Tried to find somewhere I can bet on the SNP being wiped out in terms of seats, but in vain so far.
Have you checked the thread header? Selling SNP on the spreads whilst keeping an eye on your potential losses?
As an aside, current polls show SNP should win about half the 57 Scottish seats. If you want a single price for them to win none, you can contact bookmakers and ask via TwiX.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
The larger bookies have a massive amount of analytics running on their database, and can see really quickly when any individual starts making money from them. Four-figure bets are basically not allowed any more if you’ve won one at odds against, and a couple of friends in the UK say they’ve started going into random shops to place bets because of the online profiling shutting them down.
The bookies want you sitting in the pub betting on your phone, on one of the many poor-odds accumulators they advertise on the football matches. They have way more interest in the Euros than the election.
I once won over 14 grand in a single Moto3 bet with Bet365. Account closed, banned for life.
Lol, because the bookie can’t afford to pay someone to follow the ins and outs of Moto3, and realised that everyone betting on Moto3 knew way more about it than they did!
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
But @Foxy did get 1500/1 on Leicester winning the league, possibly the best PB bet of all time!
IIRC @isam spent several years as a professional football gambler, and his syndicate had £75k on the line every Saturday averaging £5k back. At that level, it’s all spreadsheets and trying to get inside information about injuries and player selection.
Leicester winning the league was hitting the lottery.
I highly doubt anybody is getting £5k ROI on £75k outlay long term. As I say, Tony Bloom beat the market for 2%, with crazy resources and ability to get on money anywhere in the world. Football is hyper-efficient market.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
The larger bookies have a massive amount of analytics running on their database, and can see really quickly when any individual starts making money from them. Four-figure bets are basically not allowed any more if you’ve won one at odds against, and a couple of friends in the UK say they’ve started going into random shops to place bets because of the online profiling shutting them down.
The bookies want you sitting in the pub betting on your phone, on one of the many poor-odds accumulators they advertise on the football matches. They have way more interest in the Euros than the election.
I once won over 14 grand in a single Moto3 bet with Bet365. Account closed, banned for life.
Lol, because the bookie can’t afford to pay someone to follow the ins and outs of Moto3, and realised that everyone betting on Moto3 knew way more about it than they did!
Exactly.
The interesting (and lucrative) thing about Moto3/Moto2 is that the 2-3 best riders leave the series every year so if a championship contender from the previous season gets "left behind", goes well in testing and is on a good team then there's your WC bet.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
The larger bookies have a massive amount of analytics running on their database, and can see really quickly when any individual starts making money from them. Four-figure bets are basically not allowed any more if you’ve won one at odds against, and a couple of friends in the UK say they’ve started going into random shops to place bets because of the online profiling shutting them down.
The bookies want you sitting in the pub betting on your phone, on one of the many poor-odds accumulators they advertise on the football matches. They have way more interest in the Euros than the election.
I once won over 14 grand in a single Moto3 bet with Bet365. Account closed, banned for life.
Lol, because the bookie can’t afford to pay someone to follow the ins and outs of Moto3, and realised that everyone betting on Moto3 knew way more about it than they did!
Exactly.
The interesting (and lucrative) thing about Moto3/Moto2 is that the 2-3 best riders leave the series every year so if a championship contender from the previous season gets "left behind", goes well in testing and is on a good team then there's your WC bet.
Is another reason why football market is hyper-efficient, even total non-entity leagues, nowadays if it is filmed, StatsBomb will track all the players, build stats etc. They are literally collecting data from things like some obscure youth game in Estonia. There is no blind spot like minor sports outside the top leagues or unknown individuals just popping up from nowhere.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
But @Foxy did get 1500/1 on Leicester winning the league, possibly the best PB bet of all time!
IIRC @isam spent several years as a professional football gambler, and his syndicate had £75k on the line every Saturday averaging £5k back. At that level, it’s all spreadsheets and trying to get inside information about injuries and player selection.
Leicester winning the league was hitting the lottery.
I highly doubt anybody is getting £5k ROI on £75k outlay long term. As I say, Tony Bloom beat the market for 2%, with crazy resources and ability to get on money anywhere in the world. Football is hyper-efficient market.
It might be now but football betting used to be notoriously inefficient with bookmakers even disagreeing who was favourite in a three-horse race (home win, away win, draw). In those days, bookmakers were protected by lazy punters, lack of information, and that you were not allowed to bet on singles (as part of an agreement with the football pools companies).
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
The larger bookies have a massive amount of analytics running on their database, and can see really quickly when any individual starts making money from them. Four-figure bets are basically not allowed any more if you’ve won one at odds against, and a couple of friends in the UK say they’ve started going into random shops to place bets because of the online profiling shutting them down.
The bookies want you sitting in the pub betting on your phone, on one of the many poor-odds accumulators they advertise on the football matches. They have way more interest in the Euros than the election.
I once won over 14 grand in a single Moto3 bet with Bet365. Account closed, banned for life.
Lol, because the bookie can’t afford to pay someone to follow the ins and outs of Moto3, and realised that everyone betting on Moto3 knew way more about it than they did!
Exactly.
The interesting (and lucrative) thing about Moto3/Moto2 is that the 2-3 best riders leave the series every year so if a championship contender from the previous season gets "left behind", goes well in testing and is on a good team then there's your WC bet.
I don’t follow the bikes, but it’s exactly the same in cars, with British F3, Euro F3, FIA F3, and F2. They’re all feeder series for F1, and the top few each year move up a category or two as they hope to advance to the top.
(Watching the teenagers of F3 trying to run around Monaco in the rain yesterday was fun to watch. If you’re not paying for the damage).
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
But @Foxy did get 1500/1 on Leicester winning the league, possibly the best PB bet of all time!
IIRC @isam spent several years as a professional football gambler, and his syndicate had £75k on the line every Saturday averaging £5k back. At that level, it’s all spreadsheets and trying to get inside information about injuries and player selection.
Leicester winning the league was hitting the lottery.
I highly doubt anybody is getting £5k ROI on £75k outlay long term. As I say, Tony Bloom beat the market for 2%, with crazy resources and ability to get on money anywhere in the world. Football is hyper-efficient market.
It might be now but football betting used to be notoriously inefficient with bookmakers even disagreeing who was favourite in a three-horse race (home win, away win, draw). In those days, bookmakers were protected by lazy punters, lack of information, and that you were not allowed to bet on singles (as part of an agreement with the football pools companies).
Betfair Exchange 10+ years ago was brilliantly inefficient for quite a lot of sports. If you knew how to use a computer and do some basic mathematical modelling, things like cricket totals were an absolute goldmine.
One of my quirkiest bets came when I had to call around bookies to get odds on a then fairly unknown opposition politician to become the next leader of the Conservative Party. No one had any odds chalked up. Will Hill returned my call twenty minutes later offering me 16-1, so I took it with a payment over the phone.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
. So he genuinely didn't have more than 24 hours prior notice
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
As I keep saying in the hope that it turns out to be true and I look like Machiavelli, this is best understood as the denouement of a power struggle. My guess is it was put to Sunak that truss went quietly when her ratings got to where his are now, and he pulled the pin from the GE grenade in response.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
I am not sure it is even really possible to beat Betfair Exchange for big bucks these days given bots, more efficient markets and the upto 60% winner tax, I mean premium charge, on profits.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
Another fiasco in the making. Sort of symbolic of the way they ran the country into the ground: focusing on public relations bullshit, while having absolutely no clue about how to administer a damn thing.
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
The whole idea of UBI is that you can get rid of minimum wages and tax credits. If everyone gets paid a £1500 a month, then working for £5 an hour becomes a viable option, rather than the company outsourcing the jobs to Asia.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
PP did restrict my account, to the point that I barely use it. I think this was because of doing well on Constituency markets, particularly Scottish ones, in 2015.
Looking at Bet365 markets by Contituency they have Labour odds on in far too many. Is Reigate or IoW East really right when Lab is favourite?
Bet365 do seem a good company to me, as ethical as bookies get (not a very high bar) as they pay their CEO a salary, so she pays proper tax, don't operate FOBT as no retail shops and are a big employer in Stoke. Their football odds are good, and their app works smoothly and loads quickly. I have had no problems with them.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
LibDem seats are too high. Not *wildly* too high, but too high nonetheless.
I am not a spread bettor, the downside is too much for me. I had a spread markets one once but traded out and slept better. One concern is on liquidity.
So, take the LD spread. Its very unlikely that LDs will go below 10, and 15 would be a realistic minimum, so the maximum win is 22 times the stake. On the other side a 1997 style result could lose a similar sum. A Blue Wall blowout with collapsing Tory vote and LDs having a good election could conceivably reach 100 seats. Unlikely but possible. That would be 60 times the stake. The risks are just too asymmetrical for me.
