@HYUFD I've sent you a message about the bet that we had on Electoral College votes that now needs settling.
The final result was 304 Trump 227 Clinton in 2016 and it is now 306 Biden 232 Trump so it all depends how you define 'closer in the EC.' Including faithless electors in 2016 then I was right, excluding them you were right.
Its a widespread fallacy that rural areas are all middle class and affluent.
Perhaps caused by too many twee TV series about rural vets and doctors plus urban rich having having second homes in a few scenic areas.
To be accurate - there is often enormous disparities *within* quite small local areas.
It is not uncommon to have a lovely, ancient market town/village - the old stone houses owned by prosperous people, nice local shops etc.
Most of the locals live in the housing estate "over the hill" - priced out of the town.
The prosperous people work elsewhere - there are few local jobs. And the planning law make sure that creating new jobs is prevented.
The 2 groups rarely interact - drink in different pubs, shop in different places, go to different school, lead different lives.
This goes back at least to Roman Britain. Posh nobs up on the ridge. Hoi polloi (mixing my classics?) downstream of them, industrial effluent further down the valley still.
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
In Guernsey Nigel & Nigella were tested on arrival and have to self isolate for 14 days when they're tested again. If they can't self isolate the whole household has to self isolate - and they are prosecuted and fined if they don't.
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
Nothing going back generations, but started taking bets and running books at schools from around fourteen, obviously tiny stakes back then. Since then lifetime betting turnover will be in the tens of millions. Met a handful of punters who would consider me small fry and many peers.
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
I've some sympathy with that - and you could make a very strong case that they were irresponsible in allowing people to bet money on Trump long after it became clear that there was zero chance of his winning under any reasonable interpretation of their rules.
The 'projected' thing, for such a massive market, created a dilemma for them they ought to have anticipated. They seem to have been afraid of legal action had they settled earlier. Next time around, the rules will almost certainly be declared EC votes.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
I've some sympathy with that - and you could make a very strong case that they were irresponsible in allowing people to bet money on Trump long after it became clear that there was zero chance of his winning under any reasonable interpretation of their rules.
The 'projected' thing, for such a massive market, created a dilemma for them they ought to have anticipated. They seem to have been afraid of legal action had they settled earlier. Next time around, the rules will almost certainly be declared EC votes.
I thought the original rules were just fine. I believe most of us did, especially when they started settling in accordance with that understanding. I suspect somebody 'higher up' panicked unnecessarily, got lawyers involved (usually a mistake, and why US lawyers anyway?) and made things worse with some appallingly confused and confusing PR statements.
As you indicate, they could easily have published a clarification of 'projected votes' but they never did. Instead they waffled on about EC votes, concession, the courts and so on, none of which appeared in the original rules.
They're a shambles, and don't expect them to learn. If you ever have the misfortune to speak or correspond with them, you will amazed at how jaw-droppingly ignorant of their own business they can be.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
I wouldn't read too much in this season's primaries before next time. There are some major differences.
Appealling to the base first then moving to the centre is quite common in their primary system.
Plus of course her status is totally different now. She was a relatively unknown figure twelve months ago compared to many of the bigger names - now she is the heir presumptive after Biden. If Biden chooses not to run and she does then she will be the flag carrier for the centre and 'continuity' not chasing the left.
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No. And of all the reasons that she might, that is one of the silliest.
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
I suspect that’s one’s attitude to Betfair taking a week or two longer than expected to pay out, is somewhat different if one has five figures invested, than if one has only a few hundred at stake (like me!).
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
I wouldn't read too much in this season's primaries before next time. There are some major differences.
Appealling to the base first then moving to the centre is quite common in their primary system.
Plus of course her status is totally different now. She was a relatively unknown figure twelve months ago compared to many of the bigger names - now she is the heir presumptive after Biden. If Biden chooses not to run and she does then she will be the flag carrier for the centre and 'continuity' not chasing the left.
If that's the play then you generally don't move to the centre until you've actually locked up some votes, you're not supposed to do it in October between debates.
I do agree that being the heir presumptive will make her really hard to beat in the primaries, though, luckily for the GOP.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
I thought her debate against Pence was fine (as was his against her). They were both low risk performances that executed the strategy they'd set.
On primary strategy, plainly she did make an error tacking to a crowded left. But they all had the problem that Biden was dominating the middle lane. As it turns out, those who stuck to the middle lane (Buttigieg and Klobuchar) lasted longer and briefly looked as if they may have a route through - but they still lost. It's also worth considering that the best strategy is always to get the best people to advise you on strategy. That's probably available to her if she's the continuity candidate in 2024, should she choose to take it.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
Nothing going back generations, but started taking bets and running books at schools from around fourteen, obviously tiny stakes back then. Since then lifetime betting turnover will be in the tens of millions. Met a handful of punters who would consider me small fry and many peers.
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
You referred to serious punters as if you had some familiarity with them, yet your post suggested otherwise.
Philip Thompson can take care of himself, and generally does!
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
Agree on the schools - the fanatical insistence on in-person learning for a critical week by both both party leaderships is just odd. But certainly in my circle of friends and acquaintances there is general alarm about the Xmas virus-spreading potential and almost everyone is cutting back on their plans and in some cases cancelling any family event. I wouldn't be inclined to ccriticise the government for a U-turn if they said, say, that in the light of latest developments, they were reducing the permitted get-togethers to two households instead of three. Socalising is good, not killing each other is better.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
Nothing going back generations, but started taking bets and running books at schools from around fourteen, obviously tiny stakes back then. Since then lifetime betting turnover will be in the tens of millions. Met a handful of punters who would consider me small fry and many peers.
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
You referred to serious punters as if you had some familiarity with them, yet your post suggested otherwise.
Philip Thompson can take care of himself, and generally does!
Of course he can, but if no-one else commented on other peoples posts the site would not work.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
Nothing going back generations, but started taking bets and running books at schools from around fourteen, obviously tiny stakes back then. Since then lifetime betting turnover will be in the tens of millions. Met a handful of punters who would consider me small fry and many peers.
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
Gosh. Tens of millions in lifetime turnover on personal betting is pretty large even if you are 130. Unless it's counting gross in and out exposures from day trading of financials type thing.
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
The value is of course that you can examine your own assumptions and logic-test output under various scenarios.
Its a widespread fallacy that rural areas are all middle class and affluent.
Perhaps caused by too many twee TV series about rural vets and doctors plus urban rich having having second homes in a few scenic areas.
To be accurate - there is often enormous disparities *within* quite small local areas.
It is not uncommon to have a lovely, ancient market town/village - the old stone houses owned by prosperous people, nice local shops etc.
