My first post since the 2005 GE, (when you could post without signing in). Not sure why anyone is describing this election as boring. While some or all of these probably will not happen, there are lots of possible outcomes that could have a huge impact on politics over the coming years - ELE for the Tories, Farage (finally) winning a seat in the Commons. Recovery of the Lib Dems after many years of pain. Huge Labour majority. The Greens winning a seat outside of Brighton. Big defeat for the SNP. None of these are inevitable, and some are far more likely than others. But all could shape British politics for the next decade.
Certainly the most exciting election I can remember, although for all the wrong reasons if you’re a Conservative supporter.
It's worth noting what does not seem to have happened in Islington North:
1. The local Labour party has not collapsed and remains largely intact.
2. There has been no flood of pro-Corbyn volunteers descending on the constituency to help his campaign.
What that probably means is that he does not have the level of organisation and manpower that the Labour candidate has at his disposal. What he does have, of course, is name recognition. But I wonder how many people in Islington North actually realise he is no longer in the Labour party. When they look at the ballot paper will they search for his name or the Labour one?
I have a good friend who lives in his seat, and she doesn’t reckon he will win. Yes, he is a diligent constituency MP who has helped a lot of people, but then his seat has a lot of transient population and also the type of person who needs an MP’s help is often an unreliable voter. She reckons the middle class Labour folk in Islington, of whom there are many at the southern end of his seat, are focused on getting rid of the Tories and won’t entertain Corbyn’s little diversion. Remember, the SDP did very well in Islington, even back then (it’s gone much more upmarket since).
The area has changed hugely. I lived there 1998-2003 in the days when a vendor sold all the Irish LOCAL papers outside the entrance to Archway Tube station to blokes for which they were their only connection with home. That generation of Irish people who came over to work in the 50s and 60s, and formed much of Corby’s personal loyalty in Islington North, has left to be replaced by gentrifying incomers people like I was. Even when I was there the Whitehall Park area was tentatively being described by some hopeful estate agents as “Highgate Slopes”.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Turnout bets would be interesting but I don't see much value there atm.
On those figures, Richard Holden is a goner in Basildon. On the plus side for him, there is little LD vote for Labour to squeeze. On the other hand, it's not the sort of place likely to appreciate an outsider being dumped on them.
There's no Betfair market on the constituency (and it would have no liquidity anyway) but I see Lads are bravely going 4/7 Con and 6/4 Lab. I think there's a little value there.
Btw,I've been surprised on a number of occasions at the odds Lads are offering on some constituency seats. The Great Shadsy no longer works for them. On what I have seen, it looks like the lad from the Youth Opportunities scheme has got the gig. This opens the door to my own Betting Opportunities scheme.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
It always used to be 4 weeks. It was changed relatively recently, can't remember the reason.
I believe the excuse is changes to registration to vote including rolling registration and individual registration. Not sure whether there are legitimate reasons or it’s simply bureaucratic inertia.
I did notice scrolling through the overnight chat some discussion on deposits. The Thatcher government did update the deposit requirements in ROTPA1985 previously the threshold was an eighth of the vote to return £150 deposit. It seems to me that after nearly 40 years the value of £500 has declined, in fact a quick glance at the Bank of England data suggests that £500 of 1985 money is the equivalent of £1500 of today’s, so perhaps an adjustment is in order. It’s a delicate balancing act between having a low barrier to entry, but one that is sufficient to prevent excessive numbers of highly frivolous candidates.
Labour has dropped a plan to reintroduce a cap on how much people are allowed to save into their pensions before paying tax.
Under the pensions lifetime allowance, pension pots over £1.07m faced an annual tax of £40,000 on average.
The cap was scrapped in April but Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves had vowed to bring it back, saying it could raise £800m a year.
However, her party has now reversed the decision ahead of the release of its manifesto on Thursday, reportedly because the cap would add uncertainty for savers and be complex to reintroduce.
Do Starmer and Reeves have the courage to do anything ?
Glad about that one for sure
The current awkward compromise, where the putative tax on large pensions has gone but the old LTA lives on as the cap on tax free cash is actually working out OK, removing the incentive for most very high earners to cycle their own cash into very large pensions while keeping the incentive for rich doctors and the like to continue working, to get their employers’ contributions.
Backed Conservatives down to 1.4 in Richmond and Northallerton. It remains backable there, £50 keeps appearing.
My general betting - and masturbatory - position is "Tory wipeout" so this is in some ways a hedge, but I think it's value by itself as well. Equates to 53 Tory Seats on Electoral Calculus for the PM to lose. Plenty of independents and binface etc to split the anti-Sunak vote. And if he loses I'll be overjoyed and not care about the £100 lost anyway which would be overtaken by other gains.
Of course the risk here is Sunak pulls out but that would be megalolz.
I am also continuing to lay Corbyn and of the opinion he's a great lay down at below 1.5 area as he is - indeed I still think he should be trading above evens. But I'm not in Islington. I base this solely on intuition and welcome input, especially from the guy whose screename I've forgotten beginning with A who responded previously.
Corbyn was not odds-on according to your linked article, which was published at 2am the morning after the election, so punters were responding to the exit poll and perhaps early results. It gives Corbyn 2.48 and May 2.58 (implying a combined 80 per cent probability one of the two will be Prime Minister) but suggests May is no longer favourite only because punters are also backing other Conservatives, such as Boris, in the expectation Theresa May would step down. There is a remote chance the reporter meant both Corbyn and May were odds-on at 1.48 and 1.58 respectively but that seems unlikely in an active market.
Fair comment - replace "odds on" with "favourite".
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Turnout bets would be interesting but I don't see much value there atm.
I think 62.5-64.99% band is the place to be. 4.6 at BFX.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Turnout bets would be interesting but I don't see much value there atm.
I have helped - delivery and canvassing - in 3 constituencies one Lib Dem (won in a by-election), one solid Tory and one Tory but with a strong Lib Dem challenge. In all of them there has been no leaflets or other sign of any other party, whereas the Lib Dems have delivered at least 3 leaflets or letters already, and orange diamonds are springing up. It is as if the other parties didn't realise that there was an election sometime in 2024. The Lib Dems had clearly planned for May but Rishi Sunak and his advisers needed a 6 week campaign because their troops on the ground were not ready for for a shorter one. Getting your message to Postal Voters is vital - the Post Office delivered leaflets will not arrive in time - in some cases they may not arrive by 4th July.
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
One thing it might also have noted is that scientists were, early on, too dogmatic in reacting to what was a false certainty that the virus came from a lab - and displayed something of a false certainty of their own. Otherwise it's a very good summation.
After the excitement over my typo, do we know when the latest YouGov is out?
Just a question Leon, how do you juggle so many logins?
I suspect he does probably have multiple aliases on here. But me? No. It was amusing once but not when you keep repeating it. Time to let it go CHB. xx
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
But they haven’t engaged with the important question:
If found guilty, should he be fed to a shark or electrocuted?
Suggesting that his chances of survival, had he staggered into the beach bar close to death, weren’t particularly great anyway.
And equally, that had he not missed his way, he'd have been fine.
Stupid pointless conjecture, as we know it did not end well. Big surprise was that someone of his background did not have a phone or water with him.
As I said yesterday, even the smartest people make silly mistakes. In this case disastrously. My point was rather that the speculation about suicide seems entirely without foundation.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
Does anyone have any idea what has happened with Business Rates at retail units in out of town centres?
I have the East Midlands Macarthur Glen (M1 J28) within about 20 minutes walk, which is an outlet centre drawing around 4 million visitors a year - say 20% of Meadowhall. It is a success.
I was wondering how much money they pay into Derbyshire rather than Nottinghamshire (the county boundary is literally drawn down the Notts side of their site), and I see that units have had their rateable values slashed.
The M&S unit, which is an anchor, has had their RV go down from 400k in 2017-2021 to 170k now. If the system is as I understand it, that is a reduction from around £220k a year to £90k a year approx. There are 90 units (this is three).