The Tories have given up. Hearing astonishing things in places like Surrey. Feels like this could be an election where the old rules get junked.
The Conservatives have somehow managed to piss off absolutely everyone to the point you're left wondering who their natural constituency is.
If you're an oldie, you probably don't like the way you can't get a GP appointment or a hip replacement without going private (or waiting til your leg falls off). Having to be bank of mum and dad for grown up kids in their 30s and 40s who are struggling. Money in savings accounts eroded by cost of living crisis, affecting less savvy pensioners too.
Young-ish? Housing costs, spiralling rents, can't afford kids, zero job stability, lost opportunities to leave due to Brexit, too. Student loans following RPI which has shafted some. Leasehold trap has shafted first time buyers.
Working age entering middle age? Insane childcare costs, wages failing to keep up with inflation, mortgage costs doubling. Plus huge numbers of middle class professionals getting laid off in the last year.
Everyone - country feels like it's falling apart, schools literally falling apart, sewage being dumped into rivers, cost of sticking the heating on or doing a weekly shop has doubled. Life's little luxuries like a pint and a meal out with friends becoming unaffordable for many now. And the Conservatives droning on and on about endless culture war crap like Rwanda, trans and bashing disabled people on benefits, when most people are just struggling to survive.
Will Labour be significantly better? Maybe not. But it feels hard for even the staunchest Conservative supporter to justify giving this lot another 5 years in government - they're out of ideas and need a long period in opposition to figure out why they've managed to alienate most demographics across the country.
I think they've alienated most demographics by pursuing a long-term policy of courting short-term popularity.
LibDem seats are too high. Not *wildly* too high, but too high nonetheless.
I am not a spread bettor, the downside is too much for me. I had a spread markets one once but traded out and slept better. One concern is on liquidity.
So, take the LD spread. Its very unlikely that LDs will go below 10, and 15 would be a realistic minimum, so the maximum win is 22 times the stake. On the other side a 1997 style result could lose a similar sum. A Blue Wall blowout with collapsing Tory vote and LDs having a good election could conceivably reach 100 seats. Unlikely but possible. That would be 60 times the stake. The risks are just too asymmetrical for me.
The Tories have given up. Hearing astonishing things in places like Surrey. Feels like this could be an election where the old rules get junked.
The Conservatives have somehow managed to piss off absolutely everyone to the point you're left wondering who their natural constituency is.
If you're an oldie, you probably don't like the way you can't get a GP appointment or a hip replacement without going private (or waiting til your leg falls off). Having to be bank of mum and dad for grown up kids in their 30s and 40s who are struggling. Money in savings accounts eroded by cost of living crisis, affecting less savvy pensioners too.
Young-ish? Housing costs, spiralling rents, can't afford kids, zero job stability, lost opportunities to leave due to Brexit, too. Student loans following RPI which has shafted some. Leasehold trap has shafted first time buyers.
Working age entering middle age? Insane childcare costs, wages failing to keep up with inflation, mortgage costs doubling. Plus huge numbers of middle class professionals getting laid off in the last year.
Everyone - country feels like it's falling apart, schools literally falling apart, sewage being dumped into rivers, cost of sticking the heating on or doing a weekly shop has doubled. Life's little luxuries like a pint and a meal out with friends becoming unaffordable for many now. And the Conservatives droning on and on about endless culture war crap like Rwanda, trans and bashing disabled people on benefits, when most people are just struggling to survive.
Will Labour be significantly better? Maybe not. But it feels hard for even the staunchest Conservative supporter to justify giving this lot another 5 years in government - they're out of ideas and need a long period in opposition to figure out why they've managed to alienate most demographics across the country.
I think they've alienated most demographics by pursuing a long-term policy of courting short-term popularity.
Yes, a very concise summary. That is the problem with Populism.
We've talked about the decline in split ticketing before, and I've been told this is (one reason) why the Republicans will win the senate. Biden's unpopularity will drag down the other candidates.
Have we considered what will happen in states where there are competitive elections with MAGA nutcases running? Might, by the same logic, that actually lead to the Republican vote for the Presidency in key states being depressed?
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
Same problem Putin had with his surprise invasion of Ukraine, the only way you can keep the secret is if it's secret from your own side as well as the opposition. But your side wasn't expecting there to be a surprise, whereas the other side was...
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
. So he genuinely didn't have more than 24 hours prior notice
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
As I keep saying in the hope that it turns out to be true and I look like Machiavelli, this is best understood as the denouement of a power struggle. My guess is it was put to Sunak that truss went quietly when her ratings got to where his are now, and he pulled the pin from the GE grenade in response.
Yes. There was a lot of talk about Sunak triggering a GE in response to the party moving against him. I think that has happened: Took the cabinet and MPs by surprise Party machine not remotely ready Electoral strategy (Rwanda) falls apart at first glance as was written for a campaign *after* flights had started Scramble to stop MPs retiring all at once and desperate lack of candidates with minimal time to adopt them Raging MPs try to complete their putsch but realise they are out of time.
So congratulations Rishi! You avoided being dumped by the party! I fear the reception from the electorate may be worse. And according to the right wing media he is challenging Sunak to a debate every week? Erm, is he sure? Sunak is brittle and fragile, do you really want him in a debate?
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
SOP for Rishi Sunak.
"Hey! Let's cancel a nearly complete train line on a whim! That'll do it!"
Don’t start me on infrastructure. I live somewhere where infrastructure just bloody happens, because government knows that people stuck in traffic aren’t being productive.
They should have built a bridge or tunnel under London to make HS2 line up with HS1. HS2, Crossrail2, Stonehenge Tunnel, Brynglas Tunnel, LHR 3rd runway, and a whole load more should all have been fixed decades ago.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
Though to be fair there's not many people in Germany who'd endorse DB right now, and their UK train franchises, via their appalling Arriva subsidiary, were/are horrible. (Arriva Trains Wales, CrossCountry. Chiltern was good while the sainted Adrian Shooter's influence persisted, but has recently been Arriva-ised and is now just yet another commuter railway using 90s trains.)
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
SOP for Rishi Sunak.
"Hey! Let's cancel a nearly complete train line on a whim! That'll do it!"
Don’t start me on infrastructure. I live somewhere where infrastructure just bloody happens, because government knows that people stuck in traffic aren’t being productive.
They should have built a bridge or tunnel under London to make HS2 line up with HS1. HS2, Crossrail2, Stonehenge Tunnel, Brynglas Tunnel, LHR 3rd runway, and a whole load more should all have been fixed decades ago.
Indeed.
About the only thing I agreed with Boris about was his estuary London airport.
I know the cost was phenomenal but it was visionary. And it’s what places in the Middle East and e.g. Hong Kong have done. The opportunities it afforded over Heathrow, which is a dog’s breakfast, were immense. The regeneration around the east side of London, building on 2012, would have been incredible.
You’re absolutely right. You need a Gov’t that realises infrastructure is important for productivity. It’s also rather good for wellbeing (which also aids productivity).
Norway have done this for years. Stunning trains and roads. If there’s a mountain or sea in the way they tunnel or bridge it.
But then, to link back to what was posted earlier, they didn’t sell off the family silver ...
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
Though to be fair there's not many people in Germany who'd endorse DB right now, and their UK train franchises, via their appalling Arriva subsidiary, were/are horrible. (Arriva Trains Wales, CrossCountry. Chiltern was good while the sainted Adrian Shooter's influence persisted, but has recently been Arriva-ised and is now just yet another commuter railway using 90s trains.)
Two significant challenges: 1. Cut costs. Doing anything costs appalling amounts more on our network vs anywhere else. And no, it isn't wages. The bureaucratic mess needs to be bonfired. Leaner management structure of rail professionals, less contracts, less lawyers 2. Cut meddling. The industry is desperately short of trains. The manufacturers are in need of orders or they shut. Trains are - and will remain - privately owned. The reason why they can't be built is the DfT refuses to let operators lease them. Madness.
The fix is relatively straight forward. Longer trains, cheaper tickets, more passengers. Demand is there. Make it simple and people will come - look at LNER post Covid. Or lumo. Imagine if CrossCountry ran 10 car trains on every service - they would still be full. And every rail passenger takes demand off the roads - publicly funded - and saves money there...
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
I suppose to be absolutely fair to SWR that particular route has a lot of single line track which is, of course, a constant screw up.
Which brings us back to @Sandpit ’s point about infrastructure. Would it really have been so hard to realise that a mainline down to the south-west, as an alternative to the GWR line, might require a double track?
