If you thought we were having a May 2nd election boy were you wrong – politicalbetting.com
If you thought we were having a May 2nd election boy were you wrong – politicalbetting.com
Rishi Sunak finally rules out a May election.The months of speculation about this have been ludicrous. As if he was ever going to needlessly go to the polls when they're >20 points behind in the polls. pic.twitter.com/osXp2fLlaR
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Brighton fans respond to the rude banner about the Queen displayed by Roma fans last week with terrace humour reply of ultimate insult to an Italian “Totti loves pineapple on pizza”
https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1768365764161978849
I am going to miss that mad bastard.
A long-awaited investigation by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) ruled that he had twice breached the Scottish parliament’s code of conduct and upheld the three complaints that were made against him.
Holyrood’s standards committee will now investigate the issue further and recommend a punishment, which includes his “rights and privileges be withdrawn” as an MSP for as long as the group deems appropriate.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/michael-matheson-broke-holyrood-rules-over-ipad-bill-inquiry-rules-27v9tm0fz
Mad bastards can make great football managers: see also Fergie.
"Rishi Sunak’s levelling up agenda is beset by an “absolutely astonishing” level of delay, and the government cannot give “any compelling examples” of what it has delivered, parliament’s spending watchdog has found."
It won’t make any difference, though; the Tories will still lose!
Reform ahead of the Tories in the polls by midsummer? I don't think Sunak will enjoy his party conference.
Or they will have started to shift, in which case the logic will be "Give it another month and we will be competitive".
1. No leadership challenge but 217 Tory MPs have said they aren’t running
2. Failed leadership challenge means we have less ministers than before and very few of them are on the media spinning whatever lie Number 10 wants
3. Successful leadership challenge and PM Rehman Chisti needs more time to learn where Number 10 is and what ministers do
We only get an early (before legal expiry) election if the government collapses. Otherwise it’s Thursday 23rd January.
Though yesterday apparently Tory MPs were “worried there might be peace in the Middle East by autumn”, which would reduce the likelihood of disaffection with Starmer. A big worry indeed.
But not even a hyper rationalist with a spreadsheet would call an election when twenty points behind.
A January election will be political suicide. The media would hate it. The country would hate it. It more-than-smacks of desperation. Add to that the longest month of the year for most people financially (pay day is before Christmas), the cold, dark, the idea of campaigning during Christmas and New Year … no, it’s absurd.
It’ll be the autumn. Personally I think before the clocks go back but maybe November.
Just for fun. Will we have a reshuffle in September?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---
That does (just about) give time for one last change of PM who more or less immediately goes to the polls and hopes they immediately change like they did for Boris in 2019. Certainly, on current polling, I am not sure there is a downside for the Tories in yet another PM any more.
No election in May means an 7-8 month window has opened up. If the drip-drip negative headlines and poor Sunak media management continues, it starts to feel like enough MPs might be desperate enough for a last throw of the dice.
PBers inclined to follow the soccerball system in today's Cheltenham races should note:-
1.30 Bunting (Tony Bloom)
2.10 L'Eau Du Sud (Sir AF)
2.50 The Jukebox Man (H Redknapp)
5.30 Sonigino (Sir AF)
That’s 10 months in which to slash tax and spending so far that Labour must either hike tax again or preside over collapsing public services, and plenty of time to enact some “anti-woke” policies. Ban metric weights and measures. Maybe even shake things up with some referendums on capital punishment or ECHR.
May 2nd was the most popular GE date in the PB Prediction competition with 17/81 entries, including mine*.
(*Although, that could obviously change as I have the master spreadsheet. Joking!)
An utterly useless parade.
May 2nd was Richi's last chance to control his own destiny
I have however got completely addicted to For All Mankind which I think is brilliant on many levels.
It’ll be coming out soon.
But I went to the capitol for more than just the Ukraine aid bill that’s stuck before house speaker Johnson.
I went to provide proof and speak to representatives over one of Chosen company’s fallen: Dalton “Gimli” Medlin.
Gimli was an integral part of Chosen. One of the OGS (original members), he helped train up grenadiers, he helped with trench SOPs and overall was an amazing person.
Dalton was subsequently executed by Russian soldiers and his body subsequently booby trapped mid 2023.
Chosen will not stop on the battlefield to get justice and I’m now hoping the US government doesn’t stop to get justice as well. We know the unit responsible, the command responsible, and we will exact vengeance no matter where these members are in the world. Close your windows, hide your families, because we are coming and none of you will walk away.
