Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A week on from Johnson being called to the Palace and so far s
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A week on from Johnson being called to the Palace and so far so good
It is just a week ago that TMay went to the Palace to step down as PM and for the new Tory leader, BJohnson, to be invited to succeed her.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Yougov was one of the few pollsters to have the LDs ahead of Labour in the European Parliament elections
Unfortunately, now Johnson is PM we won't have to imagine it, we can just watch.
I suppose it is different this time in that the bounce enables the Tories to scrape over 30%.
People looking for what might end the bounce need to remember what motivates the people who have switched support, rather than what motivates the 70% of the country not persuaded by Johnsonian charms. Perhaps a bounce that encompasses such a relatively small slice of the electorate will be more durable?
Recidivist,
‘Random observation. I don't know anyone who supports leave who actually has a job.’
WTAF.
17.4 million Brits voted Leave. And here’s an apparently sane Pb-er who lives a life so sheltered and snobbish, he or she has managed never to meet one of these voters in gainful employment. What’s more, this Pb-er is actively proud of this parochial stupidity
This, in a nutshell, is one significant reason remain lost. And might lose again.
This morning I finished my RED month - Run Every Day - for July. I managed to 176 miles run over 31 days.
Suddenly I'm immensely relaxed about Brexit and the state of the world.
Does Boris agree to an extension???
It's nice that practical experience means you now finally believe us!
I admire your gumption in canvassing there. Has anyone refused to speak to you yet on the basis that you come from east of Presteigne?
I reckon a double digit lead for a month would do it.
I'd maintain the one above is interesting as those are parties with the most churn between them. Adding PC/SNP/Greens would likely just move the red line up wholesale.
In the half-century I've been following politics, I've never before known a leader of a major party dig himself or herself such a massive and obvious trap. Normally the idea is to try to dig traps for the other side, and hope that they won't notice.
I am only going on what he told us when he joined the site
Although even if he was returned with a thumping majority the letters to the '22 might go in on November 1st anyway
Any armchair pollsters who think they can work from previous GE results with any sort of standard swing model are kidding themselves and are in denial as to how much the basis of our politics is changing.
(And yes I know that the Dutch go off in their camper-vans in July rather than August....)
Nonetheless the British economy is still showing surprising resilience, especially the employment market. And it’s worth noting the eurozone is struggling - Italy near recession, France barely moving - without any experience of Brexit at all.
Reminds me of a question posed somewhere that I found intriguing - if you knew that every hour spent jogging would add 1 hour to your lifespan, how much time per day would you spend jogging?
The answer is obviously limited by your physical capacity. Nobody can run all the time.
But then - I thought - what if we replace running with something you CAN do pretty much constantly, e.g. firmly tapping the end of your nose with your index finger.
So then the question becomes very interesting. If you knew (by way of cast-iron guarantee) that every hour you spent firmly tapping the end of your nose with your index finger will add 1 hour to your lifespan, how much time each day will you devote to this activity?
The quick and instinctive answer is "every waking minute".
But would you?
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad company, necessarily, but it dies suggest it’s not only about Brexit
There may have been, in the dim and distant past, attempts to influence the reporting of PMQs in favour of the blue team under David Cameron. I have no proof but it was my impression that posters would appear shortly after noon and claim a resounding victory for their man, regardless of whether the referee had actually held his arm aloft or he was spark out, flat on his back, having walked into a great clunking fist.
That said, I visited a lot of them and would only go back to three: the Triangle, the one behind the cattle market, and the foody half-timbered one on the road to the north. And I’m not entirely sure I’m not mixing that last one up with Llanidloes.
Back on topic, if the Lib Dems do lose, it’s pretty clearly down to choice of candidate. This is an independent-minded area (as per the fruitcake independents who dominate Powys Council) and selecting the top national party apparatchik seemed like a foolhardy decision from the off.
Extreme old age can be a blessing but it can also be painful (arthritis), humiliating (incontinence) and depressing (cannot do the activities you once could due to physical deterioration or lack of cash). The other thing about extreme old age is you might not have any friends or even family left. Not much of a life if you have nobody to talk to or anyone who really cares about you...
(Albeit it's all margin of error stuff)
If we our going to have a silly arbitrary exit date at least have one of our own choosing!
As regular readers will be sick of hearing, I once spent a year walking around the coast of Britain. It was 6,200 wonderful miles. At the end, I considered catching a ferry to Norway to walk the entire coast of Europe. A few months later, I had a sort-of offer to walk the coast of Japan, which I refused. I needed to get back to normality, to have different experiences. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have met my now-wife, got married, had a kid, and 1001 other major and minor things.
Life is about the living. If you are constantly walking, or running, or tapping the end of your nose, you're not living. You may get another hour, but you've just spent an hour.
Which brings me onto another point: when I am too old, frail or ill to wipe my own bottom or blow my own nose, I'm not sure I want to live. If I'm in a long-term coma, let me die with dignity. I love the experiences life gives me, and life without experience is existence, not life.
At 90, for example, assuming you were still in OK health and enjoying life, you would probably get close to the extreme of every waking minute. Perhaps not at mealtimes (depending on the location and the challenge of the food) but other than that, you'd be doing it.
Whereas at 19, hardly at all. It would not look cool and as you say the dividend is impossibly distant. Rather like making pension contributions.
I considered the question for myself - completely seriously, I'm not kidding - and my answer was 3 hours.
If I knew that every hour spent tapping my nose with my finger brought me an extra hour of life, I would try and do it for at least 3 hours a day.
Same goes for any other activity of similar ilk.
On the other hand, I'm not too bothered about being frail and dependent, and would like to live forever (or to 100, say) just to see how the world works out.I'm more into following and where possible engaging with world affairs than personal experiences, so being unable to walk, say, wouldn't be as bad as it would for the physically active. Being blind, however...might be another matter.
Just came back from 4 hours of stroke tests after my recent vertigo (all clear), so had occasion to reflect on this sort of thing.
Once the Brexit supporting media had got rid of TM, they then helped Johnson in the parliamentary stage of the leadership coverage until the competition was put to the membership. Then, safe in the knowledge that Johnson would win the membership they produced or ran stories like the 'flat argument' and other personal issues from the past. What was the Tory press and now called by some the Brexit supporting media does have significant influence over people, particularly the Tory membership and it is this that drives Brexit supporting people. If the Brexit supporting media turns the pro Brexit propaganda off then the issue will become marginalised as will TBP...
But LDs will still win comfortably.
Last para. Most people feel that, I think. I certainly do. But I bet the feeling often changes as The End approaches. Much probably depends on one's belief as to what it was all about.
On the nose tapping, though, if it really was the silver bullet, I reckon people would soon become adept at doing it at the same time as they are doing other things.
Because there is not much that you cannot do while you tap your nose, when you think about it, is there? All I can think of in that category is eating with a knife and fork.
Sorry, to hear about your health travails, hope it resolves itself. I have a very old relative that keeps having funny turns like that, although, like you the stroke tests come back as negative. I think they said it might be a sudden drop in blood pressure in their case but as you will know every persons condition is different.
https://twitter.com/sifill_ldf/status/1156566116795375619?s=21
Can't for the life of me see why it has gone so wrong for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour.