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The joy of six. How many of these states will Trump win? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2020 in General
The joy of six. How many of these states will Trump win? – politicalbetting.com

How many of these states will Trump win?TexasOhioGeorgiaNorth CarolinaFloridaArizonahttps://t.co/kjZmUREbjq election&utm_medium=direct&utm_content=cid:86422 pic.twitter.com/hjpXsHE20N

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Comments

  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,667
    First.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    What a fascinating bet. The value is - of course - probably on six. For if Trump has won the Presidency again, then it's highly likely he will have won all of these states.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Third
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    I would go for three
  • murali_smurali_s Posts: 3,037
    4 - Arizona and Florida Biden based on him getting 300ish EV
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    rcs1000 said:

    What a fascinating bet. The value is - of course - probably on six. For if Trump has won the Presidency again, then it's highly likely he will have won all of these states.

    Maybe 7/4 is a fairer price for that happening that the current near-evens on the straight bet?
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    edited September 2020
    The article ends badly with the related contingency paragraph, The odds are not insultingly low precisely because related contingency is so strong in markets to do with state (or seat in Uk ) betting.

    For instance take 6 roulette wheels - If you knew they are bent to always land on a same colour but did not know which colour then the odds of red would still be even on any one wheel (ignore the zero ) - however the odds of getting red on 6 wheels would still be evens and not 1 in 64
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited September 2020

    The article ends badly with the related contingency paragraph, The odds are not insultingly low precisely because related contingency is so strong in markets to do with state (or seat in Uk ) betting.

    For instance take 6 roulette wheels - If you knew they are bent to always land on a same colour but did not know which colour then the odds of red would still be even on any one wheel (ignore the zero ) - however the odds of getting red on 6 wheels would still be evens and not 1 in 64

    Yes, spot on. Multiplying the odds, like an accumulator, when the events aren’t independent but closely related, is an elementary mistake. Tsk.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    edited September 2020
    Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value
  • Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value

    You might get a related contingency bet on but I doubt you'll get paid out!

    It's an intriguing bet. Well done Shadsy. I'm not tempted myself but I can see there might be some value for the punter especially if, like me, you think the answer must be 3, 4 or 5. I don't think Trump will lose Texas or Georgia, nor will he win Arizona. The difficulty lies with Florida and NC, and I can't call either, so I would have to back all three options. That means a big stake for a fairly small reward.

    I'll leave it to others.
  • Edit: Forgot Ohio. Trump should win that too.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value

    You might get a related contingency bet on but I doubt you'll get paid out!

    It's an intriguing bet. Well done Shadsy. I'm not tempted myself but I can see there might be some value for the punter especially if, like me, you think the answer must be 3, 4 or 5. I don't think Trump will lose Texas or Georgia, nor will he win Arizona. The difficulty lies with Florida and NC, and I can't call either, so I would have to back all three options. That means a big stake for a fairly small reward.

    I'll leave it to others.
    Call yourself the punter? ;)
  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,559
    IanB2 said:

    Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value

    You might get a related contingency bet on but I doubt you'll get paid out!

    It's an intriguing bet. Well done Shadsy. I'm not tempted myself but I can see there might be some value for the punter especially if, like me, you think the answer must be 3, 4 or 5. I don't think Trump will lose Texas or Georgia, nor will he win Arizona. The difficulty lies with Florida and NC, and I can't call either, so I would have to back all three options. That means a big stake for a fairly small reward.

    I'll leave it to others.
    Call yourself the punter? ;)
    Not Peter_the_Mug_Punter, though.
    I can’t see much reason to expend much thought on this market, either.


  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,559
    From Politico, and this was before yesterday’s sad news.

    ...A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Joe Biden supporters said Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote in the presidential election, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers — a reversal from 2016, when Trump fans saw them as more critical...
  • The US is in no mood for a big ugly fight over abortion. It'll hurt him in Ohio and won't help him in NC. Maybe in Florida.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    What a fascinating bet. The value is - of course - probably on six. For if Trump has won the Presidency again, then it's highly likely he will have won all of these states.