The biggest issue that put Dalton and our other fallen in excessive harms way is the lack of heavy munitions and the US government slow walking aid.
In war, you can not be indecisive and sadly the USA has been just that. Talking constantly about Putin’s red lines which aren’t actually lines. Talking of this can’t happen etc. Without realizing these indecisive moments have cost hundreds if not thousands of lives and are pushing the world closer to a Franz Ferdinand moment.
We talk about Putin red lines, without talking about Ukraine, Poland, France, Estonian etc red lines.
This war will decide if we allow war criminals free rein over attacking democratic nations and will set a precedent for future conflicts.
Either support Ukraine now, or we will have a lot more gold star families in the US in the future. Families that speaker Johnson and his ilk won’t meet face to face to apologize for getting their loved ones killed over partisan politics.
PASS THE AID BILL NOW
https://twitter.com/IhateTrenches/status/1768533153847681505
But, whatever his failings, Major was a wiser politician and a better man than many in the current crop.
They really need someone whispering "Momento Mori" in their ears.
The atmosphere between the 2 parties now is that they look at each other and say snap apart from the rosette colour.
The only stumbling block is: who takes over?
Answers: Clacton and Hmmm?
And Sunak is an honourable man...
Even good ones?
A truly magnificent night in my Political lifetime.
By contrast SKS Tories offer austerity and workfare.
A brave view. I wonder if he’s bet accordingly. Pretty decent odds.
If its January 2025 the election, then I would like to see tax thresholds frozen again in the autumn and another 2% NI cut in the autumn statement.
That's what I picked up from Reeves' word salad of an answer when she attacked Hunt's proposed NI cuts.
It is an inconvenient fact that this time there really is no money left
The first is the inevitable singularity of Rishi Sunak losing his job as Prime Minister. Because everyone is a hero in their own story, he thinks that this a bad thing, even though the evidence is pretty strong that for British politics and indeed the country as a whole, it would be mostly a good thing.
The second singularity is that the longer the election is delayed, the worse the result will be for the Tories. Clinging on to power, in the vague hope that "something will turn up" is never a good look. When one considers the utter exhaustion of the Tories, and the huge rush for the exit by members of the parliamentary party, even ahead of the GE itself, it is very dangerous to continue ad nauseam. Defeat is inevitable, by January it will most likely become a rout, which could fundamentally eclipse the Tories for decades.
Yet for Sunak the first singularity outweighs the second. Hope dies last.
Meanwhile, May 2nd will see the Lib Dems back on the polling map as a result of the local elections, which, judging from recent local by elections will see victories concentrated in the blue wall. If Sunak had gone to the country on May 2nd, These losses would have been minimised. Reform Ltd. does not have membership sufficient to fight the locals successfully, and will likely fade after their inevitable disappointment. However they will not fade so much in the air war campaign of the GE, so the Tory result at the GE could be worse than the locals, which themselves will be exceptionally bad.
Sunak is gone at the electoral singularity. The question now is how much of the Tory Party gets through... and the answer is that the longer the election is delayed, the fewer seats the Tories will hold afterwards.
With Labour polling in the low 40%s but a squeeze from both Reform Ltd, and the Lib Dems, the Tories, even if they polled above 25% could still lose around two thirds of their seats. Much below 25% and, as we know from Canada FPTP can wipe out a party.didnt go for May 2nd.
The Tory Party singularity could be far worse than the Prime Minister thinks. He may rue the day, as Callaghan or Brown before him, when he decided to hang on and didn´t go for May 2nd.
SKS/ austerity Reeves are not Blair/ Brown who were good people
We even have a shadow chancellor who thinks NI is a hypothercated tax for pensions when it is not
I've just had an NHS checkup this week due to being over 40 and was surprised how supportive the person doing it was of the carnivore diet I'm doing, most NHS materials still seem stuck in completely out of date "five fruit and veg" days so that was good. Even more supportive when I said how much weight I've lost.
Now back at the same weight I was when I got married 11 years ago. Not at goal weight yet, but getting there.
There being no money left and therefore needing austerity 2 is a Political Choice as is blaming migrants and those on benefits.
SKS is no Attlee.
What does that remind you of?
Other than that, I can’t see beyond Mordaunt because there’s nobody else who isn’t either (a) measurably tied too closely to Rishi or Truss, or (b) who would want the poisoned chalice right now.
Together with that , the economy improving and interest rates falling there is certainly room for the Tories to see a significant improvement in their polling .