I know we've seen changes (my part-owned gym has benefited), but I wasn't aware it was for that sort of unit.
Post code is DE55 2JW and it is units 40-42 is anyone wants to check on the Valuation Agency site.
After the excitement over my typo, do we know when the latest YouGov is out?
Just a question Leon, how do you juggle so many logins?
I suspect he does probably have multiple aliases on here. But me? No. It was amusing once but not when you keep repeating it. Time to let it go CHB. xx
Indeed. All Leon's aliases are different types of obvious twat, which isn't evident from Heathener's posts.
My first post since the 2005 GE, (when you could post without signing in). Not sure why anyone is describing this election as boring. While some or all of these probably will not happen, there are lots of possible outcomes that could have a huge impact on politics over the coming years - ELE for the Tories, Farage (finally) winning a seat in the Commons. Recovery of the Lib Dems after many years of pain. Huge Labour majority. The Greens winning a seat outside of Brighton. Big defeat for the SNP. None of these are inevitable, and some are far more likely than others. But all could shape British politics for the next decade.
Certainly the most exciting election I can remember, although for all the wrong reasons if you’re a Conservative supporter.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Suggesting that his chances of survival, had he staggered into the beach bar close to death, weren’t particularly great anyway.
And equally, that had he not missed his way, he'd have been fine.
Stupid pointless conjecture, as we know it did not end well. Big surprise was that someone of his background did not have a phone or water with him.
Particularly the phone, Malc. This is a journalist. The phone is like an extra limb to them.
Except he's also a public and popular figure, having a holiday, and may well have been happy not to be tied to the phone. Taking it and turning it off would have been more sensible.
The Russian large anti-submarine ship Admiral Levchenko caught fire in the Barents Sea. An engine unit is on fire, said Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces. https://x.com/Hromadske/status/1800249071850205521
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
PMQs might improve. The session could actually be used to...you know...ask sensible questions?
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Suggesting that his chances of survival, had he staggered into the beach bar close to death, weren’t particularly great anyway.
And equally, that had he not missed his way, he'd have been fine.
Stupid pointless conjecture, as we know it did not end well. Big surprise was that someone of his background did not have a phone or water with him.
Particularly the phone, Malc. This is a journalist. The phone is like an extra limb to them.
Except he's also a public and popular figure, having a holiday, and may well have been happy not to be tied to the phone. Taking it and turning it off would have been more sensible.
The journalists I have known would become physically ill if separated from ther phones.
it's all very sad but it just sounds like he went a bit off piste and got unlucky.
After the excitement over my typo, do we know when the latest YouGov is out?
Just a question Leon, how do you juggle so many logins?
I suspect he does probably have multiple aliases on here. But me? No. It was amusing once but not when you keep repeating it. Time to let it go CHB. xx
Indeed. All Leon's aliases are different types of obvious twat, which isn't evident from Heathener's posts.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
I think so too, though the Tories would take over the SNP position and get 2 questions.
I think 125 Tory seats +/-25. There is a lot of brainstem level voting at the actual time of ballotting, no matter how useless the party.
After the excitement over my typo, do we know when the latest YouGov is out?
Just a question Leon, how do you juggle so many logins?
I suspect he does probably have multiple aliases on here. But me? No. It was amusing once but not when you keep repeating it. Time to let it go CHB. xx
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
I think so too, though the Tories would take over the SNP position and get 2 questions.
I think 125 Tory seats +/-25. There is a lot of brainstem level voting at the actual time of ballotting, no matter how useless the party.
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
A lot depends on Electoral geography. It works against RN at national level, but they must have the advantage at many seats at Assembly level.
I rather like the French 2 stage system of voting. It has many of the advantages of AV, but with an additional week to think about the final choice. There is some tactical voting in the first round, but not really in the second one.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There will not be any interest rate cuts before the 4th July and frankly, nothing Sunak can say or do will improve his chances following the D day error
The only question now is just how big a landslide Starmer will be given
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
I think so too, though the Tories would take over the SNP position and get 2 questions.
I think 125 Tory seats +/-25. There is a lot of brainstem level voting at the actual time of ballotting, no matter how useless the party.
Well, only if they got more seats than the SNP!
Betfair now have a market on Final Con seat position. 4th place is currently 6.4 and 5th place 11.
I would regard coming third as an ELE for the Tories. I can't see it myself.
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
On those figures nobody has a slam dunk in the Assemblee Nationale. Seat distribution will probably help the larger parties as the smaller "other" category wont qualify. Le Pen will be looking to do a deal with Les Republicains to get a stable government, On second round votes Macron will have lean pickings as not many of his candidates will get throigh.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
It always used to be 4 weeks. It was changed relatively recently, can't remember the reason.
I believe the excuse is changes to registration to vote including rolling registration and individual registration. Not sure whether there are legitimate reasons or it’s simply bureaucratic inertia.
I did notice scrolling through the overnight chat some discussion on deposits. The Thatcher government did update the deposit requirements in ROTPA1985 previously the threshold was an eighth of the vote to return £150 deposit. It seems to me that after nearly 40 years the value of £500 has declined, in fact a quick glance at the Bank of England data suggests that £500 of 1985 money is the equivalent of £1500 of today’s, so perhaps an adjustment is in order. It’s a delicate balancing act between having a low barrier to entry, but one that is sufficient to prevent excessive numbers of highly frivolous candidates.
Wasn’t there a story last week of a pub landlord standing in the name of his pub, on the basis that he got a free mail out by standing, and the deposit was going to be cheaper than the postage?
Perhaps it should rise a little, maybe £1k is fair, but it’s important not to price out a local candidate without party backing. The Loonies and Binfaces are part of a long British tradition which should be maintained. The photos of the party leaders at their own count, accompanied on stage by all sorts of oddballs and jokers, provide a little light-heartedness on the night we choose the government.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
I err on the side that some of the tory ELE is getting exaggerated and that they are likely to fall in the, admittedly wide, band of 100-200 seats.
But that 4-1 isn’t the worst odds I’ve seen in this election?
The odds are about right, imo.
I think your band is a bit out. I see no reason to disbelieve the punters on Betfair who make the 50-99 band favorite, the 100-149 band second fav, and 0-49 third fav. That's kind of like saying they expect a result around the 90 seat mark (which is roughly where Baxter puts it,if you allow for a little tactical voting.)
The Spreads are a less reliable indicator because you have to factor in the extreme risk/reward ratio in such markets. The sell price is currently 118, and you could say that is out of kilter with Betfair, but then potential losses on the latter are finite and defineable. Much easier to lose your shirt on the spreads. So, I would say Sporting's 118 equates roughly to the aforesaid 90 or so.
None of this means you are necessarily wrong though. Just explaining why my range is lower.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
PMQs might improve. The session could actually be used to...you know...ask sensible questions?
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
As Fauci is subject to constant death threats I really would ease off this rhetoric.*
* Of the kind you describe. I don't mean you are doing it yourself.
Does anyone have any idea what has happened with Business Rates at retail units in out of town centres?
I have the East Midlands Macarthur Glen (M1 J28) within about 20 minutes walk, which is an outlet centre drawing around 4 million visitors a year - say 20% of Meadowhall. It is a success.
I was wondering how much money they pay into Derbyshire rather than Nottinghamshire (the county boundary is literally drawn down the Notts side of their site), and I see that units have had their rateable values slashed.
The M&S unit, which is an anchor, has had their RV go down from 400k in 2017-2021 to 170k now. If the system is as I understand it, that is a reduction from around £220k a year to £90k a year approx. There are 90 units (this is three).
I know we've seen changes (my part-owned gym has benefited), but I wasn't aware it was for that sort of unit.
Post code is DE55 2JW and it is units 40-42 is anyone wants to check on the Valuation Agency site.
Notes are below The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) uses a ‘rental’ method to value high street businesses like shops, hairdressers, betting shops and banks.
