politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » George Osborne moves into the favourite slot at Betfair to
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » George Osborne moves into the favourite slot at Betfair to succeed Cameron as CON leader
Above are the latest trades on Betfair’s Next CON leader market and as can be seen there is a new favourite – George Osborne. This has probably come out of the recent Michael Gove initiatives which are seen by many as a way of undermining Boris.
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Posh Boys never lose it!
Posh Boys never chose this way!
Posh Boys never close your eyes!
Posh Boys always shine!
All good fun.
http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2014/03/sayeeda-warsi-has-her-hazel-blears-moment.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10705108/Tories-are-in-open-warfare-over-their-Eton-mess.html
Tories bet the house on a childcare giveaway - but how does it differ from the existing tax break with childcare vouchers? Also, why cut CB in ferociously complex manner only to give the money back with this?
" Er - hello I earn over £60k and would like to cancel my CB. Ok sir thanks - no need for you to self assess..."
Was as simple as that.
Meanwhile UKIP marches on:
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynndirector 8s
UKIP membership has hit a new all-time high again today, the LibLabCon smear campaign seems to be bringing new people to us.
The number of people who would rather seethe under a labour government than vote in a referendum in 2017 is clearly growing
1. What about those on between £50k and £60k?
2. You haven't accounted for the impact of salary sacrifice.
3. You don't mention the perverse incentives on those who are paying very high marginal rates of tax because of this.
4. The government has created an entirely new tax to claw back the benefit.
5. The system is essentially self certifying.
6. Some eye watering number are not paying the tax, presumably because they still don't know about it.
7. Every accountancy body in the country says the policy is a complete dog.
Simple. Only in your world.
The Sun reports that Osborne has the politics right on this. People want tax reliefs to come right at the bottom, according to a poll they are pushing.
This tax relief is only available where both parents work which is different than Child Benefit and the current childcare voucher.
Increase nil-band: 66
Increase 40% threshold: 13
Even in London, the area most in favour of the latter, its still out-voted 2:1, and among Con-VI >3:1
In which case it's worse the existing system?
Carnyx wrote
"I'm getting confused. I thought return was calculated on the original capital."
You can calculate either which way round. Either your cashflows tell you how much capital your project can serve, or you work out your return by deducting your hurdle rate from your cashflows, and if it's positive you have made money.
If you take the example of something like a gym, if you can charge 100 annually and 10% of members stay, then you can work out what level of construction cost your expected membership revenues will support. If they discount back to an NPV of 1000, but it costs you only 900 to build the gym, you're in business.
JosiasJessop wrote:
"But surely there's another factor in play there: land availability."
Only to landlords, however. But the landlord lets / leases to whoever will pay the best price, and that in turn is a function of who can put the land to the most profitable use.
The landlord doesn't have to care what gets built; the developer does have to.
Someone mentioned rent reviews - obviously you factor these into your initial economics but if something is simply an expression of expected inflation most economic models would disregard it. It goes in but it comes back out again. Your rents go up but so do your costs.
The presenter was labelled a "self-important little weasel" and a "racist wee s****" in comments on pro-independence online forums after challenging the First Minister over a separate Scotland's European Union membership.
Fears of a Nationalist campaign to bombard the show with complaints surfaced as the BBC refused to reveal the number of people who had registered their dissatisfaction due to "evidence of lobbying".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/10704063/Cybernats-Andrew-Marr-called-self-important-little-weasel-after-independence-comments.html
Such charmers!
I can't quite work out how this works.
With a referenedum you might, y'know, actually lose
Or even get what you want, which would of course be even worse. Much better to sit on the sidelines, bellowing complaints.
Additional rate tax payers (at 45%) don't get a personal allowance anyway, so definitely don't benefit.
"Between 2010/11 and 2011/12, the personal allowance increased by £1,000 from £6,475 to £7,475. For a 20% taxpayer, this is worth £200 a year. However, in the same period, the higher rate band dropped from £37,400 to £35,000, a drop of £2,400.
Therefore an additional cost of 20% x £2,400 if you were previously a 20% rate payer now a higher rate payer, which is £480. More than the saving from the personal allowance.
This continues to 2012/13 where the PA increases by £630 ( £126 tax saving) and the 40% threshhold drops by £630 (£126 tax increase, so neutral) and 2013;
and 2013/14 where the PA increases by £1,335 (£267 tax saving) but the 40% threshhold drops by £2,360 (£472 tax cost).
t is only in 2014/15 where the reverse will be true: the PA increases by £560 (£112 tax saving) yet the 40% threshhold drops by just £145 (£29 tax cost)."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/budget-more-osborne-sham-pledges?commentpage=2
That is a disgraceful slur, even by your dismal standards.
3/4. It's not a tax - my takehome pay hasn't been impacted one jot.