    Maybe 7/4 is a fairer price for that happening that the current near-evens on the straight bet?
    Trump can fairly easily win without Arizona. For him to lose any of the others and still win is definitely a long shot.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733
    edited September 2020
    IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    That was actually very far from unusual in the post WW1 treaties, for all Wilson’s pompous smug blether about self determination. The point is, it was only the Germans who were not allowed self determination, which is why you ended up with German enclaves in Czechoslovakia, Poland, the whole of Austria, Italy, Denmark and France.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    rcs1000 said:

    What a fascinating bet. The value is - of course - probably on six. For if Trump has won the Presidency again, then it's highly likely he will have won all of these states.

    Yes, the clean sweep is where the value is.
  • IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    The EU is not a federation and will never be one.

    The UK is not a federation and will never be one.

    Italy is not a federation and will never be one.

    Südtirol is a province and always has been, whereas Scotland is a country and always has been.

    A typical PB Unionist post: absolute guff from beginning to end.


  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited September 2020
    The France, Spain and Sweden data shows the massive political gamble Johnson is taking with this new lockdown.

    In France and Spain cases are soaring to almost 15,000 but deaths are certainly not rising correspondingly.

    And Sweden has very few cases or deaths. D

    What we are seeing is the economy being destroyed and liberties being slashed to salvage the reputations and power of a government and a scientific advice group that has got this pandemic monstrously wrong.

    The Brady bunch can see the implications for the conservatives over the longer term and is moving to clip Johnson's wings.

    The tories better hope the bunch succeed.
  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    Too little. Too late.

    I could easily write a seminal article on “There is only one way unionists can stop independence”. Unlike Maciver’s useless article, my recommendations would be implementable, realistic and effective. Incredibly difficult and costly, requiring huge amounts of energy and fresh-thinking, but nevertheless implementable and effective.

    For obvious reasons, I will never write nor publish said article. The morons must continue clutching at straws in the dark.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    Love skiing in the Sella Ronda. Wierd seeing Ompa bands though.
  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    Too little. Too late.

    I could easily write a seminal article on “There is only one way unionists can stop independence”. Unlike Maciver’s useless article, my recommendations would be implementable, realistic and effective. Incredibly difficult and costly, requiring huge amounts of energy and fresh-thinking, but nevertheless implementable and effective.

    For obvious reasons, I will never write nor publish said article. The morons must continue clutching at straws in the dark.
    Why do you continue to insult people with different views, most are most definitely not 'morons'
  • The France, Spain and Sweden data shows the massive political gamble Johnson is taking with this new lockdown.

    In France and Spain cases are soaring to almost 15,000 but deaths are certainly not rising correspondingly.

    And Sweden has very few cases or deaths. D

    What we are seeing is the economy being destroyed and liberties being slashed to salvage the reputations and power of a government and a scientific advice group that has got this pandemic monstrously wrong.

    The Brady bunch can see the implications for the conservatives over the longer term and is moving to clip Johnson's wings.

    The tories better hope the bunch succeed.

    I love how suddenly Sweden is a beacon for the English right. They clearly don’t have the foggiest notion of what lies behind Swedish success.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MaxPB said:

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
    That requires experts and I suspect as we saw in that photo earlier this week expects get fed up trying to explain things to people who refuse to listen and decide to focus on the wrong issue (and Briext and a constitutional crisis are both things that should have been saved until there was a vaccine in place).
  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    Too little. Too late.

    I could easily write a seminal article on “There is only one way unionists can stop independence”. Unlike Maciver’s useless article, my recommendations would be implementable, realistic and effective. Incredibly difficult and costly, requiring huge amounts of energy and fresh-thinking, but nevertheless implementable and effective.

    For obvious reasons, I will never write nor publish said article. The morons must continue clutching at straws in the dark.
    Why do you continue to insult people with different views, most are most definitely not 'morons'
    There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Totally O/t, and will therefore probably be added to my scoreboard as such, but I was amused yesterday after watching the Rugby League semi final, between Hull and Wigan. They'd been crashing into each, hurling each other to the ground and then piling on top of each other for 80 minutes, but after the final hooter the players bumped elbows rather than shaking hands!
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    edited September 2020

    Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value

    You might get a related contingency bet on but I doubt you'll get paid out!

