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We may need to revise our summer plans – politicalbetting.com
We may need to revise our summer plans – politicalbetting.com
Is a summer election becoming more likely? Sources have always insisted to me that those around the PM wanted to go for a November election, but they are now talking about what happens if the PM faces a confidence vote after May elections… 1/ https://t.co/1NKv27qbdn
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He's going to try and get a flight to Rwanda off then call it after the inevitable confidence vote after May 2.
If he accepts its over for closing the gap to HP he will go earlier and try and minimise damage.
Tory GE 2024 is 'operation get as close to 30% as possible'
Summer makes sense
Late autumn will inevitably be depressing and people will be even angrier. So Sunak should do it. June or July
The polls continue to look awful for the Conservatives with the Budget generating no bounce whatsoever thus far.
The May local elections won't be as bad as last year because there aren't as many seats being fought. Wiki says 955 Conservative seats so what would be a bad result? 300, 400, 500 losses? I'd be looking at some key councils and the mayoral contests not just in London but elsewhere.
Something eye catching like that
#whosaidsarcasmwasdead
As a free marketeer if someone wants to use their own land to generate power then they should be able to do so.
Their land, their choice, free market.
40 - 30 and the North side of 175 seats, hope he can cobble together 200?
It's why the returns on solar, in post tax terms, are often better than they appear.
This blowing up and costing us a fortune?
I'm nibbling.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13245741/Man-fighting-life-stabbed-train-police-launch-manhunt-knifeman.html
Terrifying footage shows the moment a knifeman armed with a huge blade attacked a man on a train full of shocked passengers.
The man has been left fighting for his life in hospital after being stabbed on the train at Beckenham Junction this afternoon.
Rishi 'I saved the sewage'
Another interesting strategy is September, but call the date now to stop the speculation (about the date and his leadership).
Ozzy suggested naming the date now on his podcast with Ed Balls recently.
Let the shareholders and bond holders face the consequences of their failure to do due diligence.
Happens regularly with American utilities and airlines etc. Failed businesses being allowed to fail is part of a healthy free market, that's what bankruptcy orders are for.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/william-moore-sean-thomas-matt-ridley-lionel-shriver-and-kate-andrews/
Robert Peston
@Peston
·
41m
Gordon Brown says the government can raise billions of pounds from banks. Read details in attached blog and watch full interview on #Peston at 10.45 ITV and via
@itvpeston
on X at 9
https://twitter.com/Peston?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
Shareholders and bond holders made their choice to invest. They should own the consequences of their choices.
And then someone else ends up owning the asset
KEEP MUM.
The problem for Sunak in having one in July is turds at the seaside and endless waves of small boats coming over from France. The optics of fighting a GE against such a backdrop are not great. But he has no decent choices now, does he? If I were him I really wouldn't want to be fighting an election with half my party looking across the Atlantic and very loudly cheering for Donald Trump.
See also: Brexit.
"Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with low income in the United States, providing free health insurance to 85 million low-income and disabled people as of 2022;[3] in 2019, the program paid for half of all U.S. births.[4] As of 2017, the total annual cost of Medicaid was just over $600 billion, of which the federal government contributed $375 billion and states an additional $230 billion.[4] States are not required to participate in the program, although all have since 1982. In general, Medicaid recipients must be U.S. citizens or qualified non-citizens, and may include low-income adults, their children, and people with certain disabilities.[5] As of 2022 45% of those receiving Medicaid or CHIP were children."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
It is, I think, fair to conclude that 85 million include most of the "massive underclass". Given the increase in costs since 2017, it seems likely that Medicaid now spends more than $8,000 per recipient, each year. (Endillion will want to compare that number with the current per person NHS spending.)
But that's not all. Many elderly are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare.
It is certainly true that there are people in the US who can't "access health care" without substantial costs. But to say that this is true of an entire "massive underclass" ignores easily obtainable facts.
If they bailout the bond holders, they're borderline corrupt.
There is no reason to get involved whatsoever. We have bankruptcy procedures, they should be followed. If nobody else steps in to buy the assets then the state should pick them up for £1 if nobody else offers any more.
At least TMay expected, and received, good local results.
Energy FAIL
Rail FAIL
Water MASSIVE FAIL
Telecoms SUCCESS
...is my scorecard.
EXCLUSIVE:
Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner praise Boris Johnson's vision for levelling up the nation as they accuse Rishi Sunak of killing it at birth
They claim that Johnson's analysis of regional inequality was 'good' but that Sunak failed to back the policy and 'give regions the levers to make it happen'
Starmer & Rayner are playing directly into Tory in-fighting over levelling up - Johnson has criticised Sunak over levelling up while Andy Street, West Midlands mayor, has accused govt of creating 'begging bowl culture" over levelling up funding
Starmer and Rayner:
'It’s understandable that working people might have become disillusioned or cynical, because one of the biggest tragedies of the past fourteen years is the sense that things can’t change. But they can and they will
'The Tories started to understand this with the Levelling Up White Paper. Much of the analysis in it was good. And there were parts that talked a good game about how Britain needed to build up all parts of the country.
