PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
I think election night is where PB comes into its own, but it is being ahead of the punditry on mainstream media where the advantage lies, rather than what the specifics of the exit poll. Important too to have some reserve funds to move quickly into winning positions.
"Jo Brand's controversial joke about throwing battery acid "went beyond what was appropriate" for a Radio 4 comedy show, the BBC has ruled.
The corporation has partially upheld complaints about the quip made by the comedian on Radio 4's Heresy in June.
Referring to political figures who had been hit by milkshakes, she said: "I'm thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?"
But the BBC dismissed complaints that her remark amounted to incitement.
Following the broadcast, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who had a milkshake thrown at him by protesters several weeks earlier, accused Brand of "inciting violence"."
Has anyone thrown battery acid at Nigel Farage in the following five years or was the BBC right and even the criminally unhinged realised it was a joke?
The Speccie really doesn't like the Tories anymore, does it?
I don't think it's that. They're already fighting the battle for the blame game, establishing the story for why the Tories lost, to control the narrative for which policies the Tories should adopt in opposition.
This has been the game for a while now. Hence all the rubbish about the Tories talking right, but acting left, or making out that Sunak is a centrist. The story will be that the Tories lost by not being sufficiently right-wing.
I think the actual explanation is that they've simply been incompetent, to a disastrous degree. But that doesn't mean the story from the Spectator won't catch on.
It's ensuring that anything and everything associated with this campaign will be radioactive for decades to come.
It'll become part of the accepted political lore, and the Spads of the 2040s will mutter to their ministers: "make sure you stay right to the end of the ceremony or you'll end up like Rishi Sunak!", "don't lie about the civil service okaying your tax calcs, remember the Tories in 2024", and "if you cut NICs, the pensioners will revolt - that's what finally killed the old Conservative party".
It's why the right wing would be nuts to go through with their threat to issue an alternative manifesto - their best bet is to shut up and wait for the election to be over. Any intervention they make now will be tainted by the campaign's failure.
I think that with the Spectator, the Telegraph and the Express behind them am alternative manifesto could work for the Tory Right.
It could shore up the vote a bit by winning back some from Reform, even if it also loses votes in the centre. It enables them to claim the credit for any seat held. It gives them something to campaign for before polling day, and creates a litmus test for the leadership election.
Too little, too late.
If there's a choice between left wing parties that will increase taxes on work and boost welfare we may as well vote Labour.
At least with Labour the welfare will be targeted perhaps on those who are struggling.
And at least with Labour the Tories might sort themselves out and be rehabilitated eventually into being once more fit for office.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
There has been discussion on TwiX as to whether it was rocks or concrete or wet cement that was thrown. Do you want the BBC to sit on the story until this has been established, or go with "objects"?
Construction waste is accurate.
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue that the poor guy was so upset about the robbery he ended his own life.
I always find it astonishing that people are even vaguely surprised that tax cuts benefit those who pay the most tax the most. I mean, isn't it obvious?
Of course, for the same reason, it is not true in this case. Because, as you have just pointed out tax is still going up and the better paid will be paying more tax, not less. Those who do not pay tax at all will not be affected in either scenario.
I think SED has done absolutely the right thing. At first it seems Kooky but all he's done is followed the successful Avis marketing strategy. "We're never going to be the biggest so we tray harder"
....and it works and it's working.
I think it's much simpler than that. Both the Conservatives and Labour are led by charisma-free zones; If you went to the pub with Sunak, he'd get his laptop out and start Excel to calculate how many pints his fortune could buy; whilst SKS would spend hours talking about legal minutiae.
Davey needs the Lib Dems to have airtime, and these stunts do that. But more than that; he looks as though he is enjoying things that *we* enjoy. He looks normal. He looks like one of us: which neither SKS or Sunak do, however much they go on about their toolmaker or chemist parentage.
Actually the risk for Ed was that he was seen as boring and grey. These stunts may not do much for gravitas, but they certainly deal with the "boring issue". More to the point, the campaign against the shit in the rivers has really struck a chord. The manifesto is reasonably solid, and the local campaigns are going well.