Most of the locals live in the housing estate "over the hill" - priced out of the town.
The prosperous people work elsewhere - there are few local jobs. And the planning law make sure that creating new jobs is prevented.
The 2 groups rarely interact - drink in different pubs, shop in different places, go to different school, lead different lives.
This goes back at least to Roman Britain. Posh nobs up on the ridge. Hoi polloi (mixing my classics?) downstream of them, industrial effluent further down the valley still.
The poshos took the high ground to get away from the smells. They may have largely evaporated these days but the tradition remains.
It's a stiff walk up to Hampstead station, but worth it to get away from Camden.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Beto O'Rourke never seems to figure in these lists any more.
He'll need to win in Texas first. Which is not entirely impossible.
LOL @ the Michelle Obama number.
I think O'Rourke has little chance of winning Texas in 2022 unfortunately for him even if he does run for governor, the usual midterm backlash to the opposition party will keep it GOP.
A better longshot bet might be Joe Kennedy III if he runs for Massachussetts governor in 2022 and wins
I'm not talking about longshot bets for 2024. And even if I were, Kennedy wouldn't figure.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
Agree on the schools - the fanatical insistence on in-person learning for a critical week by both both party leaderships is just odd....
It's worse than odd - given the Xmas easing of rules, it's irresponsible and dangerous.
Beto O'Rourke never seems to figure in these lists any more.
He'll need to win in Texas first. Which is not entirely impossible.
LOL @ the Michelle Obama number.
If we're talking about the Senate because I don't think either seat is up in 2022, so it pretty much is entirely impossible (OK not sure what happens if one of the incumbents dies.)
He could run for governor but it seems bad to win as governor then immediately sod off to campaign for the presidency before you've even done any governoring.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I guess one's confidence in that outcome would've hit a low when he withdrew in early 2008, but the moment he was named as VP nominee by Obama his chances shot way up (although of course dipped significantly again when he chose to skip 2016).
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
I was looking back to before he was VP. Point being that Harris may be a very different proposition in four years' time. For now, too early to judge, I think.
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
In Guernsey Nigel & Nigella were tested on arrival and have to self isolate for 14 days when they're tested again. If they can't self isolate the whole household has to self isolate - and they are prosecuted and fined if they don't.
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
'What this has done to me is make me less confident about using Betfair as my primary betting exchange.'
Nice bit of understatement there, Mike!
Personally I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick. I suppose I should be grateful that I've learned something about them whilst getting my money out eventually. They're a bunch of kids playing a game they don't understand.
Betdaq and Sporting Index will do just fine when the need arises, and of course the traditional bookies with whom I have never had a serious problem in a lifetime of punting.
I disagree slightly. Betfair have certainly not covered themselves in glory over this, but paying out on the EC result is at least defensible. And to (apparently) settle so massive a market without significant delay, once the result was declared, gives me some confidence in their financial trustworthiness.
If they hadn't closed out the market last night, I would probably not have bet with them again.
I had £10k locked in with them. That's a lot for me. When you have a lot held by a bookie, or exchange, you must be confident that they have clear rules, stick to them, apply them fairly and intelligently, and deal reasonably with complaints.
Betfair failed on each count.
The rules stated that if there was doubt as to the projected winner they would wait for the official results.
The projected winner was disputed by the President of the United States of America, lawyers in the courts and punters worldwide.
So they waited for the official results.
I see no qualms with that. Had they not paid yesterday I would but paying on the day the results become official seems reasonable when the results are being disputed. 🤷🏻♂️
You are not a serious punter, Philip, and on the evidence of that post I'd say it's just as well.
Whether he is a serious punter or not he is right. If we are talking about serious punters, they don't moan about how its all unfair because of a months delay on a payout when the delay is arguable on the rules. They don't worry about whether Flutter group is bankrupt and cannot pay because they disagree with a decision. They don't stop betting on Betfair.
What is your experience of serious punters?
I've been a lifelong punter, semi-professionally for about fifteen years. I know many other serious punters and have often discussed aspects of the biz with them, read their books, attended their lectures. They are generally smart, worldly, fair and honest. Betting and bookmaking goes back generations in the family. I don't recognise the sort of behaviour you allude to from my experiences.
Nothing going back generations, but started taking bets and running books at schools from around fourteen, obviously tiny stakes back then. Since then lifetime betting turnover will be in the tens of millions. Met a handful of punters who would consider me small fry and many peers.
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
You referred to serious punters as if you had some familiarity with them, yet your post suggested otherwise.
Philip Thompson can take care of himself, and generally does!
Well he definitely doesn't have any problem arguing things without evidence or prior knowledge
Barely a Remain seat among them, which is not surprising as if you are posh and well off you are more likely to have voted Remain in 2016 than be a Tory now.
Remain after all only won upper middle class ABs in 2016 but Leave won the lower middle class and working class vote, the Tories in 2019 however won every class and did best with skilled working class C2s not ABs
Poverty, austerity and Brexit. Dominic Cummings made the connection, and so did CCHQ.
Interestingly the highlighted parts of the map include areas of the Kent and East Anglian Coast, Lincolnshire or the North East which voted for Blair and the South West which voted for the LDs in the late 1990s and early 2000s but are now all solid Tory post Brexit.
So they are not safe Tory areas as such but moved away from Labour after Brexit, while the South West moved away from the LDs after the austerity of the coalition years yes.
The South-West LibDem vote was always anomalous -- solid but quite Eurosceptic.
For a long time, the LD message there was "Yes, we know you disagree with us over Europe, but we will give you a referendum over the EU". Of course, post-2016, the LD attitude to the referendum result blew that out of the water.
This has transparently been tory strategy for a while now. Though obviously executed with less energy.
To be fair, there have been overexcited smalltown politicians of all parties who have crossed the line from "only a fool tells the whole truth" to "who cares if it's a lie, as long as it's out there?".
The difference is that, until fairly recently, they stayed smalltown and weren't so dumb as to write it down.
Beto O'Rourke never seems to figure in these lists any more.
He'll need to win in Texas first. Which is not entirely impossible.
LOL @ the Michelle Obama number.
If we're talking about the Senate because I don't think either seat is up in 2022, so it pretty much is entirely impossible (OK not sure what happens if one of the incumbents dies.)
He could run for governor but it seems bad to win as governor then immediately sod off to campaign for the presidency before you've even done any governoring.
As my reply to HYUFD suggests, I don't expect him to feature in 2024. He's young enough to have another crack later on, should he succeed in Texas - and were he to do so would be at least a contender.