5. With a single phone call you can avoid self certifying. If you don't then HMRC are coming for you.
6. Ignorance is no defence - never has been.
7. Indeed scrap CB for new births and replace with a tax allowance.
PS not an accountant - a simple soul
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is that Blair went to the fee-paying educational establishment known as Fettes, and yet possessed the charisma to score highly on the "in touch with ordinary people" question (though granted, spending most of your years as leader up against Major, Hague, IDS and Howard makes that rather easier).
Boris appears to have the same knack. Philip Hammond, for all his many qualities, simply does not appear as warm a character as Boris, however unfair such a judgement might be.
The other issue with your logic is that you forget that the people who are important in terms of deciding what the reasons were for a Tory defeat are Tory MPs and Tory party members, as these are the people who will determine who will next lead the Conservative Party.
If, for the sake of argument, UKIP receive more than 3 million votes, or 10% of the total, and win a seat or two, then the relevant people could easily conclude that they lost because Cameron wasn't eurosceptic or right-wing enough.
I don't see that having attended a public school would appear to be the decisive factor, given that it hasn't been a problem for Farage.
The Tory members elected IDS in 2001 because Ken Clarke was too much a Europhile. In 2005 they chose Cameron over the state-school educated Davis, one presumes because Cameron was deemed to have the centrist appeal and charisma to win a general election.
For a 2015 vacancy they will choose Boris Johnson if given that option. As twice-elected Mayor of London he is a proven winner. Otherwise, they will go for the most credible ideologically sound candidate - this is likely to be Gove. An election defeat in 2015 breaks Osborne almost as much as it breaks Cameron - particularly as he has failed in his singular task in office of eliminating the deficit.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9157741/israelis-dont-care-that-we-hate-them-but-theyd-like-to-know-why/
"....without whom, none of this would have been possible..."
A referendum under Cameron would be as balanced as a North Korean presidential election.
Interesting politics.
For me the term 'au pair' dredges up memories of distinctly off-colour jokes that all start with the phrase 'mummy, mummy...
Are Ukip threatening not to participate in the referendum ? Operation Sour Grapes ?
Don't for a second think I speak for UKIP. I don't.
My only interest is in getting out of the EU and as I have stated before there is far less chance of that with Cameron leading the Tories - whatever rubbish he might spout about referenda - than there is if he is gone.
You could hold it with Nigel Farage's face printed on the ballot paper, and it still wouldn't be good enough for kippers.
Many don't want a referendum, they just want a moan. Their problem with Cameron is that they haven't been able to moan and holler nearly enough.
Let's get Milli in so we can moan and holler properly.
You are right on the latter point, of course, as I pointed out back in 2009 (and you will owe me £100 if I remember correctly, if the referendum happens). But the idea that this has something to do with Cameron personally is completely crazy; indeed the very people - including yourself - who claim Cameron is a hopeless politician and very unpopular, seem curiously in awe of his magical powers to influence the result of a referendum, in which the question will be: "“Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?”
'Are Ukip threatening not to participate in the referendum ? Operation Sour Grapes ?'
What's the purpose of UKIP after we've had a referendum?
Plus Farage & co want a few more years of the Brussels gravy train.
The Kippers' problem is not David Cameron, it is that a referendum to leave the EU is unwinnable, as they are clearly beginning to realise. That's why renegotiation is the only viable option for undoing at least some of the daft and unnecessary concessions made by Blair and Brown - but they're not interested in that, just in shooting at their own feet.
He also has a timeline that means that even if he does appear to have substantive changes agreed they will be meaningless because they will not have been ratified by any treaty and so would not be worth the paper they are written on. That is to a large extent his fault as he has devised an unrealistic timescale for these negotiations and then has hardly even started down the road with them
And finally it is obvious that since he has stated on numerous occasions he would never support the UK withdrawing from the EU, when he fails to achieve the concessions he wants he will then do all he can to pretend he has substantive agreement - in effect he will lie - to make sure the vote goes the right way for him.
With Cameron in charge Out will almost certainly lose because when it comes to the EU he is fundamentally dishonest.
The only honest question to ask would be whether the British people want to remain within the EU as it is with continual moves to ever closer union or whether they wish to leave. Realistically nothing else is on offer.
And yes I have not forgotten our bet. :-)
What matters is leaving the EU. UKIP are nothing more than a tool to achieve that.
And you might be right that "The only honest question to ask would be whether the British people want to remain within the EU as it is with continual moves to ever closer union or whether they wish to leave". So what? The question which will be asked is going to be a straight In/Out: we even know the wording "“Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?”. Hardly dishonest or slanted, is it?
Frit. That's what the Kippers are - and rightly so.
Of course, that wouldn't in itself matter - except it seems likely to give us the disaster of PM Miliband - the worst of all possible worlds for anyone leaning towards UKIP.
Methinks you are finding it more and more difficult to reconcile your support for Cameron's position with any form of logic.
The true sign of a party fanatic.
Blind party fanaticism like yours is rather disturbing.
Before answering who, we have to decide when.
Right now, it seems more likely than not that there will be a vacancy at the top of the Conservative party in 2015 owing to lack of electoral success. A punt on George Osborne is a punt on the opposite, that the Conservatives retain power and the party in due course rewards the Chancellor that made it possible. That probably is an 18% probability, but you have to take into account the time element also.