    It's an intriguing bet. Well done Shadsy. I'm not tempted myself but I can see there might be some value for the punter especially if, like me, you think the answer must be 3, 4 or 5. I don't think Trump will lose Texas or Georgia, nor will he win Arizona. The difficulty lies with Florida and NC, and I can't call either, so I would have to back all three options. That means a big stake for a fairly small reward.

    I'll leave it to others.
    I've gone for 4 and 5 (losing Arizona and/or Florida) at 3/1 combined.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
    That requires experts and I suspect as we saw in that photo earlier this week expects get fed up trying to explain things to people who refuse to listen and decide to focus on the wrong issue (and Briext and a constitutional crisis are both things that should have been saved until there was a vaccine in place).
    In this case it's the experts not being up to the task. I mean the official advice from sage was no increase in testing demand. That's poor data modelling and a gross misunderstanding of group behaviour.

    I've said it many times, the best thing for the government to do would be to give the world open access to all of the relevant data so the tech and banking industry build the models, not academics who clearly aren't up to the task.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733

    IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    The EU is not a federation and will never be one.

    The UK is not a federation and will never be one.

    Italy is not a federation and will never be one.

    Südtirol is a province and always has been, whereas Scotland is a country and always has been.

    A typical PB Unionist post: absolute guff from beginning to end.
    I do wish people would stop posting these things. Irony meters are expensive.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,559
    Iowa Senate race looks interesting.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.
  • This is Tories for you:
    A company owned & controlled by Dominic Cummings paid £250,000 to Faculty, the AI firm that worked on Vote Leave, in 2018/2019.

    Faculty also got the NHS #COVID contract alongside Palantir - a shadowy US AI firm owned by far-right billionaire, Peter Thiel.
  • Fishing said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.
    Typical arsehole pompous unionist opinion , I know best and we shoudl keep our colony under our control. I have news for you Scotland disagrees and you can stick your federal lies up your jacksie.
  • theakestheakes Posts: 839
    I would reckon 5 at least. The surprise to me is Arizona where he seems to be slipping, middle class voters in Phoenix are apparently leaning heavily to Biden. I am always sceptical of the polls that say x and y will vote for A or B. I prefer those polls which say how people are leaning, its a much better indicator of what is going on.
  • Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    Too little. Too late.

    I could easily write a seminal article on “There is only one way unionists can stop independence”. Unlike Maciver’s useless article, my recommendations would be implementable, realistic and effective. Incredibly difficult and costly, requiring huge amounts of energy and fresh-thinking, but nevertheless implementable and effective.

    For obvious reasons, I will never write nor publish said article. The morons must continue clutching at straws in the dark.
    Why do you continue to insult people with different views, most are most definitely not 'morons'
    There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
    Totally overwhelming , it is their sense that we should listen to our betters as they know what is good for us , given we are not bright enough to work out how to have a currency or run our own affairs. It is their sense of entitlement and ownership of us that drives their moronic thinking.
  • The France, Spain and Sweden data shows the massive political gamble Johnson is taking with this new lockdown.

    In France and Spain cases are soaring to almost 15,000 but deaths are certainly not rising correspondingly.

    And Sweden has very few cases or deaths. D

    What we are seeing is the economy being destroyed and liberties being slashed to salvage the reputations and power of a government and a scientific advice group that has got this pandemic monstrously wrong.

    The Brady bunch can see the implications for the conservatives over the longer term and is moving to clip Johnson's wings.

    The tories better hope the bunch succeed.

    I love how suddenly Sweden is a beacon for the English right. They clearly don’t have the foggiest notion of what lies behind Swedish success.
    The clowns would struggle to pick it out on a world map
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited September 2020
    Nigelb said:

    From Politico, and this was before yesterday’s sad news.

    ...A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Joe Biden supporters said Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote in the presidential election, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers — a reversal from 2016, when Trump fans saw them as more critical...

    It's logical considering who is being replaced both times.