The VOA gathers information about rents paid for shops and businesses. It analyses the information and works out a price per square metre. It also considers local conditions and things like unusual shops shapes, split levels and sales areas hidden by pillars.
Zoning is used to apply the price per square metre to the property and get the rateable value. Each zone covers the width of the shop and has a depth of 6.1 metres. Zone A starts at the shop window. As you move further into the shop, each zone is half the value of the one before it. Spaces like store rooms or upstairs offices are valued but not as a zone.
Features such as air conditioning and lifts may be shown separately in the valuation.
This property is part of valuation scheme 636512 which groups comparable properties together.
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
Except that the Republicains are usually now described at “right wing populist” with very anti immigrant policies, and Reconquest, who are Far Right, are on 4%.
When you consider that, even without Le Penn winning, the French are agreed on things like banning Islamic clothing, they really are in a different place on social policy than we are.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Where do you work - a lighthouse?
Have people arrived at this website by mistake? What were they expecting?
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
PMQs might improve. The session could actually be used to...you know...ask sensible questions?
The problem with PMQs isn't so much the questions, but rather the absence of answers, particularly under Sunak.
For all her many faults at least Truss answered the questions. Sunak seemed to think it was impertinent to question him, and tried to make it LOTO questions.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
I think so too, though the Tories would take over the SNP position and get 2 questions.
I think 125 Tory seats +/-25. There is a lot of brainstem level voting at the actual time of ballotting, no matter how useless the party.
Well, only if they got more seats than the SNP!
Betfair now have a market on Final Con seat position. 4th place is currently 6.4 and 5th place 11.
I would regard coming third as an ELE for the Tories. I can't see it myself.
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
Except that the Republicains are usually now described at “right wing populist” with very anti immigrant policies, and Reconquest, who are Far Right, are on 4%.
When you consider that, even without Le Penn winning, the French are agreed on things like banning Islamic clothing, they really are in a different place on social policy than we are.
France has a long tradition of aggressive secularism, something that originally developed in opposition to Catholicism, but which nowadays conveniently aligns with Islamophobic tendencies.
Newsnight discussing the possibility of the LDs being the official opposition.
It's about a 4/1 shot. If people start discussing it as a realistic possibility, it shortens.
They'd be a better opposition to Labour than the Tories, challenging them to be bolder and holding them to their own principles, compared to a populist Tory opposition merely looking for Daily Mail front pages.
PMQs might improve. The session could actually be used to...you know...ask sensible questions?
The problem with PMQs isn't so much the questions, but rather the absence of answers, particularly under Sunak.
For all her many faults at least Truss answered the questions. Sunak seemed to think it was impertinent to question him, and tried to make it LOTO questions.
To be fair to Sunak, that was also an issue with Johnson, Cameron, Brown, Blair.
May did answer questions but usually couldn't resist making snide comments at the end of them.
I am sure this has been done, but Reform's economic policy press conference is genuinely exciting (Tice's beginning part, not Nigel coming on and doing his politics, which is fine, but we've seen it all). Ending a £40bn PA bung to the city each year and ending the Banks QT programme costing further 10s of billions a year, are hugely radical policies, and should excite everyone here - especially those who claim to be socialists and for working people.
Even if it were true that there was a £40bn bung to the city (presumably in the form of a lender of last resort free of charge) it would be by far the most profitable and tax generating money the government spends by an order of magnitude. God knows, thing are not great now but if we managed to screw the profit, employment and tax generating centre that is the City we could have people genuinely starving in the streets.
They survived without the £40bn when the base rate was nearly zero, so I'm not sure how or why they're going to be starving on the street without it now.
If it's linked to the base rate, how can they use it to cut taxes?
I'm certain that every time I've taken out a mortgage, the adviser has been very clear that rates can go up and down. I'm sure Tice has been told the same?
They are suggesting ending the interest payments from HMG so there would be no future impact of the base rate rising or falling. It is costing £40bn pa now, so ending it would make a very big difference to the public accounts at a time when the Government is extremely hard pressed to meet its commitments and get the economy growing.
Perhaps you could answer why the Bank is so keen to pay this interest, when the whole purpose of its elevation of the base rate is to remove money from the economy to reduce demand. How does paying £40bn into Banks reduce demand and cool the economy down? Or is demand reduction just meant to mean poor people buying less bags of crisps in Tesco?
Perhaps you would like to explain what the net number is to HMG, as the Bank of England currently pays its profits out as dividends to... errr... HMG.
It is a branch of HMG, so who else would it be paying them to? Every other department is accountable (vaguely) for the money it spends (or indeed makes). The Bank is able to chart its own course without the encumbrance of public accountability, whether they're recklessly printing £800bn or recklessly selling UK bonds at a loss and getting the taxpayer to foot the £150bn shortfall. BOE independence was meant to improve the stability of the Banks policy-making - can anyone say that that's been successful?
So you understand, then, that the interest payments are paid to themselves, and there is no free money, right?
The argument is that they can cut interest payments to commercial banks.
Yes, there are definitely savings there to be had, but I'd be staggered if it's more than £2-3bn/year.
This seems remarkably easy based on that article, which means its feels suspect
The article makes a number of factual errors, including confusing commercial banks reserves with the BOE's reserves.
Commercial banks are required to deposit a small portion of their capital with the BOE.
But the amount they deposit there, rather than in short term government bonds, is largely at the discretion of bank management.
If they no longer earned interest on those reserves, the first thing they would do is keep less capital there! It's not complicated. Commercial banks are profit seeking organizations. So, the idea you could just stop paying interest on deposits and there would be no impact on got level of deposits is just bonkers.
So it;s voodoo economics? Surprise, surprise.
That’s disgraceful. Voodoo has far better, proven, success rates than this kind of thinking.
I am sure this has been done, but Reform's economic policy press conference is genuinely exciting (Tice's beginning part, not Nigel coming on and doing his politics, which is fine, but we've seen it all). Ending a £40bn PA bung to the city each year and ending the Banks QT programme costing further 10s of billions a year, are hugely radical policies, and should excite everyone here - especially those who claim to be socialists and for working people.
Even if it were true that there was a £40bn bung to the city (presumably in the form of a lender of last resort free of charge) it would be by far the most profitable and tax generating money the government spends by an order of magnitude. God knows, thing are not great now but if we managed to screw the profit, employment and tax generating centre that is the City we could have people genuinely starving in the streets.
They survived without the £40bn when the base rate was nearly zero, so I'm not sure how or why they're going to be starving on the street without it now.
If it's linked to the base rate, how can they use it to cut taxes?
I'm certain that every time I've taken out a mortgage, the adviser has been very clear that rates can go up and down. I'm sure Tice has been told the same?
They are suggesting ending the interest payments from HMG so there would be no future impact of the base rate rising or falling. It is costing £40bn pa now, so ending it would make a very big difference to the public accounts at a time when the Government is extremely hard pressed to meet its commitments and get the economy growing.
Perhaps you could answer why the Bank is so keen to pay this interest, when the whole purpose of its elevation of the base rate is to remove money from the economy to reduce demand. How does paying £40bn into Banks reduce demand and cool the economy down? Or is demand reduction just meant to mean poor people buying less bags of crisps in Tesco?
Perhaps you would like to explain what the net number is to HMG, as the Bank of England currently pays its profits out as dividends to... errr... HMG.
It is a branch of HMG, so who else would it be paying them to? Every other department is accountable (vaguely) for the money it spends (or indeed makes). The Bank is able to chart its own course without the encumbrance of public accountability, whether they're recklessly printing £800bn or recklessly selling UK bonds at a loss and getting the taxpayer to foot the £150bn shortfall. BOE independence was meant to improve the stability of the Banks policy-making - can anyone say that that's been successful?
So you understand, then, that the interest payments are paid to themselves, and there is no free money, right?
The argument is that they can cut interest payments to commercial banks.