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
The whole idea of UBI is that you can get rid of minimum wages and tax credits. If everyone gets paid a £1500 a month, then working for £5 an hour becomes a viable option, rather than the company outsourcing the jobs to Asia.
Quite.
You can reorder it in multiple ways: so, people can choose to do jobs that are enjoyable but low value add for example.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
Though to be fair there's not many people in Germany who'd endorse DB right now, and their UK train franchises, via their appalling Arriva subsidiary, were/are horrible. (Arriva Trains Wales, CrossCountry. Chiltern was good while the sainted Adrian Shooter's influence persisted, but has recently been Arriva-ised and is now just yet another commuter railway using 90s trains.)
Or, alternatively, the DfT's dead hand have made any proper management impossible...
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
From a passenger perspective it doesn't matter what causes the delay. They are late, and whether the train broke down / the crew were missing / the rails buckled / signals failed they still get compensation.
That system needs to stay. "delay attribution" relates to the internal payments due to either operator or infrastructure owner depending on what went wrong. Which involves a vast array of contracts which means contract managers and lawyers and costs. I'd do away with that in a heartbeat - won't affect passengers getting their money back.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
SOP for Rishi Sunak.
"Hey! Let's cancel a nearly complete train line on a whim! That'll do it!"
Don’t start me on infrastructure. I live somewhere where infrastructure just bloody happens, because government knows that people stuck in traffic aren’t being productive.
They should have built a bridge or tunnel under London to make HS2 line up with HS1. HS2, Crossrail2, Stonehenge Tunnel, Brynglas Tunnel, LHR 3rd runway, and a whole load more should all have been fixed decades ago.
Indeed.
About the only thing I agreed with Boris about was his estuary London airport.
I know the cost was phenomenal but it was visionary. And it’s what places in the Middle East and e.g. Hong Kong have done. The opportunities it afforded over Heathrow, which is a dog’s breakfast, were immense. The regeneration around the east side of London, building on 2012, would have been incredible.
You’re absolutely right. You need a Gov’t that realises infrastructure is important for productivity. It’s also rather good for wellbeing (which also aids productivity).
Norway have done this for years. Stunning trains and roads. If there’s a mountain or sea in the way they tunnel or bridge it.
But then, to link back to what was posted earlier, they didn’t sell off the family silver ...
The estuary airport was in the wrong place, but the sentiment was correct. You actually want to put the main London airport somewhere around Leighton Buzzard, as was a previous proposal from the ‘60s, with a Shanghai-style maglev straight into the city.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
The whole idea of UBI is that you can get rid of minimum wages and tax credits. If everyone gets paid a £1500 a month, then working for £5 an hour becomes a viable option, rather than the company outsourcing the jobs to Asia.
The problem (other than the enormous cost) will always be that politicians will get involved and start to identify groups that need a bit extra, a top up here and there, etc etc etc, and before you know it we are back to a benefits system.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
PP did restrict my account, to the point that I barely use it. I think this was because of doing well on Constituency markets, particularly Scottish ones, in 2015.
Looking at Bet365 markets by Contituency they have Labour odds on in far too many. Is Reigate or IoW East really right when Lab is favourite?
Bet365 do seem a good company to me, as ethical as bookies get (not a very high bar) as they pay their CEO a salary, so she pays proper tax, don't operate FOBT as no retail shops and are a big employer in Stoke. Their football odds are good, and their app works smoothly and loads quickly. I have had no problems with them.
That massive salary for Coates doesn't come from UK punters, they operate a very dodgy business facilitating Chinese gamblers. It makes up a huge proportion of their income and why they are doing much better than the other UK betting groups.
Now this isn't as dodgy as those gambling sites you have never heard of on the front of EPL team shirts, and if you visit them they don't want your business. That is total different orders of magnitude dodgy, with organised criminals, slave labour, the whole 9 yards.
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
The whole idea of UBI is that you can get rid of minimum wages and tax credits. If everyone gets paid a £1500 a month, then working for £5 an hour becomes a viable option, rather than the company outsourcing the jobs to Asia.
The problem (other than the enormous cost) will always be that politicians will get involved and start to identify groups that need a bit extra, a top up here and there, etc etc etc, and before you know it we are back to a benefits system.
Yes, I think that housing benefit would be the single biggest problem with UBI, which is why it’s not happened yet. Basically, if you don’t have a high-paying job then you can’t afford to live in much of London.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
I remember the shock of the 2017 exit poll when it came up CON largest party but no majority! But in hindsight of course it was obvious we had thrown away our lead during the campaign, another week and LAB would have won.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
Which train were you on? Funny thing is, real time trains doesn't show any Exeter to Waterloo services terminating short at Salisbury yesterday...
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
PP did restrict my account, to the point that I barely use it. I think this was because of doing well on Constituency markets, particularly Scottish ones, in 2015.
Looking at Bet365 markets by Contituency they have Labour odds on in far too many. Is Reigate or IoW East really right when Lab is favourite?
Bet365 do seem a good company to me, as ethical as bookies get (not a very high bar) as they pay their CEO a salary, so she pays proper tax, don't operate FOBT as no retail shops and are a big employer in Stoke. Their football odds are good, and their app works smoothly and loads quickly. I have had no problems with them.
The odds will reflect where the money is going. I expect most people looking at the constituency bets right now are trying to back the longer Labour shots, hoping for a reasonable return on the likely Labour landslide. The value is probably in the surprise Tory defences and/or an overall result where things even up a little.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
I remember the shock of the 2017 exit poll when it came up CON largest party but no majority! But in hindsight of course it was obvious we had thrown away our lead during the campaign, another week and LAB would have won.
Interesting aside, I don’t believe that 2024 is an election to lose although that does depend on events to come.
But there’s a good case for saying, with hindsight, that 1992 and 2019 were the elections to lose?
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
DB has become almost a national embarrassment for them
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
Which train were you on? Funny thing is, real time trains doesn't show any Exeter to Waterloo services terminating short at Salisbury yesterday...
Unfortunately, once there are delays on the West of England line, it's very hard to recover the service due to the single line sections.
I love a bit of pedantry and fact-checking
You’re correct. The 12.25 from EXD It was ‘cancelled’ for various stations, which is what they tend nowadays to do. So they will run it fast from Salisbury, either not stopping at all, or only stopping at Basingstoke, but cancelling all other intermediate stops including Clapham Junction.
I would show you a screen print of the ‘cancelled’ notices on my phone but it will use up my one picture a day permit
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
From a passenger perspective it doesn't matter what causes the delay. They are late, and whether the train broke down / the crew were missing / the rails buckled / signals failed they still get compensation.
That system needs to stay. "delay attribution" relates to the internal payments due to either operator or infrastructure owner depending on what went wrong. Which involves a vast array of contracts which means contract managers and lawyers and costs. I'd do away with that in a heartbeat - won't affect passengers getting their money back.
Then you'll get a worse service. Delay attribution works - and I'll give an example why.
On the network, you get speed restrictions. Many of these are temporary (TSR). Many are permanent (PSR). If you discover a fault, you may be able to safely run a train over it at 20MPH instead of 60MPH. So a temporary restriction is placed on the line.
In ye olden days, it cost the infrastructure peeps money to fix that TSR. But because there is no real penalty for it, it does not get fixed and becomes permanent - a PSR.
Under the DA scheme, every train delayed by that PSR costs the infrastructure peeps money - which means it is in their interests to get it fixed. And users get a more reliable railway.
The same thing happens with operators: if a freight locomotive is unreliable and breaks down, causing loads of delays, the operating department would just shrug. Fixes, or even new locos, cost money. With DA, any delay they cause costs money, and that gives them an incentive to fix the f***ing things.
DA is vital to a well-run railway. Perhaps you can get the same effected without the lawyers and contracts, but the principle must remain. People calling for it to go are asking for a worse service.
As mentioned, AIUI BR was bringing in a DA service for exactly this reason. It is vital.
Skimming the UK newspapers this morning, the situation for the Tories may actually be worse than the polls are showing.
A country in despair is not exactly fertile ground for a Tory victory, but the Tory Party themselves are also in despair. Sunak has ordered a special electoral operation for which the Party is simply not prepared. The Tories really do seem to have given up, and even the gimmicks and electoral nonsense, such as Tory councillors in hi-vis jackets, is half-hearted, just going-through-the-motions. What comes across is the utterly joyless, misery of the Tories.
The voters seem to want to put the Tories out of our own misery too, but if that feeling gets going, the bandwagon could genuinely see the Tories wiped out.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
Which train were you on? Funny thing is, real time trains doesn't show any Exeter to Waterloo services terminating short at Salisbury yesterday...
