY stepped down as leader of the Conservative Party." Ergo, unless the word 'officially' was included in error in the Betfair rules, or it is being misused, Theresa May is NOT the leader of the Conservative Party.
When I started writing this, I was inclining towards agreeing with Betfair, i.e. judging (1) to be a superior argument to (2). However, the very act of going through it in such forensic detail has changed my mind - I now think (2) is the better argument and therefore, on balance, that Betfair have got this tricky call wrong.
Disclosure of personal interest - I made £15.71 either way.
I'm consistent.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2019/06/canada-post-race-analysis-2019.html
That reminds me, I must check my stock of toilet paper...