Yes, there are definitely savings there to be had, but I'd be staggered if it's more than £2-3bn/year.
This seems remarkably easy based on that article, which means its feels suspect
The article makes a number of factual errors, including confusing commercial banks reserves with the BOE's reserves.
Commercial banks are required to deposit a small portion of their capital with the BOE.
But the amount they deposit there, rather than in short term government bonds, is largely at the discretion of bank management.
If they no longer earned interest on those reserves, the first thing they would do is keep less capital there! It's not complicated. Commercial banks are profit seeking organizations. So, the idea you could just stop paying interest on deposits and there would be no impact on got level of deposits is just bonkers.
So it;s voodoo economics? Surprise, surprise.
That’s disgraceful. Voodoo has far better, proven, success rates than this kind of thinking.
Although as described it's certainly a baron procedure.
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
Except that the Republicains are usually now described at “right wing populist” with very anti immigrant policies, and Reconquest, who are Far Right, are on 4%.
When you consider that, even without Le Penn winning, the French are agreed on things like banning Islamic clothing, they really are in a different place on social policy than we are.
France has long had a policy against multiculturalism, hence the lack of official data on ethnicity and religion.
Evidence of it working better than multiculturalism on a British model is pretty scanty. It is hard to tackle discrimination and ghettos if you refuse to see them.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Where do you work - a lighthouse?
I dunno, I think in a lot of workplaces "don't bring up potentially contentious subjects like politics" is a conversational norm, so I wouldn't necessarily expect even people who are paying some attention to mention it. (Where I work the politics is confined to a specific slack channel for people who like to talk about it to keep it out of everybody else's way...)
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
It’s amusing how people who never would have voted for Cameron now go all misty eyed at his name. His Lordship, together with his chum Osborne, used austerity as cover to attack welfare spending, all in the name of creating “wedge issues” to win his 2015 majority; while doing nothing to really help the economy. He led a Government far more economically right wing (well sort of - a Thatcherite, he wasn’t), and probably more socially conservative, than Boris Johnson. It astonishes me that Brexit has got some left wing types talking as if he was one of them.
Just heard Streeting being interviewed and he said that if the economy had grown under the Tories as much as under Labour when they were in then we would have x billion extra etc etc. I was waiting to hear at which point Mishal would jump in and say, “hang on Wes, you do remember we had Brexit destabilise the economy, Covid absolutely eviscerate the economy followed by Ukraine smashing the cost of living and the general economy”. But she didn’t.
It makes me wonder why the Tories aren’t screaming about Covid and Ukraine from the rooftops. Every time someone says “but you’ve had 14 years” they should be saying “yes, we had to spend the first few trying to fix the GFC mess, then Brexit it came along, voted for by supporters of all parties not just Tories, then we had Covid which destroyed the economy and then Ukraine which made things ten times worse.
When you are trying to stop a house from burning you can’t spend time retiling the roof and putting new windows in. We’ve put the fire out as you can see with inflation and cost of living falling and if we are re-elected we will continue to rebuild the country.”
Covid and Ukraine weren’t the fault of the Tories yet alone this iteration. Brexit was delivered by Cameron but it was a boil that would need to be lanced at some point. If Labour want to be let off the hook for the UKs involvement in the GFC then they need to acknowledge Covid and Ukraine, no?
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
At his exit, David Cameron was regarded as a total failure as PM. So the decline has been from a pretty low base...
Just heard Streeting being interviewed and he said that if the economy had grown under the Tories as much as under Labour when they were in then we would have x billion extra etc etc. I was waiting to hear at which point Mishal would jump in and say, “hang on Wes, you do remember we had Brexit destabilise the economy, Covid absolutely eviscerate the economy followed by Ukraine smashing the cost of living and the general economy”. But she didn’t.
It makes me wonder why the Tories aren’t screaming about Covid and Ukraine from the rooftops. Every time someone says “but you’ve had 14 years” they should be saying “yes, we had to spend the first few trying to fix the GFC mess, then Brexit it came along, voted for by supporters of all parties not just Tories, then we had Covid which destroyed the economy and then Ukraine which made things ten times worse.
When you are trying to stop a house from burning you can’t spend time retiling the roof and putting new windows in. We’ve put the fire out as you can see with inflation and cost of living falling and if we are re-elected we will continue to rebuild the country.”
Covid and Ukraine weren’t the fault of the Tories yet alone this iteration. Brexit was delivered by Cameron but it was a boil that would need to be lanced at some point. If Labour want to be let off the hook for the UKs involvement in the GFC then they need to acknowledge Covid and Ukraine, no?
They don’t go on about COVID-19 because it reminds voters of Partygate.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
I think he believes passionately in a Horatio Alger myth about himself and doesn't understand why other people are too lazy to follow in his footsteps. Indeed I shall think of him as Ragged Dick from now on.
This is my patch - Think Ashfield will go to Reform - The seat makes neighbouring Mansfield look like Chelsea. Anything odds against on Ashfield is good value . Some find the indie controversial as well.
I disagree in some respects (depends how far back you go - I was at Primary School in Ashfield and moved just into Derbyshire with family in the mid-1970s when I was 8). We certainly have our millionaires' rows and high end golf courses . I am sitting about 10 minutes walk from my first primary school, and I reckon that if I go back to that time there were 15 pits, each employing 500-1000+ people, within 5 miles of my table. That has now turned into a near circle of country parks right round the town.
I think I'd make a comparison with North West Leicestershire (where I worked for the Council for some time), in Ashfield not being a particular place that one goes TO as a destination. And other people own bits of to extract the revenue to take elsewhere; Macarthur Glen as mentioned in my other post is a decent example - it is just on the Derbyshire side, but the main town centre affected is here. Plenty of service/support industry, and a decent amount of disposable income, but I don't think the work has been done well enough to create links. That, I think, is a familiar story for many places.
An example of that from my area of activism is that the rail trails of which we have scores of miles often suddenly have better surfaces close to the county border, better on the Derbyshire side. Derbyshire is aware of itself as a tourist destination.
Mansfield has suffered imo from being run by Mansfield Independents for about 20 years; they have not achieved much that I can see and seem to me to be Dad's Army. Politically, Zadrozny in Ashfield has been far more effective - notwithstanding his personal legal problems. On some things he has even worked with Lee Anderson eg levelling up, such as it has been; time will tell how well that has done. Their definition of their politics in opposition to County is a big negative; they sacrificed active travel on that one.
If there is one big thing that I think causes long-term problems it is that we are missing major - even local - institutions based here. My 10 mile swathe of towns from Alfreton across to Mansfield has more than 250k people, yet no University, for example. Or historic large institutions.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
It always used to be 4 weeks. It was changed relatively recently, can't remember the reason.
I believe the excuse is changes to registration to vote including rolling registration and individual registration. Not sure whether there are legitimate reasons or it’s simply bureaucratic inertia.
I did notice scrolling through the overnight chat some discussion on deposits. The Thatcher government did update the deposit requirements in ROTPA1985 previously the threshold was an eighth of the vote to return £150 deposit. It seems to me that after nearly 40 years the value of £500 has declined, in fact a quick glance at the Bank of England data suggests that £500 of 1985 money is the equivalent of £1500 of today’s, so perhaps an adjustment is in order. It’s a delicate balancing act between having a low barrier to entry, but one that is sufficient to prevent excessive numbers of highly frivolous candidates.
I agree that 6 weeks is far too long and was thinking surely it used to be 4 weeks. I don't think the periods between the crucial dates eg notice of election and polling day have changed so it must be to do with rolling registration.
Just heard Streeting being interviewed and he said that if the economy had grown under the Tories as much as under Labour when they were in then we would have x billion extra etc etc. I was waiting to hear at which point Mishal would jump in and say, “hang on Wes, you do remember we had Brexit destabilise the economy, Covid absolutely eviscerate the economy followed by Ukraine smashing the cost of living and the general economy”. But she didn’t.