Unfortunately, once there are delays on the West of England line, it's very hard to recover the service due to the single line sections.
In addition to a massive closure programme between 1964 to 1970, a lot of routes were singled during that period to 'savr money'. The LSWR route between Salisbury and Exeter - a 'main line' until 1963 - was one such affected.
We have seen some reversal of this eh Chiltern route between Princes Risborough and Banbury, and Oxford to Worcester. It would surely be sensible to extend this to routes such as LSWR as part of a relatively inexpensive rail investment programme.
Mind you, yesterday’s excuses were ‘animals on the track’ and ‘landslides'
A young girl from Durham died in North Yorkshire due to a landslide on a school trip yesterday. Landslides are quite common and unlikely to be an "excuse"
The other thing I’d add as someone who has used the SWR (ex SWT) and GWR lines to the west country for 20 years since after Uni days is that SWR is shambolic now compared to pre-pandemic. I know this is subjective, but truly shambolic. They are late so often. The trains are in a shabby, and in some cases disgusting, state, they are very expensive now, and the withdrawal of any refreshments at all for a c. 4 hour journey is imho terrible.
I like GWR a lot more but it’s a faff from Woking. And their new Hitachi train seats are bizarrely uncomfortable in standard class. There’s a whole ‘thing’ about this.
GWR first class isn’t too bad. Still doesn’t compare to Norwegian trains imho, or indeed many other parts of the world. I’ve taken some fantastic new trains in Asia e.g. Malaysia.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
Which train were you on? Funny thing is, real time trains doesn't show any Exeter to Waterloo services terminating short at Salisbury yesterday...
Unfortunately, once there are delays on the West of England line, it's very hard to recover the service due to the single line sections.
I love a bit of pedantry and fact-checking
You’re correct. The 12.25 from EXD It was ‘cancelled’ for various stations, which is what they tend nowadays to do. So they will run it fast from Salisbury, either not stopping at all, or only stopping at Basingstoke, but cancelling all other intermediate stops including Clapham Junction.
I would show you a screen print of the ‘cancelled’ notices on my phone but it will use up my one picture a day permit
I didn’t think much of that at all. The quick reeling off of the things not quite as good in comparison, Housing crisis, prices, feeling worse off, NHS, that bit was okay, but bit with the Tory leaders that followed didn’t work at all. The voice used as voice over didn’t work, just sounded like Channel 4 news.
Not very good overall imo
The point being made is the Tories have had 14 years and 5 prime ministers and nothing to show for it. Things have got a lot worse in fact. I think the video made that point very effectively.
The gap is why should we believe Labour is any better. Is Starmer actually change or is he just like the five predecessors promising change but just the same old?
It's not clear to me that things have got worse, or that if they have they have done so more than other comparable countries.
It is clear however that Britain during the last 14 years has got a lot more left wing. State spending up, state interference in people's lives up, identity politics on the rise, immigration a free for all, massive spending on renewables (I favour this last one, actually).
If you like massive spending on renewables, then why is it a left wing thing? Conservatives don’t just care about the environment, they are its guardians.
It may well be that Conservatives are ‘more interested’ in the Environment. However, they can be divided into two, those who own land perceive it as a bounty to be managed and exploited, unsustainably, for profit or for leisure.
On the other hand many Conservative voters in rural and semi-rural Britain are interested in the Environment from a stewardship perspective. They fail to see why water companies are allowed to fill our rivers with effluent and why builders and farmers should be allowed to destroy the places they go to birdwatch or walk the dog. The latter are currently angry with the party they thought represented them. That’s why the Greens have been cleaning up in local elections in Suffolk, Sussex and Hampshire. But where will those votes go in the GE? Back to the Tories or to the LibDems? That could be the difference between a poor showing for the LibDems and a blowout through the home counties.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
Which train were you on? Funny thing is, real time trains doesn't show any Exeter to Waterloo services terminating short at Salisbury yesterday...
Unfortunately, once there are delays on the West of England line, it's very hard to recover the service due to the single line sections.
In addition to a massive closure programme between 1964 to 1970, a lot of routes were singled during that period to 'savr money'. The LSWR route between Salisbury and Exeter - a 'main line' until 1963 - was one such affected.
We have seen some reversal of this eh Chiltern route between Princes Risborough and Banbury, and Oxford to Worcester. It would surely be sensible to extend this to routes such as LSWR as part of a relatively inexpensive rail investment programme.
Rumour has it that when the M5 was built, someone from the railway's Western region made sure that the bridge over the Southern West of England line was only wide enough for one track.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
From a passenger perspective it doesn't matter what causes the delay. They are late, and whether the train broke down / the crew were missing / the rails buckled / signals failed they still get compensation.
That system needs to stay. "delay attribution" relates to the internal payments due to either operator or infrastructure owner depending on what went wrong. Which involves a vast array of contracts which means contract managers and lawyers and costs. I'd do away with that in a heartbeat - won't affect passengers getting their money back.
Then you'll get a worse service. Delay attribution works - and I'll give an example why.
On the network, you get speed restrictions. Many of these are temporary (TSR). Many are permanent (PSR). If you discover a fault, you may be able to safely run a train over it at 20MPH instead of 60MPH. So a temporary restriction is placed on the line.
In ye olden days, it cost the infrastructure peeps money to fix that TSR. But because there is no real penalty for it, it does not get fixed and becomes permanent - a PSR.
Under the DA scheme, every train delayed by that PSR costs the infrastructure peeps money - which means it is in their interests to get it fixed. And users get a more reliable railway.
The same thing happens with operators: if a freight locomotive is unreliable and breaks down, causing loads of delays, the operating department would just shrug. Fixes, or even new locos, cost money. With DA, any delay they cause costs money, and that gives them an incentive to fix the f***ing things.
DA is vital to a well-run railway. Perhaps you can get the same effected without the lawyers and contracts, but the principle must remain. People calling for it to go are asking for a worse service.
As mentioned, AIUI BR was bringing in a DA service for exactly this reason. It is vital.
Its an interesting debate. Nobody is proposing to bring back BR - where the "so what" approach to maintenance appears to have been embedded. I'm proposing commercial businesses. You can have an SLA in place which incentivises performance without needing micro contracts and assessors examining those contracts.
Logistics works like that. No contract in place on specific trucks or specific timings or specific bits of the set-up. Just an SLA saying do x. Contracts are largely standardised and pretty simple, but there remains a clear incentive for the service provider not to just shrug.
Contracts are great! But they need to be an agreement as to what will happen, not a makework scheme for lawyers and administrators. We spend so much money as a country with services and receive crap front line provision starved of money. The middle managers and contract lawyers are happy, the passengers and students and patients are not. It needs to stop.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
I remember the shock of the 2017 exit poll when it came up CON largest party but no majority! But in hindsight of course it was obvious we had thrown away our lead during the campaign, another week and LAB would have won.
Interesting aside, I don’t believe that 2024 is an election to lose although that does depend on events to come.
But there’s a good case for saying, with hindsight, that 1992 and 2019 were the elections to lose?
No election is good to lose. It is true to say that there are certain periods of time when the conjunction of issues would challenge even the angels. The early 90s was one, the most recent half decade possibly, the mid-70s were definitely almost impossible to deal with as the litter of broken governments of that era shows. I think the Labour government that will almost certainly be elected in July will have a tough time, they won’t necessarily have the party management issues of the Wilson/Callaghan government but the circumstances otherwise have similarities. They definitely inherit a situation the Tories have spectacularly failed to manage, there are definitely evident structural weaknesses in the UK economy and state that are not being sorted, and there is a growing sense that maybe nobody is up to the challenge. I hope that whatever they try works, or at least if it doesn’t work that it doesn’t make matters worse. I’m not going to agree instinctively with them on much but we should hope for good government even when it is not ideologically in tune with us. Wishing failure on the country because your party, or the party you more align with, isn’t in control is a form of treachery that is intolerable.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
I remember the shock of the 2017 exit poll when it came up CON largest party but no majority! But in hindsight of course it was obvious we had thrown away our lead during the campaign, another week and LAB would have won.
If you'd been on pb that night, we'd been tipped off by then-Tory activist @david_herdson that it had all gone pear-shaped for the blue team on the doorstep.
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
That’s interesting. I had a Bet365 account for several years. I only really backed horses and it basically ran on a float. I bet on Saturdays, probably £100 or so each week that the jumps were on and I just kept it going. I probably won over a 5 year period but only a tiny percentage on turnover. 0.2% or so, and probably made the profit on the back of the concessions they offered.