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
'Breaking news from Porton Down. The new rapid Covid strain takes Christmas off to visit its relatives in China, so its perfectly safe to bin off all common sense and have a party.
Here to explain it from the government in terms of fine scientific detail is Robert Jenrick'
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
In Guernsey Nigel & Nigella were tested on arrival and have to self isolate for 14 days when they're tested again. If they can't self isolate the whole household has to self isolate - and they are prosecuted and fined if they don't.
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
The value is of course that you can examine your own assumptions and logic-test output under various scenarios.
But yes, a lot of fingers in the air.
Don't worry, long practised at this. Even when as with this particular exercise we haven't yet launched in this market! I've long joked about it with various younger members of my team that I'm about to give the forecasting pen a spin. Happily this particular sector has a steady growth curve to model against and I know all of the likely and unlikely curveballs that can be thrown in.
It is still not entirely clear to me why or how Mark Drakeford has so mismanaged this.
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
Its a widespread fallacy that rural areas are all middle class and affluent.
Perhaps caused by too many twee TV series about rural vets and doctors plus urban rich having having second homes in a few scenic areas.
To be accurate - there is often enormous disparities *within* quite small local areas.
It is not uncommon to have a lovely, ancient market town/village - the old stone houses owned by prosperous people, nice local shops etc.
Most of the locals live in the housing estate "over the hill" - priced out of the town.
The prosperous people work elsewhere - there are few local jobs. And the planning law make sure that creating new jobs is prevented.
The 2 groups rarely interact - drink in different pubs, shop in different places, go to different school, lead different lives.
This goes back at least to Roman Britain. Posh nobs up on the ridge. Hoi polloi (mixing my classics?) downstream of them, industrial effluent further down the valley still.
The Head Count (capite censi) might be what you are looking for - the lowest of the low.
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
The tricky bit is that income/education/age all correlate pretty strongly. The age bracket that was most strongly Brexit-voting were young at a time when hardly anyone went to University, and are now old enough to be pensioners, which will cap their incomes significantly.
Barely a Remain seat among them, which is not surprising as if you are posh and well off you are more likely to have voted Remain in 2016 than be a Tory now.
Remain after all only won upper middle class ABs in 2016 but Leave won the lower middle class and working class vote, the Tories in 2019 however won every class and did best with skilled working class C2s not ABs
Poverty, austerity and Brexit. Dominic Cummings made the connection, and so did CCHQ.
Interestingly the highlighted parts of the map include areas of the Kent and East Anglian Coast, Lincolnshire or the North East which voted for Blair and the South West which voted for the LDs in the late 1990s and early 2000s but are now all solid Tory post Brexit.
So they are not safe Tory areas as such but moved away from Labour after Brexit, while the South West moved away from the LDs after the austerity of the coalition years yes.
The South-West LibDem vote was always anomalous -- solid but quite Eurosceptic.
For a long time, the LD message there was "Yes, we know you disagree with us over Europe, but we will give you a referendum over the EU". Of course, post-2016, the LD attitude to the referendum result blew that out of the water.
Until 2016, there were an awful lot of people whose view on Europe was "well, I liked the Final Countdown, but underwhelmed by their other stuff".
Seriously, though, the past four and a half years has made us forget how relatively unimportant it all was - maybe vote UKIP for a laugh every five years in an ultra-low turnout election that doesn't matter, but other than that huge amounts of apathy.
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
The tricky bit is that income/education/age all correlate pretty strongly. The age bracket that was most strongly Brexit-voting were young at a time when hardly anyone went to University, and are now old enough to be pensioners, which will cap their incomes significantly.
So which one is the key factor?
Cost of living in London too another confoundign element?
Barely a Remain seat among them, which is not surprising as if you are posh and well off you are more likely to have voted Remain in 2016 than be a Tory now.
Remain after all only won upper middle class ABs in 2016 but Leave won the lower middle class and working class vote, the Tories in 2019 however won every class and did best with skilled working class C2s not ABs
Poverty, austerity and Brexit. Dominic Cummings made the connection, and so did CCHQ.
Interestingly the highlighted parts of the map include areas of the Kent and East Anglian Coast, Lincolnshire or the North East which voted for Blair and the South West which voted for the LDs in the late 1990s and early 2000s but are now all solid Tory post Brexit.
So they are not safe Tory areas as such but moved away from Labour after Brexit, while the South West moved away from the LDs after the austerity of the coalition years yes.
The South-West LibDem vote was always anomalous -- solid but quite Eurosceptic.
For a long time, the LD message there was "Yes, we know you disagree with us over Europe, but we will give you a referendum over the EU". Of course, post-2016, the LD attitude to the referendum result blew that out of the water.
For a long time, they managed to keep three distinct group of support: leafy Londoners, SW England and Rural Scotland, saying very different and often contradictory things to each group and hoping the others wouldn’t notice.
Its a widespread fallacy that rural areas are all middle class and affluent.
Perhaps caused by too many twee TV series about rural vets and doctors plus urban rich having having second homes in a few scenic areas.
To be accurate - there is often enormous disparities *within* quite small local areas.
It is not uncommon to have a lovely, ancient market town/village - the old stone houses owned by prosperous people, nice local shops etc.
Most of the locals live in the housing estate "over the hill" - priced out of the town.
The prosperous people work elsewhere - there are few local jobs. And the planning law make sure that creating new jobs is prevented.
The 2 groups rarely interact - drink in different pubs, shop in different places, go to different school, lead different lives.
Planning very rarely prevents jobs being created - even in National Parks anything that creates jobs will be looked on favourably.
The usual issue (in the parks) is that people won't ask for help early enough so end up putting applications in for the wrong location because they aren't experts.
When I lived in Malmesbury, there was a large group on the local council, who were quite clear. Nothing larger than a barn conversion for a studio would get through on their watch. They were quite explicit on this - and canvased for votes on that basis.
That won't stand up when it comes to the next appeal stage - the inspectorate will just check the local plan see that it matches the initial recommendation and allow the appeal.
The methodology was endless legal actions/challenges/protests bought by various non-council groups. Carefully egged on by the group on the council in question, of course. Local Greens were a useful proxy in Malmesbury....
It is still not entirely clear to me why or how Mark Drakeford has so mismanaged this.
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
There is something yet to be explained here.
He tried to be different from England which was very popular until it did not work
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
The value is of course that you can examine your own assumptions and logic-test output under various scenarios.
But yes, a lot of fingers in the air.
Don't worry, long practised at this. Even when as with this particular exercise we haven't yet launched in this market! I've long joked about it with various younger members of my team that I'm about to give the forecasting pen a spin. Happily this particular sector has a steady growth curve to model against and I know all of the likely and unlikely curveballs that can be thrown in.