It makes me wonder why the Tories aren’t screaming about Covid and Ukraine from the rooftops. Every time someone says “but you’ve had 14 years” they should be saying “yes, we had to spend the first few trying to fix the GFC mess, then Brexit it came along, voted for by supporters of all parties not just Tories, then we had Covid which destroyed the economy and then Ukraine which made things ten times worse.
When you are trying to stop a house from burning you can’t spend time retiling the roof and putting new windows in. We’ve put the fire out as you can see with inflation and cost of living falling and if we are re-elected we will continue to rebuild the country.”
Covid and Ukraine weren’t the fault of the Tories yet alone this iteration. Brexit was delivered by Cameron but it was a boil that would need to be lanced at some point. If Labour want to be let off the hook for the UKs involvement in the GFC then they need to acknowledge Covid and Ukraine, no?
Our recovery from the global financial crisis was, to be polite, suboptimal. That’s the original sin, and the Tories aren’t blameless. Brexit had limited effect, and Covid/Ukraine happened everywhere but other (non-European) countries recovered better than we did.
This is my patch - Think Ashfield will go to Reform - The seat makes neighbouring Mansfield look like Chelsea. Anything odds against on Ashfield is good value . Some find the indie controversial as well.
I disagree in some respects (depends how far back you go - I was at Primary School in Ashfield and moved just into Derbyshire with family in the mid-1970s). I am sitting about 10 minutes walk from my first primary school, and I reckon that if I go back to that time there were 15 pits, each employing 500-1000+ people, within 5 miles of my table. That has now turned into a near circle of country parks right round the town.
I think I'd make a comparison with North West Leicestershire (where I worked for the Council for some time), in Ashfield not being a particular place that one goes TO as a destination. Plenty of service/support industry, and a decent amount of disposable income, but I don't think the work has been done well enough to create links.
An example of that from my area of activism is that the rail trails of which we have scores of miles often suddenly have better surfaces close to the county border, better on the Derbyshire side. Derbyshire is aware of itself as a tourist destination.
Mansfield has suffered imo from being run by Mansfield Independents for about 20 years; they have not achieved much that I can see and seem to me to be Dad's Army. Politically, Zadrozny in Ashfield has been far more effective - notwithstanding his personal legal problems. On some things he has even worked with Lee Anderson eg levelling up, such as it has been; time will tell how well that has done. Their definition of their politics in opposition to County is a big negative; they sacrificed active travel on that one.
If there is one big thing that I think causes long-term problems it is that we are missing major - even local - institutions based here. My 10 mile swathe of towns from Alfreton across to Mansfield has more than 250k people, yet no University, for example.
All interesting stuff.
Isn’t there a Nottingham Trent University campus in Mansfield?
Backed Conservatives down to 1.4 in Richmond and Northallerton. It remains backable there, £50 keeps appearing.
My general betting - and masturbatory - position is "Tory wipeout" so this is in some ways a hedge, but I think it's value by itself as well. Equates to 53 Tory Seats on Electoral Calculus for the PM to lose. Plenty of independents and binface etc to split the anti-Sunak vote. And if he loses I'll be overjoyed and not care about the £100 lost anyway which would be overtaken by other gains.
Of course the risk here is Sunak pulls out but that would be megalolz.
I am also continuing to lay Corbyn and of the opinion he's a great lay down at below 1.5 area as he is - indeed I still think he should be trading above evens. But I'm not in Islington. I base this solely on intuition and welcome input, especially from the guy whose screename I've forgotten beginning with A who responded previously.
Corbyn was not odds-on according to your linked article, which was published at 2am the morning after the election, so punters were responding to the exit poll and perhaps early results. It gives Corbyn 2.48 and May 2.58 (implying a combined 80 per cent probability one of the two will be Prime Minister) but suggests May is no longer favourite only because punters are also backing other Conservatives, such as Boris, in the expectation Theresa May would step down. There is a remote chance the reporter meant both Corbyn and May were odds-on at 1.48 and 1.58 respectively but that seems unlikely in an active market.
Fair comment - replace "odds on" with "favourite".
My bad.
Cool. The article could have been clearer but we can cut some slack to a writer who has been up all day covering the election and is still up at 2am covering the count.
Note that while Corbyn is favourite to be the new Prime Minister, he isn't really. Favourite is the composite Conservative candidate: Theresa May or, if she steps aside, Boris or Hunt or whoever.
It would be instructive to look at pb for 8-9 June 2017 but it looks like we can only go back to 2020.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
It’s amusing how people who never would have voted for Cameron now go all misty eyed at his name. His Lordship, together with his chum Osborne, used austerity as cover to attack welfare spending, all in the name of creating “wedge issues” to win his 2015 majority; while doing nothing to really help the economy. He led a Government far more economically right wing (well sort of - a Thatcherite, he wasn’t), and probably more socially conservative, than Boris Johnson. It astonishes me that Brexit has got some left wing types talking as if he was one of them.
Indeed.
The Cameron/Osborne record on welfare is disastrous, but other people are also to blame, like the appalling Therese Coffey. It's achieved relatively little, for huge increases in hardship.
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
This is my patch - Think Ashfield will go to Reform - The seat makes neighbouring Mansfield look like Chelsea. Anything odds against on Ashfield is good value . Some find the indie controversial as well.
I disagree in some respects (depends how far back you go - I was at Primary School in Ashfield and moved just into Derbyshire with family in the mid-1970s). I am sitting about 10 minutes walk from my first primary school, and I reckon that if I go back to that time there were 15 pits, each employing 500-1000+ people, within 5 miles of my table. That has now turned into a near circle of country parks right round the town.
I think I'd make a comparison with North West Leicestershire (where I worked for the Council for some time), in Ashfield not being a particular place that one goes TO as a destination. Plenty of service/support industry, and a decent amount of disposable income, but I don't think the work has been done well enough to create links.
An example of that from my area of activism is that the rail trails of which we have scores of miles often suddenly have better surfaces close to the county border, better on the Derbyshire side. Derbyshire is aware of itself as a tourist destination.
Mansfield has suffered imo from being run by Mansfield Independents for about 20 years; they have not achieved much that I can see and seem to me to be Dad's Army. Politically, Zadrozny in Ashfield has been far more effective - notwithstanding his personal legal problems. On some things he has even worked with Lee Anderson eg levelling up, such as it has been; time will tell how well that has done. Their definition of their politics in opposition to County is a big negative; they sacrificed active travel on that one.
If there is one big thing that I think causes long-term problems it is that we are missing major - even local - institutions based here. My 10 mile swathe of towns from Alfreton across to Mansfield has more than 250k people, yet no University, for example.
All interesting stuff.
Isn’t there a Nottingham Trent University campus in Mansfield?
Indeed, but it's a branch campus that used to be West Notts Tech. I'd like a proper University; had I a £100m trust fund that is what I would be looking at triggering maybe. Canterbury is tiny and that has *four*, last time I counted.
Though, incidentally, it has some decent new cycle tracks in the area. Notts CC got them past Mansfield District.
Over at this end, the Ashfield Independents fought a section of the same travel corridor wearing their green-looking ultra-local populist hat ("But verges ! trees !"), which leaves wheelchairs and mobility scooters on a nasty narrow pavement or sharing an estate road with the cars. Whilst promising to take out nearly identical verges elsewhere to create more parking.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
I think at least 1 of the 4 was simply unfortunate to face impossible circumstances. I tend to be rather more generous to May than most. There are very few people who could have successfully navigated the circumstances she was asked to deal with. She was facing a situation where there were very few politicians willing to compromise in any respect. Of course she had her own limitations, but I genuinely believe that in more benign circumstances she could have proved a moderately successful PM. Her principal failure was actually a failure of the entire political class.
Sunak there is a mild case of saying that circumstances have contributed to his failure. Had he prevailed against Truss he would almost certainly be in a substantially better situation than he is. That’s not to take away from the obvious deficiencies he has, but politics is highly contingent, and his context is pretty unique.