    The GOP voters in 16 saw Scalia being replaced by a liberal as a major threat, the liberal voters simply saw it as an opportunity.

    The Democrat voters in 20 see RBG being replaced by a conservative as a major threat, the conservatives simply see it as an opportunity.
  • Another classic from this shower. Which is it? Sneaky or absolutely your duty to do it?

    This lot couldn't organize the comms for a piss up in a brewery.
  • Did the moronic halfwit ever have one.
  • Scott_xP said:
    Literally beyond belief.

    These people are just laughing in our faces.

    The only sane explanation is they want to wreck the NHS so that private medicine can take over.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Fishing said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.
    Typical arsehole pompous unionist opinion , I know best and we shoudl keep our colony under our control. I have news for you Scotland disagrees and you can stick your federal lies up your jacksie.
    Typical arsehole Cybernat opinion. You know best and all of Scotland agrees. Remember 2014?

    Why don't you do the rest of us a favour and stick your rudeness up your jacksie?
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Fishing said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.
    Typical arsehole pompous unionist opinion , I know best and we shoudl keep our colony under our control. I have news for you Scotland disagrees and you can stick your federal lies up your jacksie.
    @PBModerator why is this guy allowed to get away with this kind of abuse?
  • MaxPB said:

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
    That's my understanding. The model and its 13 year old code remain unchanged (apart from some cosmetics undertaken by a Microsoft team). Happy to be corrected.

    The key is that Tegnell says Sweden looked at Ferguson's model and didn't agree with the basic assumptions. All else followed from that.

    One of them has been proved correct.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Nigelb said:

    From Politico, and this was before yesterday’s sad news.

    ...A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Joe Biden supporters said Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote in the presidential election, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers — a reversal from 2016, when Trump fans saw them as more critical...

    It's logical considering who is being replaced both times.

    The GOP voters in 16 saw Scalia being replaced by a liberal as a major threat, the liberal voters simply saw it as an opportunity.

    The Democrat voters in 20 see RBG being replaced by a conservative as a major threat, the conservatives simply see it as an opportunity.
    A well thought out and we'll presented argument.

    Can you please apply this common sense to your Johnson posts?
  • Another classic from this shower. Which is it? Sneaky or absolutely your duty to do it?

    This lot couldn't organize the comms for a piss up in a brewery.
    Surely what is in question is not whether it is reasonable to sneak on your neighbour, but whether it should be a crime and backed by the force of law.

    If it is a crime surely it is reasonable to sneak on people, and for the police to enforce it.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    edited September 2020
    Fishing said:


    @PBModerator why is this guy allowed to get away with this kind of abuse?

    Because the limits within which he expresses himself don't end where your tender feelings begin.
  • Fishing said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It talks about "home rule" though so granting greater powers to Scotland while keeping the current asymmetric solution. England is too big and too apathetic to take its place in proper Federal structure, and Westminster unwilling to give up its power to become a federal government. I have sometimes thought we should have borrowed the German constitution, although that would mean breaking up England, as they did with Prussia.
    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.
    As it happens I agree, although I fear it would be too late. While I would like any England government to be radically decentralised, I fear it would end up being overly centralised. But local government should be a matter for the English to decide, as it is the Scots.

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Dura_Ace said:

    Fishing said:


    @PBModerator why is this guy allowed to get away with this kind of abuse?

    Because the limits within which he expresses himself don't end where your tender feelings begin.
    Malc is tolerated because he's a dreadful warning to anyone else who might be tempted to use that sort of language.

    Also he can be quite funny.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    I think Trump will win Texas, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina certainly, Biden will pick up Michigan and Pennsylvania and Florida, Arizona and Wisconsin will decide the election
  • Scott_xP said:
    Literally beyond belief.

    These people are just laughing in our faces.

    The only sane explanation is they want to wreck the NHS so that private medicine can take over.
    Perhaps the NHS was caught treating a Remoaner for a medical issue? Purge the unbelievers!!!

    ;)
  • This is Tories for you:
    A company owned & controlled by Dominic Cummings paid £250,000 to Faculty, the AI firm that worked on Vote Leave, in 2018/2019.