Plus I think we can assume discount rates are going to remain, er, subdued for the time period forecasted!
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
Agree on the schools - the fanatical insistence on in-person learning for a critical week by both both party leaderships is just odd....
It's worse than odd - given the Xmas easing of rules, it's irresponsible and dangerous.
Things must have changed. The last week of this term at my school in Chester (also attended by Matt Hancock) was filled with non-educational games and carol services. Not sure they would be missed.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
London is another country. They do things differently there.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
London is another country. They do things differently there.
North London is a different country for those of us living south of the river!
I don't have a problem with anyone gambling and winning or losing whatever they want, provided it's an amount they can afford, they are in control of it, and aware of and comfortable with the risk.
For most people it will be £10/£20/£50 on this election, and most of them will have lost, which I can accept morally.
I cannot for those who've put all their life savings in because they believe their own side's propaganda.
Barely a Remain seat among them, which is not surprising as if you are posh and well off you are more likely to have voted Remain in 2016 than be a Tory now.
Remain after all only won upper middle class ABs in 2016 but Leave won the lower middle class and working class vote, the Tories in 2019 however won every class and did best with skilled working class C2s not ABs
Poverty, austerity and Brexit. Dominic Cummings made the connection, and so did CCHQ.
Interestingly the highlighted parts of the map include areas of the Kent and East Anglian Coast, Lincolnshire or the North East which voted for Blair and the South West which voted for the LDs in the late 1990s and early 2000s but are now all solid Tory post Brexit.
So they are not safe Tory areas as such but moved away from Labour after Brexit, while the South West moved away from the LDs after the austerity of the coalition years yes.
The South-West LibDem vote was always anomalous -- solid but quite Eurosceptic.
For a long time, the LD message there was "Yes, we know you disagree with us over Europe, but we will give you a referendum over the EU". Of course, post-2016, the LD attitude to the referendum result blew that out of the water.
For a long time, they managed to keep three distinct group of support: leafy Londoners, SW England and Rural Scotland, saying very different and often contradictory things to each group and hoping the others wouldn’t notice.
Seeing as their influence was mostly local govt, they probably could do different and contradictory things that suited the different regions. All parties do this though, it will be fascinating to see if and how the Tories can keep the leave coalition together. If it happened not sure the reality of 500,000 arrivals from Hong Kong will be welcomed by those thinking they won the argument for tens of thousands net immigration for example.
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
On average most higher income earners also have a high level of education so that is hardly a surprise and my original point therefore stands absolutely, income and education are a far higher indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum than they are of whether you voted Tory or Labour at the last general election.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
I dont think it was that clear. The electoral college margin looks healthy but Biden won some states by very small margins.
It is still not entirely clear to me why or how Mark Drakeford has so mismanaged this.
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
There is something yet to be explained here.
The wild swings between hardish lockdown and near normal certainly do not help with keeping people on side. People want stability, or at least predictability, so pick a level of restrictions and adjust in sensible steps per rules laid out in advance.
Anyone furth of the UK who wants a Hogwarts train set, or a nice Airfix Spitfire, for Xmas is out of luck, sez Hornby Hobbies:
"Due to the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of Brexit and what it will mean for our International customers, we do not feel comfortable accepting orders until we have clear guidelines on how this will affect our Hornby family and the way we price and ship our products. Therefore, as of the 15th December 2020, we will pause taking non-UK orders, until 4th January 2021.
We hope that you can all understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution. "
This is, of course, absolute peak toy sale time. The beneficial effects of Brexit and UK Gmt policy.
He gives a fairly wide ranging interview and Brexit is about fourth on the list, which is about how the EU in general now views the UK. This quote was interesting I thought:
"The Brits were never all the way in. This goes back a long way to how they refused to partake in the project after WWII and were rebutted twice by President de Gaulle after that…
I have mixed feelings when it comes to the Brits. On the one hand, they were persistent proponents or market economy – entrepreneurial freedom, free trade… They were always on hand in those matters. But dealing with them in pretty much everything else was such a pain…"
I´m sure the Brexit crew will have a few patronizing insults to lay on Kallas, but TBH he was a pretty good friend of the UK and most Estonians just view the whole Brexit fiasco as a bit sad. It certainly is not an existential crisis, however much Farage, Redwood and the Leave-their-senses crew might wish it to be so.
Eventually we will overcome the split, but it will take decades and will have cost the UK a staggering amount of money. The Leavers will be seen as having taken the UK into a cul-de-sac that was stupid and expensive.
So it seems the Government is ramping up fears of the new, super variant of COVID to quell any protest from their backbenchers when the promised downgrading to Tier 2 (or even 1) of the leafy suburbs doesn’t happen on Wednesday. Will they pull the same stunt to do a 180 u-turn on Christmas? Guess we will find out soon, though I’d expect widespread ignoring of any restrictions by those who have already planned family get-togethers - especially in areas with falling rates of new cases.
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
Agree on the schools - the fanatical insistence on in-person learning for a critical week by both both party leaderships is just odd....
It's worse than odd - given the Xmas easing of rules, it's irresponsible and dangerous.
Things must have changed. The last week of this term at my school in Chester (also attended by Matt Hancock) was filled with non-educational games and carol services. Not sure they would be missed.
The only thing that changed is that Boris had a moderate win against SKS at PMQ on the question of schools opening. Since then, neither educational nor health considerations have mattered.*
* except Eton of course that has chosen to send pupils home a week early without hindrance or, unless I missed it, condemnation from the PM.
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
The tricky bit is that income/education/age all correlate pretty strongly. The age bracket that was most strongly Brexit-voting were young at a time when hardly anyone went to University, and are now old enough to be pensioners, which will cap their incomes significantly.
So which one is the key factor?
Aren't we overlooking the obvious, that areas with large non "White UK" populations were Remain, even if they were areas with low income/educational attainment?
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
On average most higher income earners also have a high level of education so that is hardly a surprise and my original point therefore stands absolutely, income and education are a far higher indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum than they are of whether you voted Tory or Labour at the last general election.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
Hackney, Lambeth, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Greenwich, Waltham Forest, Islington, Southwark, Brent etc etc all have loads of deprivation and voted Remain. Also, not on this map, areas of Scotland and N Ireland with loads of deprivation and voted remain. I don't deny poorer areas tended to vote leave but it's far from black and white. Loads of wealthy Tory shires (except a few bits of Surrey and the M4 corridor) voted leave, for instance. Also, you didn't mention education until I did!