They closed me down eventually, much to my annoyance.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
SOP for Rishi Sunak.
"Hey! Let's cancel a nearly complete train line on a whim! That'll do it!"
Don’t start me on infrastructure. I live somewhere where infrastructure just bloody happens, because government knows that people stuck in traffic aren’t being productive.
They should have built a bridge or tunnel under London to make HS2 line up with HS1. HS2, Crossrail2, Stonehenge Tunnel, Brynglas Tunnel, LHR 3rd runway, and a whole load more should all have been fixed decades ago.
Indeed.
About the only thing I agreed with Boris about was his estuary London airport.
I know the cost was phenomenal but it was visionary. And it’s what places in the Middle East and e.g. Hong Kong have done. The opportunities it afforded over Heathrow, which is a dog’s breakfast, were immense. The regeneration around the east side of London, building on 2012, would have been incredible.
You’re absolutely right. You need a Gov’t that realises infrastructure is important for productivity. It’s also rather good for wellbeing (which also aids productivity).
Norway have done this for years. Stunning trains and roads. If there’s a mountain or sea in the way they tunnel or bridge it.
But then, to link back to what was posted earlier, they didn’t sell off the family silver ...
The estuary airport was in the wrong place, but the sentiment was correct. You actually want to put the main London airport somewhere around Leighton Buzzard, as was a previous proposal from the ‘60s, with a Shanghai-style maglev straight into the city.
Maglev being another British invention cut off by the Conservative government of the day.
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
There are some very consistent polls pointing towards a Labour supermajority. "Won't happen" seems to be the consensus, but what if it does?
The British problem is that we lost track of strategic objectives in the 1970s. It takes a government with vision and absolute freedom to act to do transformative things. Thatcher had both. Blair had the majority and delivered so much detail, but was missing the transformative mission.
Starmer? His missions suggest he gets it. But in practice I would be astonished if they set out to actually transform the country in the way we need. Sadly.
I'm already shitting myself about the 10pm SJC exit poll.
Anyone else feel the same?
Not this time. Glumly resigned.
I was fucking terrified last time though. The only news medium I could bring myself to watch was the £:$ exchange rates. If it failed to plummet, we were in the clear.
I don't think I have ever felt so relieved in my life as when Labour failed to win the 2019 GE.
They'll clearly win the 2024 one. And it will be shit. But nothing like as shit as them winning in 2019 would have been. And the obviously entirely hypothetical situation of a Conservative win would be not much to cheer.
It’s still horrible to see a spread market come up saying 150 seats though?
That’s losing 200 MPs! And 1906 was reduced to 156, so on the cusp as that record.
On a point of pedantry;
1906 the Conservatives won 129 seats.
The other 27 were Liberal Unionists.
Nevertheless a big step up from arguing about whether July 1,2 or 3 is the middle of the year, when a genny lec could only be called for the 4th anyway. Kudos.
I remember the shock of the 2017 exit poll when it came up CON largest party but no majority! But in hindsight of course it was obvious we had thrown away our lead during the campaign, another week and LAB would have won.
Interesting aside, I don’t believe that 2024 is an election to lose although that does depend on events to come.
But there’s a good case for saying, with hindsight, that 1992 and 2019 were the elections to lose?
No election is good to lose. It is true to say that there are certain periods of time when the conjunction of issues would challenge even the angels. The early 90s was one, the most recent half decade possibly, the mid-70s were definitely almost impossible to deal with as the litter of broken governments of that era shows. I think the Labour government that will almost certainly be elected in July will have a tough time, they won’t necessarily have the party management issues of the Wilson/Callaghan government but the circumstances otherwise have similarities. They definitely inherit a situation the Tories have spectacularly failed to manage, there are definitely evident structural weaknesses in the UK economy and state that are not being sorted, and there is a growing sense that maybe nobody is up to the challenge. I hope that whatever they try works, or at least if it doesn’t work that it doesn’t make matters worse. I’m not going to agree instinctively with them on much but we should hope for good government even when it is not ideologically in tune with us. Wishing failure on the country because your party, or the party you more align with, isn’t in control is a form of treachery that is intolerable.
Hear hear. I am pessimistic about the incoming Labour government but I genuinely and unequivocally wish them every success. We need it.
Skimming the UK newspapers this morning, the situation for the Tories may actually be worse than the polls are showing.
A country in despair is not exactly fertile ground for a Tory victory, but the Tory Party themselves are also in despair. Sunak has ordered a special electoral operation for which the Party is simply not prepared. The Tories really do seem to have given up, and even the gimmicks and electoral nonsense, such as Tory councillors in hi-vis jackets, is half-hearted, just going-through-the-motions. What comes across is the utterly joyless, misery of the Tories.
The voters seem to want to put the Tories out of our own misery too, but if that feeling gets going, the bandwagon could genuinely see the Tories wiped out.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
. So he genuinely didn't have more than 24 hours prior notice
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
As I keep saying in the hope that it turns out to be true and I look like Machiavelli, this is best understood as the denouement of a power struggle. My guess is it was put to Sunak that truss went quietly when her ratings got to where his are now, and he pulled the pin from the GE grenade in response.
Yes. There was a lot of talk about Sunak triggering a GE in response to the party moving against him. I think that has happened: Took the cabinet and MPs by surprise Party machine not remotely ready Electoral strategy (Rwanda) falls apart at first glance as was written for a campaign *after* flights had started Scramble to stop MPs retiring all at once and desperate lack of candidates with minimal time to adopt them Raging MPs try to complete their putsch but realise they are out of time.
So congratulations Rishi! You avoided being dumped by the party! I fear the reception from the electorate may be worse. And according to the right wing media he is challenging Sunak to a debate every week? Erm, is he sure? Sunak is brittle and fragile, do you really want him in a debate?
It is just about possible that Rishi called a general election to avoid being dumped in order to gain, what, three weeks' extra salary, but it is a bit of a stretch for a man richer than Croesus. That said, I can think of no other reason that stands up to scrutiny either (although I note my pb ramblings about American school term dates were echoed by at least one journalist).
Skimming the UK newspapers this morning, the situation for the Tories may actually be worse than the polls are showing.
A country in despair is not exactly fertile ground for a Tory victory, but the Tory Party themselves are also in despair. Sunak has ordered a special electoral operation for which the Party is simply not prepared. The Tories really do seem to have given up, and even the gimmicks and electoral nonsense, such as Tory councillors in hi-vis jackets, is half-hearted, just going-through-the-motions. What comes across is the utterly joyless, misery of the Tories.
The voters seem to want to put the Tories out of our own misery too, but if that feeling gets going, the bandwagon could genuinely see the Tories wiped out.
Has Sunak killed the Conservative Party?
Hopefully
Given you'd want it to be replaced with some anti-woke sh*tstorm of a party, I think I'd stick with wanting a Conservative Party. At least there's a good chance of them returning to sanity eventually - as Labour did from their Corbyn delusions.
But whatever replaced the Conservatives - e.g. Reform - less so.
I’m not sure Gordon Brown was this affable and natural when in government. It’s a pity had he been more engaging he would have been heaps more effective and may have had longer at the top.
My Party has made some policy announcements today. Green Party Policies.
• Renationalising our NHS • £70bn Wealth Tax • 500,000 Council Homes • £16 per hour min wage • Universal Basic Income • Rent Controls • Abolishing Tuition Fees • Recognition of Palestine • Free Secondary School Meals • Axe Two-Child Cap
Top Party and most people won't have a clue what they stand for.
This is a good illustration as to why whilst I like Greens in local power due to their detailed policies, nationally I think they can only be called loopy.
Add up the numbers on that.
The UBI and the £16 minimum wage are contradictory.
... Are they?
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
The whole idea of UBI is that you can get rid of minimum wages and tax credits. If everyone gets paid a £1500 a month, then working for £5 an hour becomes a viable option, rather than the company outsourcing the jobs to Asia.
That's what I used to think, but I wonder whether you'd want a minimum wage anyway, to encourage businesses to invest in productivity, rather than subsidising cheap labour.
By the way, y’all know my views about what’s coming but I had another shambolic train journey yesterday. Usual saga. Train pulls out of Exeter on time but then halts and before you know it we’re already ten minutes late. Guard announces that ‘we will make up the time on the journey’. Everyone just laughs. Train falls further and further behind until, at Salisbury, it’s cancelled altogether.
The trains are scruffy as hell with no sign of investment. The loos are disgusting. They withdrew all refreshments during lockdown and didn’t return them - you can go 4 hours in hot weather but 'nor any drop to drink.’
