Elections 2021: who wants what, who’ll get it, and what then? – politicalbetting.com
Elections 2021: who wants what, who’ll get it, and what then? – politicalbetting.com
Elections are back on the menu. Lots of them. After the cancelled local election round last year, every person in Britain will have at least one vote to cast in May, many people will have several.
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I notice that freight traffic across the channel appears to have returned to normal, suggesting that Brexit is smoothing out: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56044610
A success of vaccination and a success of Brexit: Boris Johnson appears to have the Midas touch.
I continue to believe that he will win a landslide at the next General Election, which may come before 2024, and that the tories will perform relatively well this May.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
Bizarre so far. Nohit’s looked in no trouble, thrashing the ball everywhere with disdain, and yet of the others even Pujara found life hard on this pitch. Can only conclude it’s because Sharma is playing shots, so Pant and Sundar will be dangerous.
Labour has little to offer to the nation beyond its core supporters. I cannot see how they will return to power, other than to renegotiate the UK's terms of business with the EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esher_and_Walton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Have Boris Johnson and the UK made a success of vaccination? Yes/No
Has Brexit proved a disaster? Yes/No
I deal with facts and the facts to me are clear: after some sizeable cock-ups early on with the pandemic the Johnson Government are making a stellar success of the vaccine rollout and Brexit has gone much more smoothly so far than anticipated. The EU by contrast have shown themselves to be hopelessly lost in bureaucratic bungling.
I'm sorry if the facts are inconvenient to you Roger.
And I say that as somebody who flatly disagrees with your posts on Johnson.
Thanks for your other comment, appreciated.
Anybody that has layed the draw in this match will be feeling smug right now. Even at 11s I'd be a layer. Can't see this even going to a fifth day.
There is a lot Labour offer the self-employed... a furlough scheme that didn't leave so many out, the tories tried to raise their taxes, a pragmatic approach on EU relations...
The problem is the retired. They need to do better with pensioners somehow.
How about disengaging with personal abuse and answering my points? Don't descend into unthinking tribalism. Tell us what you see as the purpose and direction of Labour right now. What's the vision?
Incidentally, the other big shift which happened with Boris was the despatch of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain. It's very noticeable that since Carrie, Allegra and Dan Rosenfield came into the centre of power the Government have changed tack. The War on Whitehall has abated. That whole Dom Cummings aggressive anarchy from within has been replaced by something much softer, more mainstream and centrist.
And that appeals to me, I'm not afraid to say.
Will we get an FT article on this? Or will they focus on Q1 figures being down 25%+?
On Vaccines, the UK has done better than pretty much any comparable nation. Yes, there have been hiccups. We still have supply issues. But due to the foresight of the vaccine procurement programme, helped considerably by the centralised nature of the NHS, it’s currently going very well.
However, at the same time, the very success of the vaccine programme throws into stark relief too many earlier mistakes. If we had locked down properly three months ago, when vaccines were just over the horizon and cases were taking off, we could have kept the virus under control and vaccination and rapid reopening would be far easier now. As it is, the determination to ‘save Christmas’ and ‘keep schools open’ has forced us to lock down far harder and more disastrously for longer while still causing many avoidable deaths at a time when an endgame was in sight.
Has Brexit proved a disaster? Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘disaster.’ The Sky has not fallen in, nor the earth stopped rotating, nor has Ireland declared war. So far, so good. But a great many foreseeable problems were unforeseen by the government - live animal/fish exports, supply chains into Ireland, excessive paperwork - partly because of the last minute nature of the deal, and partly because the government is totally incompetent. So I would say it has been at this moment a failure, because it hasn’t achieved what it said it would achieve, but it has led to what the more realistic sceptics said it would - unnecessary confusion and delay.
On Cummings, I can only agree. Dangerous man, because he was a stupid man - worse, one who was unshakeably convinced of his own genius. Also a nasty and dishonest bully. The further such people are kept from government, the better. But it speaks volumes and not in a good way that he was hired at all and kept so long despite his persistent track record of failure.
On topic, so far as this post is concerned, my understanding is that while the number of vehicles remains similar, many of them are empty. Now I don't know how many were this time last year, but if truckers are delivering loads and then turning round and coming, or going, home empty that's not an efficient use of transport, nor is it a sign that everything's normal.
From spring last year I resoundingly backed the Dems to win and put my money where my keyboard was, winning very handsomely on several bets including Jon Ossoff. I was I believe the first on here to tip him and was derided (by you iirc) for it.
I will put it down to lockdown grumpiness but shan't hang around if it continues.
My guess is that ‘mystic’ is intended to be deeply ironic?
Game looks to be tilting slightly back India’s way, as only two of our bowlers seem to have much control, and only one of those is a spinner.
So far, though, I have heard of no exporting or employment successes, only failures, or difficulties.