It is still not entirely clear to me why or how Mark Drakeford has so mismanaged this.
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
There is something yet to be explained here.
The wild swings between hardish lockdown and near normal certainly do not help with keeping people on side. People want stability, or at least predictability, so pick a level of restrictions and adjust in sensible steps per rules laid out in advance.
I think that is true.
But, it begs the question as to why Drakeford went down this route, after having been consistently more cautious than England throughout the summer & early autumn.
Did he end up actually believing SKS and the short, sharp firebreak?
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
In Guernsey Nigel & Nigella were tested on arrival and have to self isolate for 14 days when they're tested again. If they can't self isolate the whole household has to self isolate - and they are prosecuted and fined if they don't.
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
There is the Kenneth Arrow (Nobel Prize Winner) story that during the second world war, he pointed out that long term weather forecasts were rubbish, and the reply came back that the generals knew they were rubbish but needed them for planning purposes.
He gives a fairly wide ranging interview and Brexit is about fourth on the list, which is about how the EU in general now views the UK. This quote was interesting I thought:
"The Brits were never all the way in. This goes back a long way to how they refused to partake in the project after WWII and were rebutted twice by President de Gaulle after that…
I have mixed feelings when it comes to the Brits. On the one hand, they were persistent proponents or market economy – entrepreneurial freedom, free trade… They were always on hand in those matters. But dealing with them in pretty much everything else was such a pain…"
I´m sure the Brexit crew will have a few patronizing insults to lay on Kallas, but TBH he was a pretty good friend of the UK and most Estonians just view the whole Brexit fiasco as a bit sad. It certainly is not an existential crisis, however much Farage, Redwood and the Leave-their-senses crew might wish it to be so.
Eventually we will overcome the split, but it will take decades and will have cost the UK a staggering amount of money. The Leavers will be seen as having taken the UK into a cul-de-sac that was stupid and expensive.
I don't agree with your final two paragraphs, which exhibit your own prejudices, but the first parts I think are bang on.
They also explain why, IMHO, we will seek a closer relationship with the EU under future governments but are unlikely to ever go back in.
Anyone furth of the UK who wants a Hogwarts train set, or a nice Airfix Spitfire, for Xmas is out of luck, sez Hornby Hobbies:
"Due to the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of Brexit and what it will mean for our International customers, we do not feel comfortable accepting orders until we have clear guidelines on how this will affect our Hornby family and the way we price and ship our products. Therefore, as of the 15th December 2020, we will pause taking non-UK orders, until 4th January 2021.
We hope that you can all understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution. "
This is, of course, absolute peak toy sale time. The beneficial effects of Brexit and UK Gmt policy.
To be fair if the retailers have not got their Xmas orders by today what on earth have they been doing
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
The tricky bit is that income/education/age all correlate pretty strongly. The age bracket that was most strongly Brexit-voting were young at a time when hardly anyone went to University, and are now old enough to be pensioners, which will cap their incomes significantly.
So which one is the key factor?
Aren't we overlooking the obvious, that areas with large non "White UK" populations were Remain, even if they were areas with low income/educational attainment?
Not true, Slough is mostly non "White UK" it voted leave
Anyone furth of the UK who wants a Hogwarts train set, or a nice Airfix Spitfire, for Xmas is out of luck, sez Hornby Hobbies:
"Due to the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of Brexit and what it will mean for our International customers, we do not feel comfortable accepting orders until we have clear guidelines on how this will affect our Hornby family and the way we price and ship our products. Therefore, as of the 15th December 2020, we will pause taking non-UK orders, until 4th January 2021.
We hope that you can all understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution. "
This is, of course, absolute peak toy sale time. The beneficial effects of Brexit and UK Gmt policy.
More spitfires for Britain then? The ERGonauts wont have a problem with that.
Mr. kle4, I partly agree on the execution. The way the throne was decided could've been done with basically the same plot but executed miles better. Other elements (the way the Night King was handled standing out) epitomises the subversion complaint.
It is still not entirely clear to me why or how Mark Drakeford has so mismanaged this.
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
There is something yet to be explained here.
Interesting question. I think the answer on this occasion is that Johnson's lockdown policy has more of a feel for the human side - it was specifically geared towards saving Christmas to some degree, rather than the more pure medically led Wales approach, where the advisers probably did envision the possibility of multiple firebreaks and perhaps were indifferent to one of those falling slap bang over Christmas. The Welsh firebreaks did work and resulted in cases lowering, they just didn't last for that long. The 4 nation approach for Christmas was not something Wales had positioned itself for.
It's still the case that whatever is going on in SE England could blow up the Christmas plan in England as well and we ended up looking equally bad. I'm reserving judgement a little on what is going on in the SE, the claim that the new strain explains everything feels like something of an oversimplification.
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
On average most higher income earners also have a high level of education so that is hardly a surprise and my original point therefore stands absolutely, income and education are a far higher indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum than they are of whether you voted Tory or Labour at the last general election.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
Hackney, Lambeth, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Greenwich, Waltham Forest, Islington, Southwark, Brent etc etc all have loads of deprivation and voted Remain. Also, not on this map, areas of Scotland and N Ireland with loads of deprivation and voted remain. I don't deny poorer areas tended to vote leave but it's far from black and white. Loads of wealthy Tory shires (except a few bits of Surrey and the M4 corridor) voted leave, for instance. Also, you didn't mention education until I did!
So you have managed to name precisely 10 areas out of the 325 constituencies on that map that comprise the 50% most deprived constituencies in England.
Given Scotland and N Ireland combined make up only 12% of UK constituencies even when you include them the picture does not change much UK wide.
More of the wealthiest constituencies voted Remain in 2016 than voted Tory in 2019 eg the Surrey Remain voting seats and wealthy bits of West London like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham and Remain voting Tunbridge Wells for instance voted Remain in 2016 and Tory in 2019.
However other wealthy Remain voting areas in 2016 like St Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon, Richmond Park, Twickenham and Kingston and Surbiton voted LD in 2019 and Hampstead and Highgate, which voted Remain in 2016, voted Labour in 2019.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
I dont think it was that clear. The electoral college margin looks healthy but Biden won some states by very small margins.
The margins are small but the states are quite diverse, and it happened on top of a very healthy turnout for Trump, so it's not as if there was a big latent Trump vote that could have come out on top of that - he was pretty much maxed out. It's just really hard to win if most of the voters consistently dislike you, and they quite like the other guy.