    Faculty also got the NHS #COVID contract alongside Palantir - a shadowy US AI firm owned by far-right billionaire, Peter Thiel.

    As @Foxy said a few weeks back, this govt is the finest money can buy ;)
  • Barnesian said:

    Knowledge and appreciation of related contingency is a powerful weapon for a punter as well - in two areas,

    a) Very occasionally bookies fail to spot a related contingency on two or more markets so you can get accumulators on giving great value.
    b) more common , is that if you identify a common factor in a bet from a bet in the past ( a sort of related contingency across time) then it is a good indicator of where to look for value (as you have a past result). The more not obvious to most of the betting fraternity the more value

    You might get a related contingency bet on but I doubt you'll get paid out!

    It's an intriguing bet. Well done Shadsy. I'm not tempted myself but I can see there might be some value for the punter especially if, like me, you think the answer must be 3, 4 or 5. I don't think Trump will lose Texas or Georgia, nor will he win Arizona. The difficulty lies with Florida and NC, and I can't call either, so I would have to back all three options. That means a big stake for a fairly small reward.

    I'll leave it to others.
    I've gone for 4 and 5 (losing Arizona and/or Florida) at 3/1 combined.
    Hmm, despite the polling I think he's more likely to lose SC than Florida, but could easily win or lose both. But at 3/1, not a bad punt.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2020

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    Wrong, the Survation poll last week had Remain in the UK leading 56% to 44% for Leave the UK with Remain in the UK not only on 68% of over 65s and 53% of 55 to 64s but ahead with 45 to 54 year olds 44% to 41% and by 43% to 41% with 35 to 44s with Yes only ahead still with 16 to 34s.

    Not only do 85% of Tories back Remain in the UK but so do 81% of LDs and 61% of Scottish Labour voters too
    https://cdn.survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/18161256/Scotland-in-Union_Tables_180920.xlsx
  • MaxPB said:

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
    That's my understanding. The model and its 13 year old code remain unchanged (apart from some cosmetics undertaken by a Microsoft team). Happy to be corrected.

    The key is that Tegnell says Sweden looked at Ferguson's model and didn't agree with the basic assumptions. All else followed from that.

    One of them has been proved correct.
    In Sweden. I am unconvinced that in a much more densely populated country, with ornery inhabitants who won't do what they are told or what is good for them (as we are seeing) the Swedish approach would have panned out the same way. For a start, I doubt they had been inoculated with a couple of thousand separate strains of Corona from France, Italy and Spain by mid March. Our experience looks a lot more like France or Spain, a little less than Italy where they had a godawful outbreak in the North but seem to have managed to largely contain it there
  • "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?
  • Scott_xP said:
    I thought we had established her status.

    Untouchable.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Scott_xP said:
    Literally beyond belief.

    These people are just laughing in our faces.

    The only sane explanation is they want to wreck the NHS so that private medicine can take over.
    Perhaps the NHS was caught treating a Remoaner for a medical issue? Purge the unbelievers!!!

    ;)
    How on earth have we become a country where to succeed you need to screw up the previous job. Just because you (hopefully) learnt from the mistakes in your disastrous previous job doesn't mean you are suddenly competent.
  • "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?

    Well, maybe it was about the PM taking back control, not the awkward brigade known as Parliament?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,730

    Well, maybe it was about the PM taking back control, not the awkward brigade known as Parliament?

    It's not the PM though.

    It's his favourite unelected bureaucrat, which would be delicious irony if we weren't so fucked
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?

    "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?

    "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?

    "Parliament is notably failing to fulfil the function for which it has so recently been passionately defended. It is accepting, with scarcely a squeak of resistance, unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty, and an official disregard for the quality of life that would be shocking even in war time. This is particularly inexcusable as much of this policy, it is becoming clear, is supported with disputed evidence based on contentious premises."

    Janet Daly, Telegraph

    What was the point of Take Back Control if our MPs let the executive carry on without any debate?

    Graham Brady has woken up. Hopefully, enough tory MPs will realise the damage this insane policy of stop start lockdowns will do to the economy and their party and join him.