If there's a battle in 2015, Boris Johnson will find a way of standing. It's evident that he wants to stand and he's unignorable, so he will be allowed to stand. He's worth backing even at these odds as a trading bet: I don't expect him to win.
The Conservatives would be picking a leader of the Opposition, so they'd want someone to campaign vigorously. That should rule out Philip Hammond, who is just too safe and dull. Theresa May is, however, a serious possibility. But there may yet be outsiders with a decent shot. A dynamic reliable Eurosceptic might come through the field. If one can be found.
Michael Gove would only be chosen if the Conservatives wanted to pull the duvet over their heads and ignore electoral realities. In practice, he seems too self-aware even to stand.
But we are where we are. We shouldn't have started from here, but the fools who ran the country from 1997 to 2010 made some absolutely idiotic concessions, for nothing in return, and tied us into a treaty which is incredibly hard to correct. Cameron at least is trying; he may or may not succeed to any great extent, we shall see.
Your position is utterly barmy, arguing that he won't succeed (that bit's not barmy, you might well be right), and that therefore you don't want the opportunity of us getting Out altogether (that's the barmy bit). If he doesn't succeed in getting much, that's BETTER from your point of view; as Dan Hannan keeps trying to point out, you'll still get the referendum.
The other barmy bit of the Kipper position is that they seem to working principally to put Ed Miliband and the arch Europhiles back into power.
My position is that I'll wait and see what concessions Cameron gets. If none - in particular, if the City looks to be at risk - I'll vote to leave the EU. But, whatever I personally vote for, I don't think the result will be anything other than to stay in.
If Cam wins and doesn't get concessions then organise an OUT vote. If he wins and does get concessions then organise an OUT vote.
Because then you will have done your duty to abide by the will of the people. Unless you want to override the public's will (and although not a referendum fan I think one on the EU is right) and just decide to leave.
Because that would surely be undemocratic (assuming no Kipper OM at GE2015)?
If Cameron loses then I think Hammond loses too. He is not a leader of the opposition. In the early days of the Coalition he was a bit of a star and I suspect he would have made a good chief secretary to the Treasury but he has not shone in defence and very few tories are likely to be happy with what has happened to our armed forces on his watch (not his fault but that's politics).
If Cameron loses Boris is outside Parliament when the election happens. He would be a formidible candidate but that is far too much of a disadvantage.
If Cameron loses May wins. It is a process of elimination really.
If Cameron wins Osborne may well win but that could be problematic for any number of reasons.
For what it's worth, neither Boris nor Osborne will be next Tory leader if David Cameron's successor remains a contestant for the role of PM of the UK rather than rUK. The further out of the M25 one travels, the less either is regarded. In Scotland and the North, Boris is seen as a blond buffoon who has insulted too many communities to ever be widely accepted and George tends to sneer too much.
I would be looking for a polished performing outsider as next Tory leader, someone like May or Hammond though I reckon the next Tory leader (barring disasters) wont be getting elected until around 2021.
Also I wouldn't rule out Jeremy Hunt.
At least it's not death threats or maliciously revealing family details. Oh that's right, they have done. More than once revealingly enough.
Being Secretary of State for Health in a tory government is usually worse than being Home Secretary but he has done a brilliant job of bringing in Lansley's reforms without all the fuss and noise.
The winter has gone remarkably quietly and he has done excellent work in making the Care Quality Commission an organisation interested in patient welfare rather than specialising in the gold stars of its previous incarnation. The focus on the cover ups and poor practice of the past has been relentless and ultimately telling on Burnham whose profile has collapsed.
Keeping a difficult area quiet is one of the underrated skills of politics. Darling used to have it in spades. I am just not sure it is quite a front office trait. In office, yes. In opposition? Not so sure.
twitter.com/ZacGoldsmith/statuses/445950077128159233
Exactly.
Re: tax generally - isn't the issue that more and more people are getting pulled into the 40p rate via fiscal drag? In Lawson's day only 1 in 20 paid the Higher Rate. Now it's 1 in 6. Higher Rate payers are not rich, especially down here.
If the deficit has been eliminated (but not the debt of course) and things are more 'steady as she goes' then Hammond is the best administrator and conciliator.
I should be fertile ground for UKIP. Instead, there is an incoherent negative argument, and personalities who inspire active loathing more than most politicians of other parties.
I'd love to be able to vote UKIP - I don't really want to vote for Lansley in 2015. But, at the moment at least, I cannot.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100264120/banging-on-about-eton-is-a-conservative-gift-to-ed-miliband-and-nigel-farage/
Cream rises to the top inexorably.
No wonder Mr. Brooke likes his coffee black.
The European elections in the Uk are based on the d'Hondt system. This means that votes are not wasted and voting for a party helps that party and no other party. Former Conservatives voting UKIP in the European elections will not mean Labour wins by default. It means UKIP get more MEPs.