Anyone furth of the UK who wants a Hogwarts train set, or a nice Airfix Spitfire, for Xmas is out of luck, sez Hornby Hobbies:
"Due to the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of Brexit and what it will mean for our International customers, we do not feel comfortable accepting orders until we have clear guidelines on how this will affect our Hornby family and the way we price and ship our products. Therefore, as of the 15th December 2020, we will pause taking non-UK orders, until 4th January 2021.
We hope that you can all understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution. "
This is, of course, absolute peak toy sale time. The beneficial effects of Brexit and UK Gmt policy.
To be fair if the retailers have not got their Xmas orders by today what on earth have they been doing
This is personal/retail direct mail order for individual customers. But thanks for giving me the chance to clarify that - I hadn't spotted the ambiguity.
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
I am no virologist but I am pretty sure the student population reached herd immunity some weeks ago.
Not everywhere. In Bath we had around 10-20 cases daily in the first few weeks of the semester, this dropped markedly to dribs and dribs for the last 6-7 weeks (coincident with lockdown). I doubt that over 60% of our 12,000+ students has had it.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
I dont think it was that clear. The electoral college margin looks healthy but Biden won some states by very small margins.
Indeed. Under their system you can the election be both close and not close at the same time.
Normal warnings about early polling apply but do we think Michelle Obama would run if she was the only person who could stop a Kamala Harris nomination and the resulting GOP presidency?
No and you are begging the question of Kamala's electoral toxicity. By 2024 she'll have been Vice President for four years.
The problem isn't her current polling, the problem is that she isn't very good.
Why?
Her speech introducing Biden on the night that the networks called the result for Biden/Harris was absolutely fantastic. She really looked like a future President then.
She can do the lines they give her, the problem is her strategy is kind of terrible; See how she managed to flame out in the primary after letting Bernie Sanders pied piper her off to the left then getting scared and walking that back and losing both sides. And her debate against Pence was pretty weak, although TBF it didn't need to be strong.
Who would have predicted a Biden presidency after his first couple of efforts ?
I definitely didn't expect him to win the nomination but on the assumption that he got that he was always a clear winner against Trump.
I don't think a Biden win was inevitable against Trump. I would say, however, that experience won the day. Biden may be an old man but he has a lifetime's experience of winning tricky elections. He didn't put a foot wrong.
On Kamala Harris, one of her problems is she is not really black. On the one hand she will be stereotyped by people who do have race issues. At the same time African Americans don't see her as one of them, unlike Michelle or Oprah. It's very unfair.
Email from the client. Can I please project forward the UK market revenues for the years 2022 - 2026.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
There is the Kenneth Arrow (Nobel Prize Winner) story that during the second world war, he pointed out that long term weather forecasts were rubbish, and the reply came back that the generals knew they were rubbish but needed them for planning purposes.
Sounds about right. I've just had the CEO on the phone. Apparently my new German colleague has done a model which is simplistic in the extreme and can I assist him add more detail? I can - P&L modelling is something I am sad enough to enjoy.
So now I'll be helping create two rubbish weather forecasts...
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
On average most higher income earners also have a high level of education so that is hardly a surprise and my original point therefore stands absolutely, income and education are a far higher indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum than they are of whether you voted Tory or Labour at the last general election.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
Hackney, Lambeth, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Greenwich, Waltham Forest, Islington, Southwark, Brent etc etc all have loads of deprivation and voted Remain. Also, not on this map, areas of Scotland and N Ireland with loads of deprivation and voted remain. I don't deny poorer areas tended to vote leave but it's far from black and white. Loads of wealthy Tory shires (except a few bits of Surrey and the M4 corridor) voted leave, for instance. Also, you didn't mention education until I did!
So you have managed to name precisely 10 areas out of the 325 constituencies on that map that comprise the 50% most deprived constituencies in England.
Given Scotland and N Ireland combined make up only 12% of UK constituencies even when you include them the picture does not change much UK wide.
More of the wealthiest constituencies voted Remain in 2016 than voted Tory in 2019 eg the Surrey Remain voting seats and wealthy bits of West London like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham and Remain voting Tunbridge Wells for instance voted Remain in 2016 and Tory in 2019.
However other wealthy Remain voting areas in 2016 like St Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon, Richmond Park, Twickenham and Kingston and Surbiton voted LD in 2019 and Hampstead and Highgate, which voted Remain in 2016, voted Labour in 2019.
Er, you do know that each London Borough contains multiple constituencies, right? We have already established that London has a disproportionately high share of constituencies in the most deprived 50% of English constituencies, through the magic of the zoom function and counting, so we know that your statement that the map contains "Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London" is simply wrong.
Put me down as someone who doesn't want to cancel Christmas.
Most people are very sensible, and it's unfair to "ban" it nationwide due to rising cases in a few areas.
People should be warned of the risks, voluntarily isolate in advance if they can for the next week to ensure they're clear (as we have been) and use their own judgement to meet up for a couple of days.
But Christmas bubbles mean inviting Granny and Aunt Flo for a three-household mix.
However, if Nigel and Nigella come back from their pox-ridden universities, they count as part of your household, and surely that is more of a risk?
In Guernsey Nigel & Nigella were tested on arrival and have to self isolate for 14 days when they're tested again. If they can't self isolate the whole household has to self isolate - and they are prosecuted and fined if they don't.
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
I don't condone it at all, but I must admit a sneaking admiration for the sheer dangerous insanity of that plan. Even Dura Ace would struggle to match it. I definitely hope that relationship works out for him!
I think the government should cut the Xmas pass to two households up to 8 people and just the 24th-26th, maybe even just the 24th and 25th.
I think with mass vaccinations already underway there doesn't seem to be any mileage in a relaxation that is going to cause a lot of death and hospitalisations.
Put me down as someone who doesn't want to cancel Christmas.
Most people are very sensible, and it's unfair to "ban" it nationwide due to rising cases in a few areas.
People should be warned of the risks, voluntarily isolate in advance if they can for the next week to ensure they're clear (as we have been) and use their own judgement to meet up for a couple of days.
While I do , I would agree this is a better approach and one our family will be taking
The figure of 1,264 is a 6% increase on 2018 and more than double the number of deaths in 2014. It is the worst rate recorded in Europe and about three and a half times the rate for England and Wales...
They show that two-thirds of those who died were aged 35 to 54. The report said the median average age of drug-related deaths had gone up from 28 to 42 over the past two decades.
Oh no! Nigel Farage agrees with me on something (that No Deal is all BJ hype and not a real prospect). Does not happen too often, thankfully, but there you go. It's shrewdie Nige in this case.