True, it has had a major advantage in terms of allowing us to procure vaccines. And there will be others. The question is, can we over the long term create new markets to replace the ones that we’ve made less accessible, and will that be better than leaving the EU? That’s what a success looks like, and Truss’ razzmatazz aside, I’m not seeing it so far. Admittedly, early days, but so far we have no sign of meaningful access to a major market that we didn’t have in the EU.
Therefore - this being binary - Brexit is so far a failure on its own terms and the prospects for long term success look poor.
Which is roughly why I voted remain in the first place despite my disdain for the EU’s political structures.
But otherwise?
I correctly called Cameron's GE2015 win and won handsomely
I correctly called Brexit and won handsomely. I even got the 52-48 spot on
I correctly called the US Presidential elections 2020 and won handsomely. When everyone else was in flat panic in the early hours of Nov 4th I, along with Casino Royale, told everyone to back Biden. I came in at 261 Electoral College votes and scored one of my biggest ever betting successes. Go back and look at the posts.
So stop lying please. And stop being personally abusive.
If he, Archer and Wood can stay fully fit to be unleashed at the Gabba...
I see that Roger and IanB2 are doing their level best to disabuse me of that.
I also note that your account was created here in 2018.
I just cannot see how Labour are going to turn this around. What are they offering that's going to drag voters back to their fold? Or are they going to persist in petty point scoring in parliament? What works in a court of law, Sir Keir, ain't gonna cut the mustard with the electorate.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1360345802934267906?s=19
Post-Brexit trade: 'If you don't speak French, you're stuffed'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55993220
For the Labour right they have a 1980s Labour re-enactment thing going on, time of their lives. There might be a few quarrels about who is Blair (the clever play is claiming to be John Smith and not dying IMO) but mostly they have never had so much fun.
Compare the grumpy angry faces when Labour were leading in polls under Corbyn to the spring in their step now, enough to put a smile on even the most hardened leftists face (can confirm here)
The Labour left, well just some of it maybe can only talk for myself, politically I've never had so much fun in my life. Watching the amount of excuses and nuance come out for various polling results from people who previously had no time for even polls which showed small Labour leads is incredibly satisfying. I've never cared about best PM polling before but watching don't know catch up with Starmer as Johnson speeds on past it is almost as good as watching the football.
The SNP, my god the SNP. We still have some SNP posters on here I assume?
Own up, you guys either picked Keir Starmer or somehow advise him?
Whilst staying within the bounds of realism I'm not sure an SNP supporter could hope for much more from the current Labour party.
The Greens seem likely to gain from any rightward shift in Labour the same way they suffered from a leftward one.
The Tories can do whatever they like, what is not to like as a Tory? (don't give me the strong opposition line, I was here when Labour were leading in the polls, they don't want strong opposition)
The Lib Dems are the only party not really getting anything out of Labour but I'm not sure they could in any possible situation, even more pointless than Labour.
So the Labour party are providing a bit of enjoyment for everyone they can be, can you really ask for much more than that?
???
Anyway, I must go. Not my most pleasant experience on here this morning. If it continues I shall absent myself in future.
I'm not a cheerleader for Boris Foxy. I'm a left-leaner. But, and I realise this is really irritating to his detractors, the UK's vaccine rollout is a stunning, stellar, staggering, brilliant, outstanding and astounding success. Like it (I hope) or lump it. It's true.
A few points to make:
1) 8th March is not, and never has been, the date when schools were due to go back. It is the date before which they are definitely not going back, which is rather different. There is currently no change in government policy on this.
2) Yes, the DfE wants all schools to go back at once. This is because they are useless tossers who want to justify their worthless existence (or, in many cases, that they hate their children). The government as a whole is a lot more cautious, and it is expected that on the 22nd it will be announced that schools are returning in phases.
3) Nobody (apart from a few actual nutters) now seems to be disputing that keeping schools open leads to higher infection rates, which is a rare outbreak of sanity. That does mean, therefore, that we have to accept with a reasonable vaccine immunity horizon only weeks away, it would be bloody stupid to reopen them too soon and undo all that work.
So the expectation among those both intelligent and knowledgeable is that there will be phased reopenings announced a week on Monday, starting with younger primary school aged children.
Of course, the government has in this pandemic tended to do the smart thing only after trying and discarding all other options. But we will see.
More here:
https://www.ft.com/content/653431db-7275-4d31-8fdd-676766c721f7
https://www.tes.com/news/pms-pledge-monday-school-opening-update-was-mistake
I may take a leaf out of your book and sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Starmer's Labour continuing to perform so dismally.
I am convinced the tories are going to win handsomely next election. I'd offer IanB2 a sizeable bet but there's no advantage to either of us in tying up capital for the next c. 3 years.
Will you now accept he was not the Jezziah, he was just a very naughty boy?
https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1354685686474039296
So of more relevance is the loading on inbound and outbound trucks. If you have a truck half full and only a couple of items then that won't pose as big a customs problem, but its an existential problem for the hauliers as they have been saying throughout.
