Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Can anyone challenge the green and orange waves?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Can anyone challenge the green and orange waves?
A lot has happened since the 2017 election and the Northern Ireland Executive has been out of office for 3 years now, What will we see this in the election!?
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I would imagine that the Tories, armed with any sort of majority to their name, will make the implementation of the long overdue boundary changes, badly allowed let slip by Cameron, one of their top priorities.
So tories around 319-324 depending on SDLP numbers can see a DUP arrangement. Less than that and the DUP are critical to survival and would demand the tories drop their deal.
Good news is there are moderate trustworthy think tanks and media who will calculate the manifestos and eye boggling spending commitments from both sides, so we will get some semblance of truth and whether manifesto costs balance in the next couple of weeks. The other thing to watch out for is how experts relate the fine details to what happened in the past when government thought it good idea to splurge. Too much splurge too quickly can have side effects, overheating economy, inflation, boom bust.
It's very depressing.
Ironically, the best chance of getting it sorted out is that the US election next year is a complete and utter sh!t-show, leading to cross-party support for bringing Facebook and Google down a peg or two.
The regular TV networks also need to up their game, the reduction of everything to 10-second soundbites and clickbait headlines is not informing people in any meaningful way.
In the 2010-2015 government, the LDs pulled their support for the boundary changes because the toriies scuppered the House of Lord's reform. In his 2015-2016 window the plan was to bring in the boundary reforms later in the 5 year parliament. The following 4 years he was no longer in politics.
With Captain Ruth out the way, and zero leadership worth the name in Scotchland, the buffoons in London with sail blithely into yet another self-made storm.
Mr. Machine, I'll have a look and perhaps back the SDLP for Foyle (depending on odds). I'm mostly staying out of betting on the General Election, but this seems a bit less related to Boris Johnson buggering anything up.
Of course, if people like their tips ill-informed, I've backed all three Premier League matches to be draws today (individually, and with a mini-accumulator). They're all about 3.5, or were yesterday evening.
The Liberal Democrats? I'd do that with pleasure, but they're not standing.
Neither will get anywhere near the post of FM until and unless they make a sharp turn:
- Labour would need to veer back towards genuine, caring social democracy, lead by pleasant, likeable personalities;
- the Conservative & Unionists have an even bigger task, uncoupling from the mendacious gang in London, dropping the loony flag-waving act, and rolling their sleeves up and coming up with some thought-through, popular policies on eg. housing, transport and infrastructure.
Both tasks look daunting, and I just cannot see the necessary strong, principled future leader in either party. This is fantastic news for the SLDs in the medium term. Once they ditch the hopeless Swinson and Rennie, they have a golden opportunity to give Unionism the decent, respectable leadership it so desperately needs.
Given your serious concerns about the risks of a Corbyn administration, you should probably looking to vote in such a way to create a minority/coalition government that mitigates those risks.
That's why I've said the best option is a thumping Tory majority with the Cabinet losing their seats. Problem is, while theoretically possible the chances of it happening are the same as the chances of Colin Graves having a lucid moment.
I find it bizarre that so many NI Catholics are content to vote for those that don't take their seats. Surely Brexit and the NI backstop arrangements have shown the price to be paid for that. These people need a voice but with their MPs not sitting and the NI Assembly in the deep freeze they are denied one.
Perhaps we need to through a few years of Johnson/Nero with a majority before people come to their senses.
Johnson would be a better PM than May or Brown.
Unionism seems to be driving certain Scottish social democrats and conservatives quite literally bonkers. Only the process of Scotland becoming a normal country is likely to regain the loonies their sanity.
If the Union survives another decade - a big if - the SLDs will take over the leadership of Unionism for the remainder of the period.
If the Union is dissolved, I expect a powerful bounce for both Labour and Tories. The SNP are not going to have much fun after the initial post-independence GE. And I for one certainly won’t be hanging about to help them.
We have no idea what a Labour administration would look like. As with any election, it’s the risk of change vs. the problems we have. Since we know for sure that this government Is utterly chaotic, engages in Machiavellian bullshit and will act unlawfully to force its will, it has to go.
The only question is what we replace it with and how you mitigate the risks.
I predict a low turnout though, not so much weather, but Bored of Brexit which may make things unpredictable.
Good article but a small a correction needed here. Sinn Fein MPs do NOT get the MP's salary or pension. Only MPs taking their seats are entitled to that. They do get office expenses for constituency staff (for local casework) etc. They also get some expenses to travel to London and some claim accommodation allowance. So they aren't averse to taking a cheque from the Westminster oppressors, but aren't actually getting the salary.
The problem is that when you look at that anti-Tory vote it is very heavily remainer and Corbyn has spent the last 2 years irritating that group beyond measure with his equivocation and incoherence. Some are also genuinely disgusted at his antisemitism.
I think this time the anti-Tory vote is going to be much more split with consequential gains for the Tories. I can just about see Labour getting to 35% but I am struggling to see how they get beyond that. A 2-3% swing should be enough for a modest majority. It could of course get much worse than that for Labour.
As far as what would happen in the event of the Tories falling just short again, I agree that another attempt to make a deal with the DUP seems most improbable. The Tories have managed to unite around Boris Johnson's WA and any attempt to tweak it *again* would simply open all the old wounds. They'd have to accept the inevitable, I think, and hand the keys to No 10 to the wobbly Remain alliance.
(There is also some dispute as to whether he was the first EM PM, btw.)
What I want is a decent house in good repair - but that's not currently on offer.
He is PM. And, spoiler alert, he's rubbish.
Across most of Britain it is pretty clear which party is the challenger to the Tories, so a split opposition can be quite effective.
At the moment it looks like Con 350 seats to me, with gains in Wales, NE, NW, W Mids, E Mids, counterbalanced by losses in SE, SW, EE and London.
It will be a different Tory parliamentary party, culturally dominated by wealthy southerners, but largely consisting of rookie Northerners. Imagine a party of Esther McVeys.
The then national situation still stands with most local councils - I am the candidate at local elections and it is me they vote for - or not - not the Leader of Council. Of course those who want elected mayors had other ideas and maybe like you I don't think they were better ones.
Corbyn himself won't stand aside and his supporters won't entertain the suggestion. If the Conservatives fail to win a majority then he'll be Prime Minister by Christmas.
You may not *like* that - I certainly don't - but it remains a fact.
Screw it, I'm convinced.
If Boris Johnson messes up (or should then be when he messes up?) he’ll be quickly replaced with someone intelligent and sensible. The same can’t be said of Corbyn.
Attlee and Churchill both remained after election defeats, as did Home (for a time) and Wilson. Really, the tradition, such as it is, started with Heath but it wasn't even then always followed - Kinnock 1987 springs to mind. Howard could probably have stayed on in 2005 had he wanted to.
Specifically, many of the risks people talk about associated with Corbyn minority are mitigated by parliamentary arithmetic, both inside and outside the PLP. We know for a fact that isn’t the case on the Tory benches post Boris’s purge.
https://stv.tv/amp/1442242-rob-johns-polls-show-everything-to-play-for-in-scotland/?__twitter_impression=true
We thought wrong.