Boris is unfairly upgraded by many, his electoral success came about through preferencing one side of the internal split in his party and allying it to wider voter fatigue with the length and bitterness of the Brexit process. That worked in the curious circumstances of Dec 2019 but as time went by, the voters discovered his fundamental character and the side he preferenced found that he hadn’t signed up to their entire swivel eyed agenda.
The least said of Truss the better for everyone, including her.
Backed Conservatives down to 1.4 in Richmond and Northallerton. It remains backable there, £50 keeps appearing.
My general betting - and masturbatory - position is "Tory wipeout" so this is in some ways a hedge, but I think it's value by itself as well. Equates to 53 Tory Seats on Electoral Calculus for the PM to lose. Plenty of independents and binface etc to split the anti-Sunak vote. And if he loses I'll be overjoyed and not care about the £100 lost anyway which would be overtaken by other gains.
Of course the risk here is Sunak pulls out but that would be megalolz.
I am also continuing to lay Corbyn and of the opinion he's a great lay down at below 1.5 area as he is - indeed I still think he should be trading above evens. But I'm not in Islington. I base this solely on intuition and welcome input, especially from the guy whose screename I've forgotten beginning with A who responded previously.
Corbyn was not odds-on according to your linked article, which was published at 2am the morning after the election, so punters were responding to the exit poll and perhaps early results. It gives Corbyn 2.48 and May 2.58 (implying a combined 80 per cent probability one of the two will be Prime Minister) but suggests May is no longer favourite only because punters are also backing other Conservatives, such as Boris, in the expectation Theresa May would step down. There is a remote chance the reporter meant both Corbyn and May were odds-on at 1.48 and 1.58 respectively but that seems unlikely in an active market.
Fair comment - replace "odds on" with "favourite".
My bad.
Cool. The article could have been clearer but we can cut some slack to a writer who has been up all day covering the election and is still up at 2am covering the count.
Note that while Corbyn is favourite to be the new Prime Minister, he isn't really. Favourite is the composite Conservative candidate: Theresa May or, if she steps aside, Boris or Hunt or whoever.
It would be instructive to look at pb for 8-9 June 2017 but it looks like we can only go back to 2020.
Must've been that one that burst out of the Tory tax scare ad.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
I think at least 1 of the 4 was simply unfortunate to face impossible circumstances. I tend to be rather more generous to May than most. There are very few people who could have successfully navigated the circumstances she was asked to deal with. She was facing a situation where there were very few politicians willing to compromise in any respect. Of course she had her own limitations, but I genuinely believe that in more benign circumstances she could have proved a moderately successful PM. Her principal failure was actually a failure of the entire political class.
Sunak there is a mild case of saying that circumstances have contributed to his failure. Had he prevailed against Truss he would almost certainly be in a substantially better situation than he is. That’s not to take away from the obvious deficiencies he has, but politics is highly contingent, and his context is pretty unique.
Boris is unfairly upgraded by many, his electoral success came about through preferencing one side of the internal split in his party and allying it to wider voter fatigue with the length and bitterness of the Brexit process. That worked in the curious circumstances of Dec 2019 but as time went by, the voters discovered his fundamental character and the side he preferenced found that he hadn’t signed up to their entire swivel eyed agenda.
The least said of Truss the better for everyone, including her.
Her principal failure was screwing up an election she should have won. If she had delivered the majority she was on for there would have been none of the shenanigans that followed.
My first post since the 2005 GE, (when you could post without signing in). Not sure why anyone is describing this election as boring. While some or all of these probably will not happen, there are lots of possible outcomes that could have a huge impact on politics over the coming years - ELE for the Tories, Farage (finally) winning a seat in the Commons. Recovery of the Lib Dems after many years of pain. Huge Labour majority. The Greens winning a seat outside of Brighton. Big defeat for the SNP. None of these are inevitable, and some are far more likely than others. But all could shape British politics for the next decade.
Have you been reading posts on here since then? The site was only a year old at the time of the 2005 election I believe. Welcome back.
Yes, from time to time. I finally decided it was time to contribute again. My predictions are probably no more mad, and no less biased than anyone else.
Wage growth remained flat at 6% and with bonuses went up. So less chance of an interest rate cut before the election .
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
There’s no reason to be less abled or suffering …
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
I think at least 1 of the 4 was simply unfortunate to face impossible circumstances. I tend to be rather more generous to May than most. There are very few people who could have successfully navigated the circumstances she was asked to deal with. She was facing a situation where there were very few politicians willing to compromise in any respect. Of course she had her own limitations, but I genuinely believe that in more benign circumstances she could have proved a moderately successful PM. Her principal failure was actually a failure of the entire political class.
Sunak there is a mild case of saying that circumstances have contributed to his failure. Had he prevailed against Truss he would almost certainly be in a substantially better situation than he is. That’s not to take away from the obvious deficiencies he has, but politics is highly contingent, and his context is pretty unique.
Boris is unfairly upgraded by many, his electoral success came about through preferencing one side of the internal split in his party and allying it to wider voter fatigue with the length and bitterness of the Brexit process. That worked in the curious circumstances of Dec 2019 but as time went by, the voters discovered his fundamental character and the side he preferenced found that he hadn’t signed up to their entire swivel eyed agenda.
The least said of Truss the better for everyone, including her.
And it's not an entirely recent problem, or unique to the Conservatives. Brown wasn't that great a PM either. And as for Leaders of the Opposition, in general the less said, the better.
When was the last time the big two had a plausible PM and PM in waiting simultaneously? Was there a brief window where Major faced Smith but Black Wednesday hadn't happened?
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
A lot depends on Electoral geography. It works against RN at national level, but they must have the advantage at many seats at Assembly level.
I rather like the French 2 stage system of voting. It has many of the advantages of AV, but with an additional week to think about the final choice. There is some tactical voting in the first round, but not really in the second one.
Eh? The second round is essentially enforced tactical voting for a lot of voters!!
Just heard Streeting being interviewed and he said that if the economy had grown under the Tories as much as under Labour when they were in then we would have x billion extra etc etc. I was waiting to hear at which point Mishal would jump in and say, “hang on Wes, you do remember we had Brexit destabilise the economy, Covid absolutely eviscerate the economy followed by Ukraine smashing the cost of living and the general economy”. But she didn’t.
It makes me wonder why the Tories aren’t screaming about Covid and Ukraine from the rooftops. Every time someone says “but you’ve had 14 years” they should be saying “yes, we had to spend the first few trying to fix the GFC mess, then Brexit it came along, voted for by supporters of all parties not just Tories, then we had Covid which destroyed the economy and then Ukraine which made things ten times worse.
When you are trying to stop a house from burning you can’t spend time retiling the roof and putting new windows in. We’ve put the fire out as you can see with inflation and cost of living falling and if we are re-elected we will continue to rebuild the country.”
Covid and Ukraine weren’t the fault of the Tories yet alone this iteration. Brexit was delivered by Cameron but it was a boil that would need to be lanced at some point. If Labour want to be let off the hook for the UKs involvement in the GFC then they need to acknowledge Covid and Ukraine, no?
The mindset of the population is that it is government's job to wave its magic wand and hand out more money so that nobody loses out apart from people they don't like.
Any resulting cost should be paid for only by people they don't like.
Mentioning Covid or Ukraine simply reminds people that they weren't given as much money as they think they were entitled to and that people they don't like didn't suffer enough.
Not quite the headline Rishi wanted on the morning of the Conservative manifesto launch.
So when Labour take over unemployment will be at 4.4%, inflation will around 2% and wage growth will be 6%, what will be the rates be when they lose power?
The Tories cannot mention Covid because of the Downing Street parties. If they try to blame the economic situation on Covid and Ukraine, you simply have to mention Truss’ 50 day catastrophe. They can’t talk about Tax, because they raised it to the highest levels. Probably best to avoid the NHS altogether.
At least Sunak could talk about defence until D Day.