  • Scott_xP said:
    Overseen and run by the next chief of the NHS.

    You couldn't make this stuff up without the use of mind altering drugs.
  • Nigelb said:

    From Politico, and this was before yesterday’s sad news.

    ...A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Joe Biden supporters said Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote in the presidential election, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers — a reversal from 2016, when Trump fans saw them as more critical...

    It's logical considering who is being replaced both times.

    The GOP voters in 16 saw Scalia being replaced by a liberal as a major threat, the liberal voters simply saw it as an opportunity.

    The Democrat voters in 20 see RBG being replaced by a conservative as a major threat, the conservatives simply see it as an opportunity.
    Except Obama recognised that the Senate was controlled by Republicans and chose Garland ("Garland is considered a judicial moderate and a centrist.") instead of a liberal judge.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Starmer on Marr suggests Labour will provide further state support for the airline industry
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited September 2020

    Scott_xP said:
    Overseen and run by the next chief of the NHS.

    You couldn't make this stuff up without the use of mind altering drugs.
    At one stage certainly (not sure about very recently) the firm for which one of my sons works was running weekly tests on all it's employees.
    Not, of course, through the Govt's system.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    HYUFD said:
    The wolves can sniff blood.

    My money's on Raab.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    That was actually very far from unusual in the post WW1 treaties, for all Wilson’s pompous smug blether about self determination. The point is, it was only the Germans who were not allowed self determination, which is why you ended up with German enclaves in Czechoslovakia, Poland, the whole of Austria, Italy, Denmark and France.
    Yeah, that went well.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    Nigelb said:

    From Politico, and this was before yesterday’s sad news.

    ...A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Joe Biden supporters said Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote in the presidential election, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers — a reversal from 2016, when Trump fans saw them as more critical...

    It's logical considering who is being replaced both times.

    The GOP voters in 16 saw Scalia being replaced by a liberal as a major threat, the liberal voters simply saw it as an opportunity.

    The Democrat voters in 20 see RBG being replaced by a conservative as a major threat, the conservatives simply see it as an opportunity.
    Over 60% of both seeing it important is not a big difference, however for evangelicals some of them may have stayed home this year after disillusion with Trump but now there is the chance of a pro life Justice they will vote and for Trump and the Republicans for Congress so the net basis is still for Trump
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Fishing said:

    Fishing said:



    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.

    Typical arsehole pompous unionist opinion , I know best and we shoudl keep our colony under our control. I have news for you Scotland disagrees and you can stick your federal lies up your jacksie.
    @PBModerator why is this guy allowed to get away with this kind of abuse?
    Because in your previous argument you showed that you weren't listening to the argument just sticking your fingers in your ears and going la la la.

    You cannot have a federated country where 80% of the population are in a single part of the country. And you can't split England up and no one likes no wishes to be controlled by their Neighbours.

    Gateshead and Sunderland don't want to be overridden by Newcastle.

    Sheffield doesn't want to be overridden by Leeds

    Liverpool doesn't want to be overridden by Manchester...

    And these are regions where to get appropriate Federated mass the councils would need to work together.
  • MaxPB said:

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    On the data models, it hasn't. There have been modifications to the old influenza model but ultimately it's basically the same decade old model written for a different type of outbreak. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem up to the task of figuring out where the virus is going next and where it has come from in real time.
    That's my understanding. The model and its 13 year old code remain unchanged (apart from some cosmetics undertaken by a Microsoft team). Happy to be corrected.

    The key is that Tegnell says Sweden looked at Ferguson's model and didn't agree with the basic assumptions. All else followed from that.

    One of them has been proved correct.
    In Sweden. I am unconvinced that in a much more densely populated country, with ornery inhabitants who won't do what they are told or what is good for them (as we are seeing) the Swedish approach would have panned out the same way. For a start, I doubt they had been inoculated with a couple of thousand separate strains of Corona from France, Italy and Spain by mid March. Our experience looks a lot more like France or Spain, a little less than Italy where they had a godawful outbreak in the North but seem to have managed to largely contain it there
    Actually Sweden was hit by strains from outside. They have a 'Sports Break' around half term when a lot of them go skiing. I seem to recall that the week that this falls varies across the country and you could map spikes in cases the week after the week that was the sports break (if you see what I mean).