Then we have the phasing of restrictions. Our government insisted on 3rd party status with no exemptions, but was incapable of applying those rules from day 1 because shit. So they phase in on various dates - the requirement for a veterinary certificates for Chocolate Digestives kicks in at the back end of this month, a huge slug of restrictions 1st April, others through June into July.
Charles & FU also seem to be wilfully dismissing the clear pain all of this is costing business in time and costs - the exact same type of red tape that they were always against. We all hope that the system normalises a new working solution so that at least some stuff transitions the border without too many problems - my own job relies on that. But its not a "success" when the end result is that we will have set back business red tape by 30 years.
We haven’t had ‘verbal agreement stamper’ yet.
Ydoethur is a good example, as evidenced below, of someone with whom you can disagree (hugely, perhaps) and still respect.
I'm not SNP. I don't want to see an endless SNP government. But my two votes - and those of my wife and my brother and my sister in law, all of us migrants to Scotland since their last election - will be for the SNP. As Sean Connery once said, "its time for a change in Scotland"...
We have the learn to live with it in the longer term. Maybe annual jabs, but otherwise we live with it.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-will-the-recency-effect-shape-opinion-on-our-leaders-handling-of-coronavirus-12216278
The point is that ‘asap’ is when we have sufficient numbers vaccinated to keep hospitalisation low. Otherwise, everything we have done up to now is effectively wasted.
Which may be the 8th March, but is more likely to be the 22nd on current rates.
The crucifixion is far from the end of the story, a few hundred years of competing against lions in the games and then it is our time to shine!
What they need to do is find new roots. That’s Starmer’s real challenge.
Always look on the bright side of life...
https://twitter.com/NicolaMedical/status/1359810781295042565?s=19
The hard left are a protest group. They want poor people to suffer so that they can entertain themselves protesting on behalf of the poor. Should Labour actually be elected and sweep away the ills and inequalities of the world then Jezbollah and his cult would have no reason to exist.
Dangerous for England. These two can score quick and score heavy, they’re capable of batting us out of the match today.
Edit - has anyone seen that two Gloucestershire developed players are on the England coaching staff? Jon Lewis, bowling coach and Chris Read, wicketkeeping coach. And I think Chris Taylor has been their fielding coach at times.
Forget the EU, the Government have set themselves up for a barny with China. You can’t do that with a population without an education and, by most metrics other than freedom of expression, is less free than the Chinese is at the moment.
My daily reminder also that, globally, cases are dropping quite rapidly now also. What is happening in India defies explanation.
They’re reminding me of the protectionists under Derby from 1846 to 1867. Just about big enough to always be in sight of power, due to their strength in the counties, but never quite able to broaden their appeal enough to win power because of their weaknesses in the boroughs.
To keep the Plebeian support, they must be given bread and circuses, and he delivers the circuses. I am not convinced that Starmer can deliver either.
TBH I'm fairly sure Bastani hasn't either but quite frankly we seem to be somewhat on the same side here so I don't see why either of us would care, Bastani has no real sway on Labour and you want to vote for their opponents. Arguably the SNP would be more welcoming to left wingers like him than Labour, I'd feel a lot more welcome in the SNP.
I've always been anti nationalism (no real problem with flags or patriotism) against breaking up into small pieces whether it was the EU or the UK but I'd be tempted to vote SNP next election if I was up in Scotland and yes in a referendum just to get away from both Labour and the Tories.
Still no sign of getting Rohit though. He looks in no trouble at all.
My point about Bastani is that whilst he displayed foaming-dog-fever about the Dear Leader, he started off as a Tory. And now that he continues to run his bullshit "news" company baiting the hard left, he has quit the party he claims to be agitating for.
When the likes of me used to point out the loony left were a bunch of trot entryists trying to destroy the party, Bastani was a prime example.
As for Scotland, my (ex Labour Councillor) sister-in-law watched the Labour leadership hustings on STV the other day. She can't believe the barrel has been scraped this low and produced two Godawful candidates who seem to be determined to make Richard Leonard look wise and charismatic.
Labour have no purpose any more - thats why they have sunk.
The hard left want purity knowing it means blissful opposition
The centre want to triangulate and show that they are here to hear
The right want to do Blairism redux but don't have anyone in the ranks convincing enough.
Final point. Your problem mate is that most of the people your wing of the party claim to represent do not share your values. They are physically repelled by the left's views on nation, on culture, on ethics. Quite how you have managed to become this badly detached from your voters I don't know.
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
The problem was he didn’t really understand them. So his proposals for a blanket ban would have created at least as many problems as they solved.
Labour Lefties need to understand that Corbyn is yesterday's man, and Labour centrists need to recapture that enthusiasm that change is possible. "Fun with Flags" is anathema to those suspicious of nationalism, and just looks phoney to nationalists. Labour will not win by aping the Tories. If that is the manifesto then voters will go for the real thing.
(sorry, couldn’t resist