This is my patch - Think Ashfield will go to Reform - The seat makes neighbouring Mansfield look like Chelsea. Anything odds against on Ashfield is good value . Some find the indie controversial as well.
I disagree in some respects (depends how far back you go - I was at Primary School in Ashfield and moved just into Derbyshire with family in the mid-1970s). I am sitting about 10 minutes walk from my first primary school, and I reckon that if I go back to that time there were 15 pits, each employing 500-1000+ people, within 5 miles of my table. That has now turned into a near circle of country parks right round the town.
I think I'd make a comparison with North West Leicestershire (where I worked for the Council for some time), in Ashfield not being a particular place that one goes TO as a destination. Plenty of service/support industry, and a decent amount of disposable income, but I don't think the work has been done well enough to create links.
An example of that from my area of activism is that the rail trails of which we have scores of miles often suddenly have better surfaces close to the county border, better on the Derbyshire side. Derbyshire is aware of itself as a tourist destination.
Mansfield has suffered imo from being run by Mansfield Independents for about 20 years; they have not achieved much that I can see and seem to me to be Dad's Army. Politically, Zadrozny in Ashfield has been far more effective - notwithstanding his personal legal problems. On some things he has even worked with Lee Anderson eg levelling up, such as it has been; time will tell how well that has done. Their definition of their politics in opposition to County is a big negative; they sacrificed active travel on that one.
If there is one big thing that I think causes long-term problems it is that we are missing major - even local - institutions based here. My 10 mile swathe of towns from Alfreton across to Mansfield has more than 250k people, yet no University, for example.
All interesting stuff.
Isn’t there a Nottingham Trent University campus in Mansfield?
Indeed, but it's a branch campus that used to be West Notts Tech. I'd like a proper University; had I a £100m trust fund that is what I would be looking at triggering maybe. Canterbury is tiny and that has *four*, last time I counted.
Though, incidentally, it has some decent new cycle tracks in the area. Notts CC got them past Mansfield District.
Over at this end, the Ashfield Independents fought a section of the same travel corridor wearing their green-looking ultra-local populist hat ("But verges ! trees !"), which leaves wheelchairs and mobility scooters on a nasty narrow pavement or sharing an estate road with the cars. Whilst promising to take out nearly identical verges elsewhere to create more parking.
One other interesting thing wrt Mansfield is that it is a town of 75k-100k (depends how far you count) that had no railway station for 30 years. Even since 1995 it is basically on a branch line from Nottingham.
Comparing it to the closest similar size place that *does* have a prominent railway station - Chesterfield - I wonder what long-term difference that makes? That has 1.5-2 million passengers per annum.
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Where do you work - a lighthouse?
Have people arrived at this website by mistake? What were they expecting?
My first post since the 2005 GE, (when you could post without signing in). Not sure why anyone is describing this election as boring. While some or all of these probably will not happen, there are lots of possible outcomes that could have a huge impact on politics over the coming years - ELE for the Tories, Farage (finally) winning a seat in the Commons. Recovery of the Lib Dems after many years of pain. Huge Labour majority. The Greens winning a seat outside of Brighton. Big defeat for the SNP. None of these are inevitable, and some are far more likely than others. But all could shape British politics for the next decade.
Have you been reading posts on here since then? The site was only a year old at the time of the 2005 election I believe. Welcome back.
Yes, from time to time. I finally decided it was time to contribute again. My predictions are probably no more mad, and no less biased than anyone else.
Welcome and keep posting!
If you've been a regular lurker you'll appreciate that every new poster these days is suspected of being a Russian troll but since your use of capitals and punctuation looks good I'm assuming you're legit. Welcome!
It is ridiculous that we are not even halfway through the general election campaign. Six weeks is far too long.
Are you not entertained....
On one level absolutely. On another level I am beyond bored. We have another 23 days of this and it's like watching paint dry. And I am actually interested in all this. What must normal people think about it all?
I think normal people just switch off to most of it.
Still haven't had a single person mention it at work.
Same here. Total lack of interest.
Where do you work - a lighthouse?
Have people arrived at this website by mistake? What were they expecting?
Illumination
Are you suggesting they are looking for light relief?
Comments
There's no Betfair market on the constituency (and it would have no liquidity anyway) but I see Lads are bravely going 4/7 Con and 6/4 Lab. I think there's a little value there.
Btw,I've been surprised on a number of occasions at the odds Lads are offering on some constituency seats. The Great Shadsy no longer works for them. On what I have seen, it looks like the lad from the Youth Opportunities scheme has got the gig. This opens the door to my own Betting Opportunities scheme.
I did notice scrolling through the overnight chat some discussion on deposits. The Thatcher government did update the deposit requirements in ROTPA1985 previously the threshold was an eighth of the vote to return £150 deposit. It seems to me that after nearly 40 years the value of £500 has declined, in fact a quick glance at the Bank of England data suggests that £500 of 1985 money is the equivalent of £1500 of today’s, so perhaps an adjustment is in order. It’s a delicate balancing act between having a low barrier to entry, but one that is sufficient to prevent excessive numbers of highly frivolous candidates.
No one expects a LD majority government so it doesn't matter too much.
My bad.
I assume Utah is one, but where else?
The idea that Fauci should be put on trial comes from the extremes of MAGA world and has notably been pushed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the Jewish space laser woman. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of her COVID-19 conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene#COVID-19 To be honest, that barely scratches the surface.
https://x.com/gmb/status/1800400114550243765?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
https://x.com/tgof137/status/1800359526706950573
One thing it might also have noted is that scientists were, early on, too dogmatic in reacting to what was a false certainty that the virus came from a lab - and displayed something of a false certainty of their own.
Otherwise it's a very good summation.
If found guilty, should he be fed to a shark or electrocuted?
My point was rather that the speculation about suicide seems entirely without foundation.
But that 4-1 isn’t the worst odds I’ve seen in this election?
Does anyone have any idea what has happened with Business Rates at retail units in out of town centres?
I have the East Midlands Macarthur Glen (M1 J28) within about 20 minutes walk, which is an outlet centre drawing around 4 million visitors a year - say 20% of Meadowhall. It is a success.
I was wondering how much money they pay into Derbyshire rather than Nottinghamshire (the county boundary is literally drawn down the Notts side of their site), and I see that units have had their rateable values slashed.
The M&S unit, which is an anchor, has had their RV go down from 400k in 2017-2021 to 170k now. If the system is as I understand it, that is a reduction from around £220k a year to £90k a year approx. There are 90 units (this is three).
I know we've seen changes (my part-owned gym has benefited), but I wasn't aware it was for that sort of unit.
Post code is DE55 2JW and it is units 40-42 is anyone wants to check on the Valuation Agency site.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/business-rates-find/search
The Russian large anti-submarine ship Admiral Levchenko caught fire in the Barents Sea. An engine unit is on fire, said Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces.
https://x.com/Hromadske/status/1800249071850205521
it's all very sad but it just sounds like he went a bit off piste and got unlucky.
xx
First poll for Assemblee Nationale
RN - 34% ( LePen )
NUPES - 22 % ( Left Alliance )
Renaissance -19 % (Macron )
Republicains - 9%
https://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/legislatives/elections-legislatives-le-rn-donne-largement-en-tete-selon-un-sondage-20240610
I think 125 Tory seats +/-25. There is a lot of brainstem level voting at the actual time of ballotting, no matter how useless the party.
Unemployment edged up slightly to 4.4% .
Not the best news for Sunak when he publishes his fxck those on sickness and disability benefit to dish out NI cuts manifesto this morning .
First that the right-wing populists there (and here) seem to have a ceiling at around 1/3rd of the electorate.
And that presumably means Macron is gambling that in the second round the anti-Right forces will coalesce as they have previously?
I agree - it is getting tedious
I rather like the French 2 stage system of voting. It has many of the advantages of AV, but with an additional week to think about the final choice. There is some tactical voting in the first round, but not really in the second one.