    The idea that Swedes obey the rules and use a voluntary code of personal sense and keep their distance and so on has more merit.

    But why aren't we debating this? Why is Parliament silent? Where is the discussion of the most important policy decisions the country had made since the War? Why are we repeating the same cycle again?

    At last Graham Brady is making some moves in HoC. About time.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2020
    Starmer says he would get a Deal with the EU, pretty much any Deal it seems they offer but would never back No Deal and also suggests he would compromise with the EU on state aid
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    Reading through the thread last night, I learned a few things about covid (before quitting reading in a bit of depression).

    - I learned that it was stupid to believe that a virus spread by direct human contact could possibly have its spread limited by restricting the amount of direct human contact.

    - I learned that apparently people believe that the Government hasn't updated any data in any models since March and continue to use the pre-March data religiously.

    - I learned that the best model of combating covid was "provably" to adopt one that involved worse economic impacts than your neighbours, having fewer freedoms than your neighbours for several months (ie since mid-May) and ten times the death rate of your neighbours.

    - I learned that when the architects of such models say that every country is different, that the only reason they could follow their model in the first place was due to a slower initial increase in their country and in the UK the far faster initial increase meant that other measures obviously had to be considered, and that their model really consisted of finding a level where restrictions meant the spread wasn't exploding AND NOT REDUCING FROM THERE, he meant that actually we should have done exactly what they did and magically things would somehow have been better for us.

    It was a bit of an eye-opener.

    Have you not stopped to consider even for a moment whether the UK government’s lockdown policy increased or decreased direct human contacts with infected people for the most vulnerable (i.e. care home residents)?

    Or whether the near global policy of trying to reduce direct human contacts between non vulnerable groups to zero may in turn have significant downsides to overcoming the virus, for example through slower acquired population immunity and slower reproductive cycling of the virus, impeding mutation into less lethal strains.

    Much less the significant wider health downsides of lockdown that the UK government and others have admitted to, with perhaps 2 deaths directly causes by lockdown for every 3 from covid in the case of the UK?

    Or whether any lives saved and morbidities prevented from Covid have been worth the economic, social and democratic cost? Not just in the UK but developing economies, with 135m now at increased risk of starvation according to the UN?

    It is easy to just accept Dominic Cummings’ simplistic three word slogans, be a good boy scout and adopt a sneering and superior tone to anyone that bemoans the futility and wider damage of lockdown. It’s somewhat more difficult to understand what the goal of government policy is right now, given the NHS was already successfully protected, the curve flattened, time was bought to deliver improved ICU outcomes and for uncertain reasons deaths are still lagging new “cases” in Europe to a far greater extent than earlier in the year.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IanB2 said:

    Andy Maciver, former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives:

    ‘There is only one way unionists can stop independence’

    ... Today’s polling shows No losing in every single age-group under 55 years old. Unionists often took comfort in the propensity for people to become more unionist as they get older, but statistics amongst the middle-aged make for grim reading; only one-in-three under 50s will vote No.

    ... Only half of Labour voters tell pollsters they are certain to vote No. Two-thirds of Lib Dems say the same, and remarkably even up to 10 percent of Tories – which may amount to the electorally significant sum of 50,000-or-so voters – might consider voting Yes.

    In short, there are no silver linings for unionism. There is no good news. Demographics dictate that the longer this goes, the more heavily unionists will lose. This is a game unionists cannot win.

    ... if voting No means status quo, independence is inevitable. But if it means something more like federalism, or what has been known as home rule, then that is a game they can win.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18731202.opinion-andy-maciver-one-way-unionists-can-stop-independence/

    Only one problem with that: federalism is a turkey.

    It works well within the EU - that’s the point. And why Brexit will likely lead to the break up of the UK, as was warned at the time.

    Take where I am now. An originally German speaking part of Austria, gifted to Italy because (for once) it chose the right side in World War I. Unusually for the post-WW1 treaties, ethnicity, language or the preference of the inhabitants didn’t come into it.