I am hearing some pretty good news in several key targets, to the point that the next layer of targets is now getting some attention. So I think the Lib Dems are having a better campaign across the board. Labour are too timid and the Tory clown car could hardly be worse.
I´d be a bit surprised if we don´t see a bet of progress in the general polls soon too. This is clearly a drastically happier campaign than 2019.
I was in Henley last weekend - 7-0 in terms of LD-Tory signs as well as a lot of former Conservatives I spoke to going either to Ref or the LDs. I'd be shocked if it stays Tory at this point.
I think signage as evidence for anything is totally outdated these days. It was widely reported in 2015 and 2019 very little sign of Tory support anywhere on the street.
You're not allowed to put up signs on public property any more, are you?
I got a call the other day letting me know that the Reform candidate was putting up signs near me and that I might want to pop down and photograph them as evidence. By the time I got there 10 minutes later, he was already hurriedly taking them down again
The only 2 signs I have seen anywhere are Plaids
Are you in new Bangor Aberconwy seat? I could see that as a new Plaid target...
For what it's worth, the stupid stunts of Davey put me off.
Yeah, you got some media attention. For being a berk.
It's a shame the Yorkshire Party want to slice England into bits, otherwise I might well be voting that way. As it is, I'm not sure. Not voting Reform, or Lib Dem, or Labour. Or Conservative. Or Green.
I might not have an option I want to back on the ballot paper.
*checks*
Ah, there is another option! Oh. It's the SDP.
Now, the question is: how do I deface my voting slip? Or do I actually vote Lib Dem? Or give the Conservatives a pity vote? The agony of choice.
Davey’s stunts put me off too, but not as much as a few of the less well flagged policies. As you hint the election is a choice between the bad, the awful, the mad, the bad, the dangerous, the evil and the clueless.
Starmer who will form the next government is about as inspiring and exciting as nettle tea.
OT it is the US Open golf this weekend and (h/t Racing Post's Steve Palmer) the gap between the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, and Rory McIlroy at number three, in World Ranking Points is the same as the gap between Rory and the world 613th.
"Jo Brand's controversial joke about throwing battery acid "went beyond what was appropriate" for a Radio 4 comedy show, the BBC has ruled.
The corporation has partially upheld complaints about the quip made by the comedian on Radio 4's Heresy in June.
Referring to political figures who had been hit by milkshakes, she said: "I'm thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?"
But the BBC dismissed complaints that her remark amounted to incitement.
Following the broadcast, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who had a milkshake thrown at him by protesters several weeks earlier, accused Brand of "inciting violence"."
The BBC should never have broadcast that.
A joke that might be funny when said at midnight to 100 drunk people in a comedy club, can be rather inappropriate on national radio.
But of course that was in the days when the BBC got to mark the homework of their own producers, whom they didn’t want to throw under the bus.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
There has been discussion on TwiX as to whether it was rocks or concrete or wet cement that was thrown. Do you want the BBC to sit on the story until this has been established, or go with "objects"?
Construction waste is accurate.
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue.
Give them a break, half of their reporters are busy following whatever is happening in the US, 40% are busy prepping for Glastonbury and 9% are working on the Taylor Swift tour. The remaining 1% of reporters are spread thin and so finding the time to check details is tricky.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
But that's how finances work. If you have a mortgage you aren't setting aside a fund out of which to make future payments, you are relying on the prospect of future wages. People tend to start costing the NHS once they hit 50. Do you want to deny them treatment because nobody set aside a fund in 1974 to pay for their future ailments?
No.
I want today's well off pensioners who are in a privileged position to pay at least the same rate of tax as someone earning the same income via PAYE.
They already do you dumb assed clown
The sites thickest poster still doesn't understand that National Insurance is a tax.
Never change malcolm.
You're confusing hypothecation with its absence.
It's an odd tax when you get something back. That's the issue - as is the current government calling it National INSURANCE and saying stuff like
" ... The qualifying years on your National Insurance record affect how much State Pension you get. Check your State Pension forecast to see what you might get when you reach State Pension age. Your spouse or civil partner’s pension
Your new State Pension is usually based on your own National Insurance record. In some cases you might inherit State Pension or increase it through a spouse or civil partner."