Boris said No Deal was likely and the newspapers, the pundits and the betting markets all swallowed it. I never believed a single word. pic.twitter.com/BsRcvz6z02
you need to zoom in and take a look at the city seats
Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London and of course cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, Hull and Coventry and Sunderland for example voted Leave anyway.
The poorer parts of Manchester and Liverpool and Newcastle perhaps the only exceptions
Ha ha very few areas from London? You need to master the use of the zoom function. I counted around 40 London constituencies on that map, more than half of the city's 73 constituencies. And if the map were extended to Scotland and N Ireland you'd find plenty of poor Remain-voting areas too. If I recall correctly income is not a robust predictor of Brexit opinion once education is controlled for but I may be wrong.
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
Yes but is income an independent source of variation in Leave support or is it a proxy for education? As I recall once you put in education income is no longer significant. You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
On average most higher income earners also have a high level of education so that is hardly a surprise and my original point therefore stands absolutely, income and education are a far higher indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum than they are of whether you voted Tory or Labour at the last general election.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
Hackney, Lambeth, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Greenwich, Waltham Forest, Islington, Southwark, Brent etc etc all have loads of deprivation and voted Remain. Also, not on this map, areas of Scotland and N Ireland with loads of deprivation and voted remain. I don't deny poorer areas tended to vote leave but it's far from black and white. Loads of wealthy Tory shires (except a few bits of Surrey and the M4 corridor) voted leave, for instance. Also, you didn't mention education until I did!
So you have managed to name precisely 10 areas out of the 325 constituencies on that map that comprise the 50% most deprived constituencies in England.
Given Scotland and N Ireland combined make up only 12% of UK constituencies even when you include them the picture does not change much UK wide.
More of the wealthiest constituencies voted Remain in 2016 than voted Tory in 2019 eg the Surrey Remain voting seats and wealthy bits of West London like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham and Remain voting Tunbridge Wells for instance voted Remain in 2016 and Tory in 2019.
However other wealthy Remain voting areas in 2016 like St Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon, Richmond Park, Twickenham and Kingston and Surbiton voted LD in 2019 and Hampstead and Highgate, which voted Remain in 2016, voted Labour in 2019.
Er, you do know that each London Borough contains multiple constituencies, right? We have already established that London has a disproportionately high share of constituencies in the most deprived 50% of English constituencies, through the magic of the zoom function and counting, so we know that your statement that the map contains "Very few areas from wealthy Remain heavy London" is simply wrong.
Even if you treble the 10 areas you named to reflect the fact that London boroughs may have 2 or 3 constituencies within them that 30 is still a tiny fraction of the 325 most deprived constituencies in the UK identified in that map (and ignoring the deprived London borough of Barking and Dagenham despite the fact both its constituencies voted Leave), with most of that 325 overwhelmingly voting Leave in 2016.
Comments
I am happy to settle though
Yesterday cases in Guernsey doubled - to two - one caught on arrival, one clear on arrival but developed symptoms in quarantine and tested positive.
In Jersey:
https://twitter.com/GaryBurgessCI/status/1338558156599922701?s=20
https://twitter.com/GaryBurgessCI/status/1338781830561009665?s=20
It is not really relevant at all, I just found picking on PTs post on the basis of his "betting seriousness", rather than the merits of his posts, unfair. There is always someone richer than you and someone poorer than you. Similarly there are more serious gamblers than either of us, and less serious than either of us. We should be able to judge their comments without resorting to commentating on their gambling status.
As you indicate, they could easily have published a clarification of 'projected votes' but they never did. Instead they waffled on about EC votes, concession, the courts and so on, none of which appeared in the original rules.
They're a shambles, and don't expect them to learn. If you ever have the misfortune to speak or correspond with them, you will amazed at how jaw-droppingly ignorant of their own business they can be.
Appealling to the base first then moving to the centre is quite common in their primary system.
Plus of course her status is totally different now. She was a relatively unknown figure twelve months ago compared to many of the bigger names - now she is the heir presumptive after Biden. If Biden chooses not to run and she does then she will be the flag carrier for the centre and 'continuity' not chasing the left.
Sure! Let me get the crystal ball out...
There is of course a sensible methodology to apply. Its just that the caveats become increasingly large and in my experience financiers have a habit of seeing "it could be £this if a,b,c,d,e happen" as "it will be £this and he's probably lowballing".
Ah forecasting. The black art of internal politics disguised as mathematics
Oprah Winfrey?
On another matter, some irony in the Government legally threatening schools to stay open on the same day that Hancock tells everyone to start self-isolating if they want to see Granny for Christmas. Moving schools to remote learning this week, backed up with readily available testing for teachers/pupils next week would perhaps have been a more effective approach.
I do agree that being the heir presumptive will make her really hard to beat in the primaries, though, luckily for the GOP.
On primary strategy, plainly she did make an error tacking to a crowded left. But they all had the problem that Biden was dominating the middle lane. As it turns out, those who stuck to the middle lane (Buttigieg and Klobuchar) lasted longer and briefly looked as if they may have a route through - but they still lost. It's also worth considering that the best strategy is always to get the best people to advise you on strategy. That's probably available to her if she's the continuity candidate in 2024, should she choose to take it.
Philip Thompson can take care of himself, and generally does!
But yes, a lot of fingers in the air.
It's a stiff walk up to Hampstead station, but worth it to get away from Camden.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/442823/ERDF_OP_Annex_on_CLLD_FINAL_070715.pdf
Income was also a pretty robust indicator of how you voted in the EU referendum in households with incomes of less than £20,000 per year the average support for leave was 58% but in households with incomes over £60,000 per year support for leaving the EU was only 35%.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-opportunities
66% of those with an income of less than £1,200 per month voted Leave, against 38% of those with an income of £3,701 or more.
https://natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/understanding-the-leave-vote/
Even if the division was less marked than education level.
lol.....
He could run for governor but it seems bad to win as governor then immediately sod off to campaign for the presidency before you've even done any governoring.
Point being that Harris may be a very different proposition in four years' time. For now, too early to judge, I think.
The difference is that, until fairly recently, they stayed smalltown and weren't so dumb as to write it down.
Here to explain it from the government in terms of fine scientific detail is Robert Jenrick'
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/15/man-who-rode-jetski-from-scotland-to-isle-of-man-to-see-girlfriend-jailed-for-covid-breach
Drakeford is a very cautious person -- as far from the reckless chancer, the laughing blonde bounder, as it is possible to be. Drakeford is not very imaginative or very creative or very bright.
He is the sort of political leader who has actually done very well in the pandemic -- his natural instincts are to panic, to shut things down, to ban things, to stay tight and to not move.