    Mussolini did his best to encourage poor Italians from the south to relocate here, and they now comprise about a quarter of the population, but heavily concentrated in the few major towns. Almost every province is majority-German speaking, and once you go into the mountains you are effectively in Germany (with a few Ladino areas around Val Gardena, where I was last week).

    The region is an autonomous province within Italy and the EU, run for years by the Südtiroler Volkspartei, which shows how Italian it isn’t. Yet, apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, and some secessionist parties that trundle along on combined about an eighth of the vote, it seems to work reasonably well.
    The EU is not a federation and will never be one.

    The UK is not a federation and will never be one.

    Italy is not a federation and will never be one.

    Südtirol is a province and always has been, whereas Scotland is a country and always has been.

    A typical PB Unionist post: absolute guff from beginning to end.


    Part of what is now Scotland was part of a province under the Romans, and Scotland (which no one thinks existed before about 900) conceded to Edward in 1280-something that Scotland was a feudal dependency of England, always had been, always would be.

    Not a Unionist, and none of that is relevant to anything, but it is no guffier than anything it is replying to. And more correct.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2020

    HYUFD said:
    The wolves can sniff blood.

    My money's on Raab.
    The problem is most voters actually back Boris on the rule of 6, so it is not really a vote winner to oppose that.

    Hunt of course wants it to be him not Raab which is why he is stirring

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1305406977170903040?s=20
  • ManchesterKurtManchesterKurt Posts: 892
    edited September 2020
    eek said:

    Fishing said:

    Fishing said:



    I don't think England's size is an obstacle to a federal structure. There are many sub-national units around the world (Uttar Pradesh, Sichuan, etc.) that are as big or bigger. And the apathy might decline if it were given its own Parliament. A federal structure has its problems, but I thnk it's the best way forward for the UK.

    Hopefully coupled with getting rid of Northern Ireland asap.

    Typical arsehole pompous unionist opinion , I know best and we shoudl keep our colony under our control. I have news for you Scotland disagrees and you can stick your federal lies up your jacksie.
    @PBModerator why is this guy allowed to get away with this kind of abuse?
    Because in your previous argument you showed that you weren't listening to the argument just sticking your fingers in your ears and going la la la.

    You cannot have a federated country where 80% of the population are in a single part of the country. And you can't split England up and no one likes no wishes to be controlled by their Neighbours.

    Gateshead and Sunderland don't want to be overridden by Newcastle.

    Sheffield doesn't want to be overridden by Leeds

    Liverpool doesn't want to be overridden by Manchester...

    And these are regions where to get appropriate Federated mass the councils would need to work together.
    Not really.

    Switzerland is 8m people in 26 different cantons.

    Seem to remain rather wealthy and democratically stable with that setup.

    Federal divisions much smaller than huge English regions are possible and desirable.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Starmer also says he does not want 'another divisive Scottish referendum' on independence
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    Scott_xP said:
    Are there any rumblings of disquiet on the Tory backbenches at all? I've switched away from the conservatives off the back of this crisis but think the over 50 support continues to hold firm (for whatever reason). I believe the governent suggesting the public are to blame for a second wave plays to this generation i.e. personal responsibility etc
  • HYUFD said:
    Hunt: I'm still here, in the wings, ready and waiting, willing to serve, just in case you need an *ahem*.. alternative.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:
    The wolves can sniff blood.

    My money's on Raab.
    The problem is most voters actually back Boris on the rule of 6, so it is not really a vote winner to oppose that
    They may back him but will they comply when johnnies birthday comes around?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Scott_xP said:
    Are there any rumblings of disquiet on the Tory backbenches at all? I've switched away from the conservatives off the back of this crisis but think the over 50 support continues to hold firm (for whatever reason). I believe the governent suggesting the public are to blame for a second wave plays to this generation i.e. personal responsibility etc
    I suspect it will flick in an instant - at the moment your career is toast the second you show any disloyalty but at some point they will need to become loyal to the forthcoming new king.
This discussion has been closed.