'But the policy was killed at birth by the then Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who refused to back it; the chaos and corruption of the Tory government under Johnson, and a failure to give regions the levers to make it happen.
'The ‘cap in hand’ approach left places patronised not empowered. A few million pounds for local projects was not part of a coordinated strategy but part of a short-term giveaway – and local people have seen through it'
Not actually any better in terms of seats of course, but by being more similar to 2001 it might make them feel that a return to power is only 9 years off, not 13 (or more).
I guess election fever was always likely as we entered the 5th year of the parliament but it’s exacerbated by Sunak’s woes. The trouble is, the more the media, rebels, and the Opposition circulate the idea the more it generates its own momentum.
PMs who drag their heels or dither usually fare even worse than had they gone a little earlier: John Major, Gordon Brown, and arguably Jim Callaghan being examples.
There hasn’t been a July election since 1945 and that was pretty exceptional. There hasn’t been an August one in the modern era.
However, there’s plenty of good, solid, precedence for a June election.
Personally I tend to the view that the Conservatives might do least badly in June than any of the remaining 7 alternatives.
Also it may give a better steer on exactly where to implement firewall etc
Then it starts to make sense...
Those who are crying because there's any discharges at all need to look at what standards were like pre-privatisation. They were far worse.
What we need though is to let the water firms face the consequences of their choices. Make a bad decision, you lose money, that's your fault, nobody else's. Discharge waste, you get fined, your fault, your consequence.
With a nationalised firm, nobody takes accountability, if discharges happen they happen and neither fines nor losses mean anything to a nationalised firm.
What does Moon Rabbit think?
18 June 1970
9 June 1983
11 June 1987
Suggesting earlier rather than later in the month.
Anyway, let’s get back on topic?
If you’re wondering what happened to Thames Water this is a good summary.
They borrowed billions and paid it to execs and shareholders.
Now it needs investment they want customers to pay more. If it goes bankrupt taxpayers will pick up the bill.
I would not want to go back to nationalised levels of waste being discharged into our rivers and beaches.
If you discharge you get fined.
If you get fined you lose money.
Therefore there's a profit motive to not discharge, to not get fined.
Innovation.
Water levels improved dramatically post-privatisation. Rivers and beaches when water was nationalised were far, far, worse. This is an objective fact.
(Example: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/thousands-gallons-raw-sewage-leak-into-lake-washington/ZE3E6WCDNBEOHNHNWOCQM5LC3Q/ )
Why not? Perhaps because our journalists have become so partisan they treat these spills as natural accidents, rather than failures of elected officials.
One thing that infuriates Mrs C and myself is the repeated advertisements on Anglia TV for Anglian Water …… slogan ‘Love every drop.’
Why are they spending money on TV advertising; we have no choice as to who supplies our water or collects our sewage.
Critics of railway privatisation have to explain the doubling of passenger usage, and the increase in safety. Then again, railways were never fully privatised, even in the days of Railtrack (whose safety record was not as bad as BR's...)
In fact, there are three variables: the amount of private ownership, the amount of public ownership, and the amount of regulation...
78-9
late 92-97
2008-10.
Time for the economy to turn a corner really is desperation stuff.
No one is predicting the kind of boom necessary for the majority to feel much better off soon.
(first date is dissolution, so go back a week to allow for some washup, second one is election day:)
30/04/2024 Tuesday 06/06/2024 Thursday
08/05/2024 Wednesday 13/06/2024 Thursday
15/05/2024 Wednesday 20/06/2024 Thursday
22/05/2024 Wednesday 27/06/2024 Thursday
30/05/2024 Thursday 04/07/2024 Thursday
06/06/2024 Thursday 11/07/2024 Thursday
12/06/2024 Wednesday 18/07/2024 Thursday
after that, schools are closing for summer holidays (and I think some places break up even earlier.)
It may well be better than waiting until the autumn, but going to the country in the immediate aftermath of a bad set of election results seems brave.
(Yes, it's what Pedro Sanchez did, and it worked for him, but he had reasons and a plan. Plus the Latin Temprament.)
I'm not suggesting the water industry is perfect, far from it. And they should be fined massively for the discharges, because otherwise its pointless, and if the shareholders and bond holders lose money due to fines then tough shit, that's what they get for discharging shit.
He hopes!
https://x.com/shitbritishpics/status/1772730246267375875?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Not the taxpayers responsibility at all.
That's a positive for free markets, not a negative, privatise the gains and privatise the losses.
There is no excuse, reason or justification for a bailout.
I agree that pollution was worse in ye olden days, and the current figures might have more to do with measurement than an actual increase. There are also problems with increased building and the need for improved facilities and investment to cope - which is out of the water companies' hands.
But I don't see that these improvements could not have occurred in a nationalised system - indeed, water supply improved massively whilst nationalised. It's complex.
If a private firm receives a fine, or makes a loss, then it owns the consequences.
Either way there is plenty of scope for both innovation and accountability with a privatised utility, even for something like water. But there needs to be appropriate regulation too, including most important a firm hand issuing fines for any breaches of standards.
With power, you have generation, and even possibly supply. With telecoms... well, that's obvious. But water? Perrier to our taps?