I wonder whether his lockdowns -- in the end -- proved counterproductive. For example, parts of the Valleys have been in very restrictive measures since the beginning of September. It is the Valleys -- the Welsh Labour heartlands --where the pandemic is out of control.
Maybe in the end, there are only so many sacrifices you can ask people to make. Maybe in the end, after too long in a straitjacket, enough people go WTF, I am going out, I am going to party, I am going to drink, I am going to socialise.
I am not a huge fan of Drakeford.
But, I am still very surprised that the cautious, bumbling, tedious Professor of Social Studies had managed to bungle this worse than the sexually obsessive, cocky, conniving Knave.
There is something yet to be explained here.
So which one is the key factor?
Seriously, though, the past four and a half years has made us forget how relatively unimportant it all was - maybe vote UKIP for a laugh every five years in an ultra-low turnout election that doesn't matter, but other than that huge amounts of apathy.
You said "very few areas" in London are on the map of deprived areas we are discussing, but that map shows a bit over half of London constituencies are in the most deprived 50% in England, so your comment was clearly inaccurate.
Things must have changed. The last week of this term at my school in Chester (also attended by Matt Hancock) was filled with non-educational games and carol services. Not sure they would be missed.
For most people it will be £10/£20/£50 on this election, and most of them will have lost, which I can accept morally.
I cannot for those who've put all their life savings in because they believe their own side's propaganda.
Given areas of London which are deprived include Barking and Dagenham which also voted Leave you also cannot even claim all London deprived areas as Remain areas anyway, so my original point that there are barely any Remain areas on the map of the most deprived areas again stands correct. The vast majority of the deprived constituencies on that map of England voted Leave in 2016.
"Due to the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of Brexit and what it will mean for our International customers, we do not feel comfortable accepting orders until we have clear guidelines on how this will affect our Hornby family and the way we price and ship our products. Therefore, as of the 15th December 2020, we will pause taking non-UK orders, until 4th January 2021.
We hope that you can all understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution. "
This is, of course, absolute peak toy sale time. The beneficial effects of Brexit and UK Gmt policy.
He gives a fairly wide ranging interview and Brexit is about fourth on the list, which is about how the EU in general now views the UK. This quote was interesting I thought:
"The Brits were never all the way in. This goes back a long way to how they refused to partake in the project after WWII and were rebutted twice by President de Gaulle after that…
I have mixed feelings when it comes to the Brits. On the one hand, they were persistent proponents or market economy – entrepreneurial freedom, free trade… They were always on hand in those matters. But dealing with them in pretty much everything else was such a pain…"
Full Interview here:
https://news.err.ee/1207417/siim-kallas-the-eu-will-not-allow-itself-to-be-taken-hostage
I´m sure the Brexit crew will have a few patronizing insults to lay on Kallas, but TBH he was a pretty good friend of the UK and most Estonians just view the whole Brexit fiasco as a bit sad. It certainly is not an existential crisis, however much Farage, Redwood and the Leave-their-senses crew might wish it to be so.
Eventually we will overcome the split, but it will take decades and will have cost the UK a staggering amount of money. The Leavers will be seen as having taken the UK into a cul-de-sac that was stupid and expensive.
* except Eton of course that has chosen to send pupils home a week early without hindrance or, unless I missed it, condemnation from the PM.
Also, you didn't mention education until I did!
This fucking eejit would rather people got sick than have a headline he doesn't like
But, it begs the question as to why Drakeford went down this route, after having been consistently more cautious than England throughout the summer & early autumn.
Did he end up actually believing SKS and the short, sharp firebreak?
I suspect the tides may prevent any Crapauds attempting the same here!
Just so. There's a pathetic desperation to be liked.
They also explain why, IMHO, we will seek a closer relationship with the EU under future governments but are unlikely to ever go back in.
https://twitter.com/BBCScotlandNews/status/1338797652331421698?s=20
For me they should call a cobra meeting and make the call and cancel Christmas
It's still the case that whatever is going on in SE England could blow up the Christmas plan in England as well and we ended up looking equally bad. I'm reserving judgement a little on what is going on in the SE, the claim that the new strain explains everything feels like something of an oversimplification.
Given Scotland and N Ireland combined make up only 12% of UK constituencies even when you include them the picture does not change much UK wide.
More of the wealthiest constituencies voted Remain in 2016 than voted Tory in 2019 eg the Surrey Remain voting seats and wealthy bits of West London like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham and Remain voting Tunbridge Wells for instance voted Remain in 2016 and Tory in 2019.
However other wealthy Remain voting areas in 2016 like St Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon, Richmond Park, Twickenham and Kingston and Surbiton voted LD in 2019 and Hampstead and Highgate, which voted Remain in 2016, voted Labour in 2019.
Of the top 10 richest constituencies in the UK ie Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham, Cities of London and Westminster, Hampstead and Kilburn, Westminster North, Islington and Finsbury, Battersea, Richmond Park, Wimbledon and Esher and Walton every one voted Remain in 2016 but only 5 voted Tory in 2019 and of those 5 the likes of Esher and Walton and Kensington only voted Tory by the narrowest of margins.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581188/Revealed-How-people-living-just-10-mega-rich-London-constituencies-pay-10-entire-countrys-tax.html
On Kamala Harris, one of her problems is she is not really black. On the one hand she will be stereotyped by people who do have race issues. At the same time African Americans don't see her as one of them, unlike Michelle or Oprah. It's very unfair.
So now I'll be helping create two rubbish weather forecasts...
Most people are very sensible, and it's unfair to "ban" it nationwide due to rising cases in a few areas.
People should be warned of the risks, voluntarily isolate in advance if they can for the next week to ensure they're clear (as we have been) and use their own judgement to meet up for a couple of days.
Maybe Trainspotting was a bit too close to home.
I think with mass vaccinations already underway there doesn't seem to be any mileage in a relaxation that is going to cause a lot of death and hospitalisations.
They show that two-thirds of those who died were aged 35 to 54. The report said the median average age of drug-related deaths had gone up from 28 to 42 over the past two decades.
https://twitter.com/Critic_GStewart/status/1338818224947867648?s=20
As I also pointed out of the top 10 richest constituencies in the UK Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham, Cities of London and Westminster, Hampstead and Kilburn, Westminster North, Islington and Finsbury, Battersea, Richmond Park, Wimbledon and Esher and Walton every one voted Remain in 2016 but only 5 voted Tory in 2019 and of those 5 the likes of Esher and Walton and Kensington only voted Tory by the narrowest of margins.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581188/Revealed-How-people-living-just-10-mega-rich-London-constituencies-pay-10-entire-countrys-tax.html