The only question now is just how big a landslide Starmer will be given
… when you have $1bn.
This is the reason why I pretty intensely dislike him. The failure to empathise or comprehend that the rest of the country doesn’t operate in his world. We see it in almost everything he says and does, from the myopic Maths focus to ruthless attitude to sickness and disability; from private helicopter travel to abandoning D-Day.
And when challenged about it all he gets hoity-toity.
Was this really the best the Conservative Party could do? Ever since David Cameron fell on his sword they’ve had 4 totally unsuitable leaders.
I would regard coming third as an ELE for the Tories. I can't see it myself.
Perhaps it should rise a little, maybe £1k is fair, but it’s important not to price out a local candidate without party backing. The Loonies and Binfaces are part of a long British tradition which should be maintained. The photos of the party leaders at their own count, accompanied on stage by all sorts of oddballs and jokers, provide a little light-heartedness on the night we choose the government.
I think your band is a bit out. I see no reason to disbelieve the punters on Betfair who make the 50-99 band favorite, the 100-149 band second fav, and 0-49 third fav. That's kind of like saying they expect a result around the 90 seat mark (which is roughly where Baxter puts it,if you allow for a little tactical voting.)
The Spreads are a less reliable indicator because you have to factor in the extreme risk/reward ratio in such markets. The sell price is currently 118, and you could say that is out of kilter with Betfair, but then potential losses on the latter are finite and defineable. Much easier to lose your shirt on the spreads. So, I would say Sporting's 118 equates roughly to the aforesaid 90 or so.
None of this means you are necessarily wrong though. Just explaining why my range is lower.
* Of the kind you describe. I don't mean you are doing it yourself.
Did you read the notes that went with the valuation (bottom of the page) because basically the popularity of the site has dropped so rents are lower so Business Rates are lower...
Notes are below
The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) uses a ‘rental’ method to value high street businesses like shops, hairdressers, betting shops and banks.
The VOA gathers information about rents paid for shops and businesses. It analyses the information and works out a price per square metre. It also considers local conditions and things like unusual shops shapes, split levels and sales areas hidden by pillars.
Zoning is used to apply the price per square metre to the property and get the rateable value. Each zone covers the width of the shop and has a depth of 6.1 metres. Zone A starts at the shop window. As you move further into the shop, each zone is half the value of the one before it. Spaces like store rooms or upstairs offices are valued but not as a zone.
Features such as air conditioning and lifts may be shown separately in the valuation.
This property is part of valuation scheme 636512 which groups comparable properties together.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/business-rates-find/valuations/26673280000/schemes/636512?uarn=13887674000
For reference all the details about the valuation (except diagrams) are available on the VOA website within the record...
When you consider that, even without Le Penn winning, the French are agreed on things like banning Islamic clothing, they really are in a different place on social policy than we are.
Just watched back the Sunak i’v. It was pretty eviscerating. Just one clip of several sums it all up for me:
https://x.com/char1iewatts/status/1800249713184461038
For all her many faults at least Truss answered the questions. Sunak seemed to think it was impertinent to question him, and tried to make it LOTO questions.
I'd be a layer at 1.39.
May did answer questions but usually couldn't resist making snide comments at the end of them.
Evidence of it working better than multiculturalism on a British model is pretty scanty. It is hard to tackle discrimination and ghettos if you refuse to see them.
It makes me wonder why the Tories aren’t screaming about Covid and Ukraine from the rooftops. Every time someone says “but you’ve had 14 years” they should be saying “yes, we had to spend the first few trying to fix the GFC mess, then Brexit it came along, voted for by supporters of all parties not just Tories, then we had Covid which destroyed the economy and then Ukraine which made things ten times worse.
When you are trying to stop a house from burning you can’t spend time retiling the roof and putting new windows in. We’ve put the fire out as you can see with inflation and cost of living falling and if we are re-elected we will continue to rebuild the country.”
Covid and Ukraine weren’t the fault of the Tories yet alone this iteration. Brexit was delivered by Cameron but it was a boil that would need to be lanced at some point. If Labour want to be let off the hook for the UKs involvement in the GFC then they need to acknowledge Covid and Ukraine, no?
I think I'd make a comparison with North West Leicestershire (where I worked for the Council for some time), in Ashfield not being a particular place that one goes TO as a destination. And other people own bits of to extract the revenue to take elsewhere; Macarthur Glen as mentioned in my other post is a decent example - it is just on the Derbyshire side, but the main town centre affected is here. Plenty of service/support industry, and a decent amount of disposable income, but I don't think the work has been done well enough to create links. That, I think, is a familiar story for many places.
An example of that from my area of activism is that the rail trails of which we have scores of miles often suddenly have better surfaces close to the county border, better on the Derbyshire side. Derbyshire is aware of itself as a tourist destination.
Mansfield has suffered imo from being run by Mansfield Independents for about 20 years; they have not achieved much that I can see and seem to me to be Dad's Army. Politically, Zadrozny in Ashfield has been far more effective - notwithstanding his personal legal problems. On some things he has even worked with Lee Anderson eg levelling up, such as it has been; time will tell how well that has done. Their definition of their politics in opposition to County is a big negative; they sacrificed active travel on that one.
If there is one big thing that I think causes long-term problems it is that we are missing major - even local - institutions based here. My 10 mile swathe of towns from Alfreton across to Mansfield has more than 250k people, yet no University, for example. Or historic large institutions.
All interesting stuff.
Hard to escape those facts if you’re in power.
Note that while Corbyn is favourite to be the new Prime Minister, he isn't really. Favourite is the composite Conservative candidate: Theresa May or, if she steps aside, Boris or Hunt or whoever.
It would be instructive to look at pb for 8-9 June 2017 but it looks like we can only go back to 2020.
The Cameron/Osborne record on welfare is disastrous, but other people are also to blame, like the appalling Therese Coffey. It's achieved relatively little, for huge increases in hardship.
Little Green Bottles not Little Green Men.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2881jmwjlmo
Not quite the headline Rishi wanted on the morning of the Conservative manifesto launch.
Though, incidentally, it has some decent new cycle tracks in the area. Notts CC got them past Mansfield District.
Over at this end, the Ashfield Independents fought a section of the same travel corridor wearing their green-looking ultra-local populist hat ("But verges ! trees !"), which leaves wheelchairs and mobility scooters on a nasty narrow pavement or sharing an estate road with the cars. Whilst promising to take out nearly identical verges elsewhere to create more parking.
Sunak there is a mild case of saying that circumstances have contributed to his failure. Had he prevailed against Truss he would almost certainly be in a substantially better situation than he is. That’s not to take away from the obvious deficiencies he has, but politics is highly contingent, and his context is pretty unique.
Boris is unfairly upgraded by many, his electoral success came about through preferencing one side of the internal split in his party and allying it to wider voter fatigue with the length and bitterness of the Brexit process. That worked in the curious circumstances of Dec 2019 but as time went by, the voters discovered his fundamental character and the side he preferenced found that he hadn’t signed up to their entire swivel eyed agenda.
The least said of Truss the better for everyone, including her.
When was the last time the big two had a plausible PM and PM in waiting simultaneously? Was there a brief window where Major faced Smith but Black Wednesday hadn't happened?
The Gers
@TheGers5
I've already placed a bet on Scotland losing every game...
7:03 am · 11 Jun 2024
Any resulting cost should be paid for only by people they don't like.
Mentioning Covid or Ukraine simply reminds people that they weren't given as much money as they think they were entitled to and that people they don't like didn't suffer enough.
At least Sunak could talk about defence until D Day.
Comparing it to the closest similar size place that *does* have a prominent railway station - Chesterfield - I wonder what long-term difference that makes? That has 1.5-2 million passengers per annum.
If you've been a regular lurker you'll appreciate that every new poster these days is suspected of being a Russian troll but since your use of capitals and punctuation looks good I'm assuming you're legit. Welcome!