Government's say all kind of nonsense, but a tax is a tax is a tax no matter what they call it. NI is a tax, no ifs, buts or equivocations.
As such it should be paid equally by everyone no matter how old or young they are. Someone in their fifties who has a full NI record still has to pay it, why shouldn't someone in their sixties, seventies, eighties or beyond? On all income not just PAYE.
New figures from the Bank of England show the value of mortgages with arrears rose by 4.2pc in the first three months of the year to £21.3bn from the previous quarter. The rise marks a 44.5pc increase from a year earlier and brings it to the highest level since July to September 2014.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
When that stupid bint went for Farage the other week, they should have had her in front of the magistrates 24 hours later, rather than giving her a court date after the election. They need to make an example out of someone, and quickly, before a candidate or one of their team gets injured.
Yep, I seem to remember that during the riots a few years ago those arrested were appearing in the courts and getting hammered within 24 hours which played a significant part in bringing them to an end. Same should have happened here.
And I can't stand the man.
Yes, when they had the riots in London. They had the magistrates come in early the next day, and after a few of the scrotes had been given a year or two, with others remanded in custody to the Crown Court for sentencing, the mindless violence, robbery, and looting quickly stopped.
Problem there is that this Government has cut justice spending so much there are cases from 2019 that won’t see a court until 2025
Actually the risk for Ed was that he was seen as boring and grey. These stunts may not do much for gravitas, but they certainly deal with the "boring issue". More to the point, the campaign against the shit in the rivers has really struck a chord. The manifesto is reasonably solid, and the local campaigns are going well.
I am hearing some pretty good news in several key targets, to the point that the next layer of targets is now getting some attention. So I think the Lib Dems are having a better campaign across the board. Labour are too timid and the Tory clown car could hardly be worse.
I´d be a bit surprised if we don´t see a bet of progress in the general polls soon too. This is clearly a drastically happier campaign than 2019.
I was in Henley last weekend - 7-0 in terms of LD-Tory signs as well as a lot of former Conservatives I spoke to going either to Ref or the LDs. I'd be shocked if it stays Tory at this point.
I think signage as evidence for anything is totally outdated these days. It was widely reported in 2015 and 2019 very little sign of Tory support anywhere on the street.
You're not allowed to put up signs on public property any more, are you?
I got a call the other day letting me know that the Reform candidate was putting up signs near me and that I might want to pop down and photograph them as evidence. By the time I got there 10 minutes later, he was already hurriedly taking them down again
The only 2 signs I have seen anywhere are Plaids
Are you in new Bangor Aberconwy seat? I could see that as a new Plaid target...
If in Clwyd North then no chance
Yes
You could always vote PC. It's always a popular choice for a CON voter who fancies something different 😈
"Jo Brand's controversial joke about throwing battery acid "went beyond what was appropriate" for a Radio 4 comedy show, the BBC has ruled.
The corporation has partially upheld complaints about the quip made by the comedian on Radio 4's Heresy in June.
Referring to political figures who had been hit by milkshakes, she said: "I'm thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?"
But the BBC dismissed complaints that her remark amounted to incitement.
Following the broadcast, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who had a milkshake thrown at him by protesters several weeks earlier, accused Brand of "inciting violence"."
Has anyone thrown battery acid at Nigel Farage in the following five years or was the BBC right and even the criminally unhinged realised it was a joke?
Is it really 5 years since Jo Brand last told a joke? How time flies.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
There has been discussion on TwiX as to whether it was rocks or concrete or wet cement that was thrown. Do you want the BBC to sit on the story until this has been established, or go with "objects"?
Construction waste is accurate.
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue.
Give them a break, half of their reporters are busy following whatever is happening in the US, 40% are busy prepping for Glastonbury and 9% are working on the Taylor Swift tour. The remaining 1% of reporters are spread thin and so finding the time to check details is tricky.
Glastonbury is going to be tedious affair as every artist comes on stage to shout "f##k the Tories", "Tories out". So edgy.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
New figures from the Bank of England show the value of mortgages with arrears rose by 4.2pc in the first three months of the year to £21.3bn from the previous quarter. The rise marks a 44.5pc increase from a year earlier and brings it to the highest level since July to September 2014.