And at every single station they blast a full volume message about ‘uniformed and non-uniformed staff patrol our trains. Failure to buy a valid ticket could result in an instant £100 fine and prosecution.’ Followed by an institutional protection message: ‘any abusive behaviour towards a member of of our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to British Transport Police.’ So you can’t even point out, politely, that their service is shit.
So it’s another Delay Repay claim. Several trains down and several trains up either side of my one were also cancelled.
SWR are a godawful mess. Like so much of our railway network. Like so much of our country.
The trains bear the name and livery of their former operator: SWR. In reality the franchise was abolished in 2020 and SWR now take a small margin to operationally do exactly what the government tell them.
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
There's also the question of what caused the delays. Was it a failure on SWR's part (say, another train of theirs broken down further along the line), or a failure by Network Rail or a.n.other.
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
From a passenger perspective it doesn't matter what causes the delay. They are late, and whether the train broke down / the crew were missing / the rails buckled / signals failed they still get compensation.
That system needs to stay. "delay attribution" relates to the internal payments due to either operator or infrastructure owner depending on what went wrong. Which involves a vast array of contracts which means contract managers and lawyers and costs. I'd do away with that in a heartbeat - won't affect passengers getting their money back.
Then you'll get a worse service. Delay attribution works - and I'll give an example why.
On the network, you get speed restrictions. Many of these are temporary (TSR). Many are permanent (PSR). If you discover a fault, you may be able to safely run a train over it at 20MPH instead of 60MPH. So a temporary restriction is placed on the line.
In ye olden days, it cost the infrastructure peeps money to fix that TSR. But because there is no real penalty for it, it does not get fixed and becomes permanent - a PSR.
Under the DA scheme, every train delayed by that PSR costs the infrastructure peeps money - which means it is in their interests to get it fixed. And users get a more reliable railway.
The same thing happens with operators: if a freight locomotive is unreliable and breaks down, causing loads of delays, the operating department would just shrug. Fixes, or even new locos, cost money. With DA, any delay they cause costs money, and that gives them an incentive to fix the f***ing things.
DA is vital to a well-run railway. Perhaps you can get the same effected without the lawyers and contracts, but the principle must remain. People calling for it to go are asking for a worse service.
As mentioned, AIUI BR was bringing in a DA service for exactly this reason. It is vital.
Its an interesting debate. Nobody is proposing to bring back BR - where the "so what" approach to maintenance appears to have been embedded. I'm proposing commercial businesses. You can have an SLA in place which incentivises performance without needing micro contracts and assessors examining those contracts.
Logistics works like that. No contract in place on specific trucks or specific timings or specific bits of the set-up. Just an SLA saying do x. Contracts are largely standardised and pretty simple, but there remains a clear incentive for the service provider not to just shrug.
Contracts are great! But they need to be an agreement as to what will happen, not a makework scheme for lawyers and administrators. We spend so much money as a country with services and receive crap front line provision starved of money. The middle managers and contract lawyers are happy, the passengers and students and patients are not. It needs to stop.
That doesn't work as the railway network is much more self-contained. If a road's down, generally there's another route available - and they don't control the roads anyway. I've got no problem with the DA system being streamlined, but those who want to get rid of it are being very, very silly.
Sunak had the advantage over everyone else of knowing that he was calling the election, so you might think he would have been a bit better prepared for doing so
. So he genuinely didn't have more than 24 hours prior notice
Like making sure he had candidates in every seat, for example...
NEW
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
As I keep saying in the hope that it turns out to be true and I look like Machiavelli, this is best understood as the denouement of a power struggle. My guess is it was put to Sunak that truss went quietly when her ratings got to where his are now, and he pulled the pin from the GE grenade in response.
Yes. There was a lot of talk about Sunak triggering a GE in response to the party moving against him. I think that has happened: Took the cabinet and MPs by surprise Party machine not remotely ready Electoral strategy (Rwanda) falls apart at first glance as was written for a campaign *after* flights had started Scramble to stop MPs retiring all at once and desperate lack of candidates with minimal time to adopt them Raging MPs try to complete their putsch but realise they are out of time.
So congratulations Rishi! You avoided being dumped by the party! I fear the reception from the electorate may be worse. And according to the right wing media he is challenging Sunak to a debate every week? Erm, is he sure? Sunak is brittle and fragile, do you really want him in a debate?
It is just about possible that Rishi called a general election to avoid being dumped in order to gain, what, three weeks' extra salary, but it is a bit of a stretch for a man richer than Croesus. That said, I can think of no other reason that stands up to scrutiny either (although I note my pb ramblings about American school term dates were echoed by at least one journalist).
It's a humiliation thing. Lost a GE looks heaps better on a CV than Turfed out for being, almost unbelievably, worse than Truss
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
There are some very consistent polls pointing towards a Labour supermajority. "Won't happen" seems to be the consensus, but what if it does?
The British problem is that we lost track of strategic objectives in the 1970s. It takes a government with vision and absolute freedom to act to do transformative things. Thatcher had both. Blair had the majority and delivered so much detail, but was missing the transformative mission.
Starmer? His missions suggest he gets it. But in practice I would be astonished if they set out to actually transform the country in the way we need. Sadly.
Super majorities, as you hint at, didn't help Blair address our underlying problems. I do want a government with a comfortable majority because the last thing we need is a repeat of the 2017-19 Parliament where tomorrow fell into the category of long term planning.
Reeves strikes me as ultra cautious and lacking a bit of vision. I was underwhelmed by her Mais speech which certainly identified many of the problems but completely lacked meaningful solutions. Will she be brave enough to cut current spending to boost investment? I'm not sure, her focus on gimmicky taxes to produce pitiful amounts of additional income to boost spending does not bode well. But we can only hope. The country needs a change of direction.
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
There are some very consistent polls pointing towards a Labour supermajority. "Won't happen" seems to be the consensus, but what if it does?
The British problem is that we lost track of strategic objectives in the 1970s. It takes a government with vision and absolute freedom to act to do transformative things. Thatcher had both. Blair had the majority and delivered so much detail, but was missing the transformative mission.
Starmer? His missions suggest he gets it. But in practice I would be astonished if they set out to actually transform the country in the way we need. Sadly.
The same fundamental problems will exist for Starmer as they do for the current government. Being braver might help, but these issues are immensely complex and are surrounded by marshy swamps filled with alligators.
My own view is that the best answers do not lie in ideology, but in cold, hard pragmatism. But that doesn't get the base of a political party excited.
I’m not sure Gordon Brown was this affable and natural when in government. It’s a pity had he been more engaging he would have been heaps more effective and may have had longer at the top.
Hmmm, he obviously knows the club and is passionate about it, but the old problematic Brown is still there in that clip. The neediness, the needing to quote statistics.
The voters seem to want to put the Tories out of our own misery too, but if that feeling gets going, the bandwagon could genuinely see the Tories wiped out.
Has Sunak killed the Conservative Party?
I have seen it suggested that Richi's best electoral strategy would be to say to voters "I hate this job. Only your vote can keep me in it"
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
There are some very consistent polls pointing towards a Labour supermajority. "Won't happen" seems to be the consensus, but what if it does?
The British problem is that we lost track of strategic objectives in the 1970s. It takes a government with vision and absolute freedom to act to do transformative things. Thatcher had both. Blair had the majority and delivered so much detail, but was missing the transformative mission.
Starmer? His missions suggest he gets it. But in practice I would be astonished if they set out to actually transform the country in the way we need. Sadly.
The same fundamental problems will exist for Starmer as they do for the current government. Being braver might help, but these issues are immensely complex and are surrounded by marshy swamps filled with alligators.
My own view is that the best answers do not lie in ideology, but in cold, hard pragmatism. But that doesn't get the base of a political party excited.
Starmer should benefit from reasonable economic growth to the end of the decade. But, the challenges are, as you state.
I didn’t think much of that at all. The quick reeling off of the things not quite as good in comparison, Housing crisis, prices, feeling worse off, NHS, that bit was okay, but bit with the Tory leaders that followed didn’t work at all. The voice used as voice over didn’t work, just sounded like Channel 4 news.
Not very good overall imo
The point being made is the Tories have had 14 years and 5 prime ministers and nothing to show for it. Things have got a lot worse in fact. I think the video made that point very effectively.
The gap is why should we believe Labour is any better. Is Starmer actually change or is he just like the five predecessors promising change but just the same old?
It's not clear to me that things have got worse, or that if they have they have done so more than other comparable countries.
It is clear however that Britain during the last 14 years has got a lot more left wing. State spending up, state interference in people's lives up, identity politics on the rise, immigration a free for all, massive spending on renewables (I favour this last one, actually).