.
Morrisons reports £1.1bn loss, £8.6bn debt pile, £735m interest paid, 8,800 jobs lost, assets sold, market share lost.
The honest way to do it is cut NI rate, increase IT rate. And whilst you might be happy with that, the chances of that happening in an election year are minimal.
[*] free cake is OK, and I'm fine with one lapse or so a week. The real aim is to get out of the habit I'd fallen into of having coffee and cake in the work cafe most workdays and buying doughnuts or whatever every time I was in the supermarket.
I need to get back on it.
Not a New Year resolution in my case, but have been steadily losing weight since last summer by simply cutting down the amount that I eat while still eating largely my normal (vegetarian) diet. I'm down from 91 kg to 85 kg now and still gradually falling. My ideal weight would be around 80 kg, so should hopefully get there in another 6 months or so.
I've tried radical approaches before, which do lead to quick weight loss but are difficult to maintain in the long term, and then it goes back on again. This time seems different - nothing radical, but just enough to tip the balance from gain to loss, and maintainable indefinitely.
But that's not AI, and I'm doubtful that it gets us closer to AI. There's a theory that intelligence evolved so that males could impress the Laydeeezz. (And the Laydeeezz could be smart enough to ignore the men showing off.) Not sure that it's even possible to replicate that in silicon.
An analogy might be the difference between Mastermind and Only Connect. On the surface they are very similar: Mastermind requires you to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of general and specialist knowledge. But that's all.
Only Connect requires an encyclopedic knowledge, but also the ability to try and work out the connections between pieces of encyclopedic knowledge. Mastermind would not be a test of intelligence; Only Connect might be.
(This is not to dismiss Mastermind contestants; they'll be intelligent. It's just that I don't see the quiz as a good test of intelligence, just fact storage and retrieval.)
So, in effect, the current government is cutting NI, while IT is going up.
Many, including myself, would do a different structure for the IT rises. I would go back to the personal allowance, and increase it, offset further up the scale. Mind you, I would make the personal allowance non-removable.
And re-structure the triple lock - that when the pension reaches the level of the personal allowance, the two will be locked together and both subject to the triple-lock.
Even if Rishi personally defeated Russia and led the parade through Red Square. And solved the Israel/Palestine problem.
Incidentally, machine learning is at the heart of the recent decoding of some of the Herculaneum papyri; although it required humans to spend countless hours staring at images to get the initial feed information.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00346-8
This has brought me up over ten stone which I'm happy about.
Dream scenario A: I write a bestselling novel and earn £100k royalties p.a. I spend my time crafting bespoke campervan conversions that I sell at a very slight loss after indulging my love of joinery to make the most beautiful campervan fittings you have ever seen.
Dream scenario B: Teachers’ pay is hiked to £100k in return for schools becoming a sort of one stop shop for thriving kids (wraparound care, much shorter holidays with holiday camps, all teachers trained as mental health professionals etc). My hours are brutal but my job satisfaction is high.
I think the me in A should, morally, be taxed more heavily because I’m laying about indulging myself when I could be being more productive, whereas in B my productivity is maximised.
More prosaically I think unearned income should be taxed more heavily than earned income.
Which wiki tells me came out 20 years ago. Christ I'm old.
Twenty years ago, if I was listening to a twenty-year-old album I would've thought it was ancient.
Which is not to say that LLMs are; just that this isn't a very good objection to their being so.
The question is, Bart, what are you going to do when you achieve your target weight? Stick with the carnivore diet, go back to a standard one (you will put the weight back on) or something else?
My main NYR for immediate action was to not drink at home until I returned from holiday, which I achieved. (I also achieved it on holiday as not once did I drink at my hotel). To start with it was hard, I sometimes needed a drink and it was a big effort not to pure one. Since returning from Thailand I have had two or three G&Ts and enjoyed them. I have cancelled Naked Wines, and not felt like opening any of the bottles that are left. Job done. I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with drinking at home per sec, but I felt I was doing too much, for the wrong reasons, and I drink enough diwn the pub as it is
Just a note that the Cons are currently further behind in the polls than they were six months ago. They are marginally further behind than they were twelve months ago. That does not mean the Govt's position cannot improve but there are precious few signs of it. They are 8 months from a landslide defeat or 10 months away from a humiliation. That is where they are and Mr Sunak and his No 10 minions seem to have no idea of what to do about it.
Let's take pineapple on pizza as an example. Would the most sophisticated LLM on the planet be able to opine on whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.