If you like massive spending on renewables, then why is it a left wing thing? Conservatives don’t just care about the environment, they are its guardians.
It may well be that Conservatives are ‘more interested’ in the Environment. However, they can be divided into two, those who own land perceive it as a bounty to be managed and exploited, unsustainably, for profit or for leisure.
On the other hand many Conservative voters in rural and semi-rural Britain are interested in the Environment from a stewardship perspective. They fail to see why water companies are allowed to fill our rivers with effluent and why builders and farmers should be allowed to destroy the places they go to birdwatch or walk the dog. The latter are currently angry with the party they thought represented them. That’s why the Greens have been cleaning up in local elections in Suffolk, Sussex and Hampshire. But where will those votes go in the GE? Back to the Tories or to the LibDems? That could be the difference between a poor showing for the LibDems and a blowout through the home counties.
There is certainly a chance that the Lib Dems do really well. Across the home counties and north Wessex in places like Surrey and Gloucestershire the Lib Dems seem to be making some fairly spectacular progress. I see Redwood is leaving Wokingham, something of a straw in the wind?
Incidentally, there are constituency markets for a whole bunch of constituencies up on Bet365. I have had a few nibbles on SLAB and also on the Tories on the IOW East.
More to look through over the weekend.
You still have an account on bet365 that can bet more than 1p? In my experience if you vaguely look like you know what you are doing you are restricted to piddly bets in no time.on bet365.
The consensus on Betfair forums seems to be that Bet365 are the best bookmaker, and also the slowest to ban or restrict punters.
I don't know what they are smoking. Within the professional betting community I know, Bet365 are known as the absolute worst for restricting an account that looks like it might be run by somebody who isn't a total moron.
The slowest to ban are none of the known names like Bet365 or Ladbrokes etc, its the "sharp" bookies like Pinnacle.
I bet almost exclusively on football and politics, and have accounts with Betfair, Smarkets, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddypower, Skybet, and William Hill. The only one to ever limit me to tiny stakes has been PP.
Well I answer is quite obvious. Betting on football is a massive mugs game, the market is super efficient if you want to get any real money on. Tony Bloom is widely regarded as one of the top football bettors in the world, employs a huge team of math / comp sci PhDs to model the games, and only able to beat specifically Asian Handicap market for an ROI of < 2%.
I won about £8 000 from Ladbrokes when Leicester won the PL in 2016, including £1 ew at 3000/1. They didn't put any restrictions on my account. More recently my football bets just about break even. I make a modest surplus on political bets (up £130 on date of GE for example, as I had bought Q3 anticipating a Sept GE, though lost £35 on the monthly markets)
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
Nobody flies under the radar these days, every account is tracked and labelled. But as you say if you are only betting £10 total a week, that is probably the level they would restrict anyway. The big Leicester win will have been seen as just hitting the lottery, and they probably hope you dump it back over time.
PP did restrict my account, to the point that I barely use it. I think this was because of doing well on Constituency markets, particularly Scottish ones, in 2015.
Looking at Bet365 markets by Contituency they have Labour odds on in far too many. Is Reigate or IoW East really right when Lab is favourite?
Bet365 do seem a good company to me, as ethical as bookies get (not a very high bar) as they pay their CEO a salary, so she pays proper tax, don't operate FOBT as no retail shops and are a big employer in Stoke. Their football odds are good, and their app works smoothly and loads quickly. I have had no problems with them.
That massive salary for Coates doesn't come from UK punters, they operate a very dodgy business facilitating Chinese gamblers. It makes up a huge proportion of their income and why they are doing much better than the other UK betting groups.
Now this isn't as dodgy as those gambling sites you have never heard of on the front of EPL team shirts, and if you visit them they don't want your business. That is total different orders of magnitude dodgy, with organised criminals, slave labour, the whole 9 yards.
As I said, an "ethical bookie" is a very low bar!
Coates does pay UK tax at 45% on the vast majority of her 9 figure salary, and also a lot on her dividends, at least I think so. Far better than some CEOs with their offshore or other dodgy creative accounting.
The essential point is one that I totally agree with @Sandpit about, even if we can argue the toss about specifics:
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
I frankly find it astounding that anyone can find that contentious. There is no denying that we are seriously short of cash and living substantially beyond our means but if the cost of the NI cut was HS2 it was absolutely not a price worth paying. The focus on keeping consumption and current spending going at the price of long term investment is probably our greatest economic failing because it drives so many others such as low productivity and growth.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
And it's been a British disease to favour spending now over investment for the future, basically forever.
The gerontocracy that follows from the current Conservative voters coalition really doesn't help. Not because all pensioners are selfish gits, but all the little biases against spending with a ten year payoff add up.
One of the reasons for thinking that Things Can Only Get (a little bit) Better is that Labour have a set of voters more likely to see themselves benefiting from longer term projects. As opposed to my declining father's line about how X (whether carpets or furniture or anything else) would see him out.
But even "it's hard to see how they can be as bad as this" is probably enough.
Redwood’s standing down statement is as terse and obnoxious as his political style
“I have other things I wish to do” #sniff
Nothing to do with the polls then…
In fairness he’s been an MP for 37 years and will be 73 by polling day. Not wanting to stand again is understandable, and he can be as peremptory as he likes.
John Redwood is quitting Parliament, hopefully he gets to live long and prosper elsewhere.
They're going down like ninepins, perhaps a few more today because there's not much time to get new candidates before nominations close. It's actually a bit of a mess but I get the impression Rishi wasn't too fussed about this issue.
Comments
I highly doubt anybody is getting £5k ROI on £75k outlay long term. As I say, Tony Bloom beat the market for 2%, with crazy resources and ability to get on money anywhere in the world. Football is hyper-efficient market.
God knows how much Sporting will expect you to have on account with them this year, with the result even more unsure than seven years ago.
How do you manage to surprise yourself with the timing of an election you called?
What a mess.
The interesting (and lucrative) thing about Moto3/Moto2 is that the 2-3 best riders leave the series every year so if a championship contender from the previous season gets "left behind", goes well in testing and is on a good team then there's your WC bet.
I don't bet big stakes though. Perhaps £10 most weeks on the footy and £500+ on UK elections, so maybe fly under their radar as too small to bother with.
(Watching the teenagers of F3 trying to run around Monaco in the rain yesterday was fun to watch. If you’re not paying for the damage).
Will Hill returned my call twenty minutes later offering me 16-1, so I took it with a payment over the phone.
The politician?
David Cameron.
A UBI is independent of earnings, so you could still have a minimum wage for hours worked. You might be thinking of a minimum income guarantee, the value of which would be adjusted by individual earnings. But even that wouldn't be contradictory on a per hour basis - it's basically how UC works at the moment.
Reminds me of Peter Cook’s line in the aftermath of the Jeremy Thorpe trial,
‘It would be a sad day for this country if a leading politician cannot spend his election expenses on any way he sees fit.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U
Looking at Bet365 markets by Contituency they have Labour odds on in far too many. Is Reigate or IoW East really right when Lab is favourite?
Bet365 do seem a good company to me, as ethical as bookies get (not a very high bar) as they pay their CEO a salary, so she pays proper tax, don't operate FOBT as no retail shops and are a big employer in Stoke. Their football odds are good, and their app works smoothly and loads quickly. I have had no problems with them.
My wife is working tonight so I am watching Columbo.
Have we considered what will happen in states where there are competitive elections with MAGA nutcases running? Might, by the same logic, that actually lead to the Republican vote for the Presidency in key states being depressed? The second point still seems plausible...
The challenge that Labour have isn't that they need to "nationalise" these operators. They're almost entirely run out of the DfT. Their challenge is how to remove the dead hand of the state and free GBR to be state owned but commercially operated like all of the successful "private" operators we have had over the last few decades - SNCF, DB, NS, FS etc
Took the cabinet and MPs by surprise
Party machine not remotely ready
Electoral strategy (Rwanda) falls apart at first glance as was written for a campaign *after* flights had started
Scramble to stop MPs retiring all at once and desperate lack of candidates with minimal time to adopt them
Raging MPs try to complete their putsch but realise they are out of time.
So congratulations Rishi! You avoided being dumped by the party! I fear the reception from the electorate may be worse. And according to the right wing media he is challenging Sunak to a debate every week? Erm, is he sure? Sunak is brittle and fragile, do you really want him in a debate?
They should have built a bridge or tunnel under London to make HS2 line up with HS1. HS2, Crossrail2, Stonehenge Tunnel, Brynglas Tunnel, LHR 3rd runway, and a whole load more should all have been fixed decades ago.
About the only thing I agreed with Boris about was his estuary London airport.
I know the cost was phenomenal but it was visionary. And it’s what places in the Middle East and e.g. Hong Kong have done. The opportunities it afforded over Heathrow, which is a dog’s breakfast, were immense. The regeneration around the east side of London, building on 2012, would have been incredible.
You’re absolutely right. You need a Gov’t that realises infrastructure is important for productivity. It’s also rather good for wellbeing (which also aids productivity).
Norway have done this for years. Stunning trains and roads. If there’s a mountain or sea in the way they tunnel or bridge it.
But then, to link back to what was posted earlier, they didn’t sell off the family silver ...
I hope to God, when they 'renationalise' the railways, they don't get rid of delay attribution. It's vital to a well-functioning network. (AIUI BR was starting to implement it in the 1980s, as computerisation started to allow it.)
1. Cut costs. Doing anything costs appalling amounts more on our network vs anywhere else. And no, it isn't wages. The bureaucratic mess needs to be bonfired. Leaner management structure of rail professionals, less contracts, less lawyers
2. Cut meddling. The industry is desperately short of trains. The manufacturers are in need of orders or they shut. Trains are - and will remain - privately owned. The reason why they can't be built is the DfT refuses to let operators lease them. Madness.
The fix is relatively straight forward. Longer trains, cheaper tickets, more passengers. Demand is there. Make it simple and people will come - look at LNER post Covid. Or lumo. Imagine if CrossCountry ran 10 car trains on every service - they would still be full. And every rail passenger takes demand off the roads - publicly funded - and saves money there...
Which brings us back to @Sandpit ’s point about infrastructure. Would it really have been so hard to realise that a mainline down to the south-west, as an alternative to the GWR line, might require a double track?
You can reorder it in multiple ways: so, people can choose to do jobs that are enjoyable but low value add for example.
That system needs to stay. "delay attribution" relates to the internal payments due to either operator or infrastructure owner depending on what went wrong. Which involves a vast array of contracts which means contract managers and lawyers and costs. I'd do away with that in a heartbeat - won't affect passengers getting their money back.
https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-world-of-illegal-online-gambling-in-china-2022-9
Now this isn't as dodgy as those gambling sites you have never heard of on the front of EPL team shirts, and if you visit them they don't want your business. That is total different orders of magnitude dodgy, with organised criminals, slave labour, the whole 9 yards.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:SAL/from/gb-nr:EXD/2024-05-23/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt
Unfortunately, once there are delays on the West of England line, it's very hard to recover the service due to the single line sections.
https://x.com/jim_reed/status/1793311196218626382?s=61
But there’s a good case for saying, with hindsight, that 1992 and 2019 were the elections to lose?
You’re correct. The 12.25 from EXD It was ‘cancelled’ for various stations, which is what they tend nowadays to do. So they will run it fast from Salisbury, either not stopping at all, or only stopping at Basingstoke, but cancelling all other intermediate stops including Clapham Junction.
I would show you a screen print of the ‘cancelled’ notices on my phone but it will use up my one picture a day permit
On the network, you get speed restrictions. Many of these are temporary (TSR). Many are permanent (PSR). If you discover a fault, you may be able to safely run a train over it at 20MPH instead of 60MPH. So a temporary restriction is placed on the line.
In ye olden days, it cost the infrastructure peeps money to fix that TSR. But because there is no real penalty for it, it does not get fixed and becomes permanent - a PSR.
Under the DA scheme, every train delayed by that PSR costs the infrastructure peeps money - which means it is in their interests to get it fixed. And users get a more reliable railway.
The same thing happens with operators: if a freight locomotive is unreliable and breaks down, causing loads of delays, the operating department would just shrug. Fixes, or even new locos, cost money. With DA, any delay they cause costs money, and that gives them an incentive to fix the f***ing things.
DA is vital to a well-run railway. Perhaps you can get the same effected without the lawyers and contracts, but the principle must remain. People calling for it to go are asking for a worse service.
As mentioned, AIUI BR was bringing in a DA service for exactly this reason. It is vital.
A country in despair is not exactly fertile ground for a Tory victory, but the Tory Party themselves are also in despair. Sunak has ordered a special electoral operation for which the Party is simply not prepared. The Tories really do seem to have given up, and even the gimmicks and electoral nonsense, such as Tory councillors in hi-vis jackets, is half-hearted, just going-through-the-motions. What comes across is the utterly joyless, misery of the Tories.
The voters seem to want to put the Tories out of our own misery too, but if that feeling gets going, the bandwagon could genuinely see the Tories wiped out.
Has Sunak killed the Conservative Party?
We have seen some reversal of this eh Chiltern route between Princes Risborough and Banbury, and Oxford to Worcester. It would surely be sensible to extend this to routes such as LSWR as part of a relatively inexpensive rail investment programme.
No, Perkins, pack a suitcase. We're taking this one to London.
I like GWR a lot more but it’s a faff from Woking. And their new Hitachi train seats are bizarrely uncomfortable in standard class. There’s a whole ‘thing’ about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhLaEYTvu-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmLFlqCV4po
GWR first class isn’t too bad. Still doesn’t compare to Norwegian trains imho, or indeed many other parts of the world. I’ve taken some fantastic new trains in Asia e.g. Malaysia.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:Y00643/2024-05-23/detailed#allox_id=1
Made up 10 mins from Basingstoke to London, but not sure it's worth it to chuck Woking passengers off at Basingstoke.
The 159s need replacing. I'd love to get the mark 5s and 68s that TPE have ditched (if the issues can be rectified).
On the other hand many Conservative voters in rural and semi-rural Britain are interested in the Environment from a stewardship perspective. They fail to see why water companies are allowed to fill our rivers with effluent and why builders and farmers should be allowed to destroy the places they go to birdwatch or walk the dog. The latter are currently angry with the party they thought represented them. That’s why the Greens have been cleaning up in local elections in Suffolk, Sussex and Hampshire. But where will those votes go in the GE? Back to the Tories or to the LibDems? That could be the difference between a poor showing for the LibDems and a blowout through the home counties.
You need to believe that infrastructure matters for a nation's productivity and wellbeing.
Logistics works like that. No contract in place on specific trucks or specific timings or specific bits of the set-up. Just an SLA saying do x. Contracts are largely standardised and pretty simple, but there remains a clear incentive for the service provider not to just shrug.
Contracts are great! But they need to be an agreement as to what will happen, not a makework scheme for lawyers and administrators. We spend so much money as a country with services and receive crap front line provision starved of money. The middle managers and contract lawyers are happy, the passengers and students and patients are not. It needs to stop.
We need growth, we need to grow, and our crap infrastructure does not help.
They closed me down eventually, much to my annoyance.
Not sure I see many signs of this improving under Labour but its a large black mark against the current government.
The British problem is that we lost track of strategic objectives in the 1970s. It takes a government with vision and absolute freedom to act to do transformative things. Thatcher had both. Blair had the majority and delivered so much detail, but was missing the transformative mission.
Starmer? His missions suggest he gets it. But in practice I would be astonished if they set out to actually transform the country in the way we need. Sadly.
But whatever replaced the Conservatives - e.g. Reform - less so.
https://x.com/scotlandsky/status/1793711084051796154?s=61
Reeves strikes me as ultra cautious and lacking a bit of vision. I was underwhelmed by her Mais speech which certainly identified many of the problems but completely lacked meaningful solutions. Will she be brave enough to cut current spending to boost investment? I'm not sure, her focus on gimmicky taxes to produce pitiful amounts of additional income to boost spending does not bode well. But we can only hope. The country needs a change of direction.
My own view is that the best answers do not lie in ideology, but in cold, hard pragmatism. But that doesn't get the base of a political party excited.
Plus his prediction was wrong. They lost 2-1
Redwood’s standing down statement is as terse and obnoxious as his political style
“I have other things I wish to do” #sniff
Nothing to do with the polls then…
Coates does pay UK tax at 45% on the vast majority of her 9 figure salary, and also a lot on her dividends, at least I think so. Far better than some CEOs with their offshore or other dodgy creative accounting.
There are worse bookies.
The gerontocracy that follows from the current Conservative voters coalition really doesn't help. Not because all pensioners are selfish gits, but all the little biases against spending with a ten year payoff add up.
One of the reasons for thinking that Things Can Only Get (a little bit) Better is that Labour have a set of voters more likely to see themselves benefiting from longer term projects. As opposed to my declining father's line about how X (whether carpets or furniture or anything else) would see him out.
But even "it's hard to see how they can be as bad as this" is probably enough.