FT: "The proportion of total loan balances with arrears, relative to outstanding mortgage balances, rose to 1.28% in the three months to March 31 from 1.23% in the previous quarter"
I'm shocked how low the absolute numbers are, tbh.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
I follow politics quite closely and I didn't know what the stunts were in aid of. Well the sewage one yes, but not the others.
The Speccie really doesn't like the Tories anymore, does it?
I don't think it's that. They're already fighting the battle for the blame game, establishing the story for why the Tories lost, to control the narrative for which policies the Tories should adopt in opposition.
This has been the game for a while now. Hence all the rubbish about the Tories talking right, but acting left, or making out that Sunak is a centrist. The story will be that the Tories lost by not being sufficiently right-wing.
I think the actual explanation is that they've simply been incompetent, to a disastrous degree. But that doesn't mean the story from the Spectator won't catch on.
It's ensuring that anything and everything associated with this campaign will be radioactive for decades to come.
It'll become part of the accepted political lore, and the Spads of the 2040s will mutter to their ministers: "make sure you stay right to the end of the ceremony or you'll end up like Rishi Sunak!", "don't lie about the civil service okaying your tax calcs, remember the Tories in 2024", and "if you cut NICs, the pensioners will revolt - that's what finally killed the old Conservative party".
It's why the right wing would be nuts to go through with their threat to issue an alternative manifesto - their best bet is to shut up and wait for the election to be over. Any intervention they make now will be tainted by the campaign's failure.
I think that with the Spectator, the Telegraph and the Express behind them am alternative manifesto could work for the Tory Right.
It could shore up the vote a bit by winning back some from Reform, even if it also loses votes in the centre. It enables them to claim the credit for any seat held. It gives them something to campaign for before polling day, and creates a litmus test for the leadership election.
Too little, too late.
If there's a choice between left wing parties that will increase taxes on work and boost welfare we may as well vote Labour.
At least with Labour the welfare will be targeted perhaps on those who are struggling.
And at least with Labour the Tories might sort themselves out and be rehabilitated eventually into being once more fit for office.
But why vote Tory?
That would be precisely the point of any Rebel Tory manifesto. It would articulate all the right-wing frustration with the failure of the Tory government, and run as a Tory opposition to it.
"Jo Brand's controversial joke about throwing battery acid "went beyond what was appropriate" for a Radio 4 comedy show, the BBC has ruled.
The corporation has partially upheld complaints about the quip made by the comedian on Radio 4's Heresy in June.
Referring to political figures who had been hit by milkshakes, she said: "I'm thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?"
But the BBC dismissed complaints that her remark amounted to incitement.
Following the broadcast, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who had a milkshake thrown at him by protesters several weeks earlier, accused Brand of "inciting violence"."
The BBC should never have broadcast that.
A joke that might be funny when said at midnight to 100 drunk people in a comedy club, can be rather inappropriate on national radio.
But of course that was in the days when the BBC got to mark the homework of their own producers, whom they didn’t want to throw under the bus.
Its a bit like Clarkson Megan piece. If you are going to go edgy / tiptoeing the line, you better be funny. Neither Brand or Clarkson attempts were. They were just mean. They shouldn't have broadcast it for that alone, same way as Clarkson article should have had a rewrite.
Jimmy Carr's bit on the gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses on the other hand passed the test of funny (IMO) and also not about actual living individuals that crazies might go out and target.
For example for Islington North they haven't got Corbyn in their predictions.
For Chesham and Amersham they make it CON 36 LAB 26 LD 18 - meanwhile Baxter has it at LD 44 CON 36.5 LAB 9.8 - because they of course elected a Lib Dem in 2021 and so the 'non-Tory' candidate of choice has shifted.
Ah - I've just seen their model is only based off of historic voting data up to 2019 and doesn't take into account anything since then nor any tactical voting. Not sure if we can glean much from that considering all that's happened in the last 5 years.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
I’m intrigued what the Palestine policy stunt will be.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
Who is this Ed geezer anyway? Is he the new manager of Accrington Stanley?
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
Who is this Ed geezer anyway? Is he the new manager of Accrington Stanley?
For example for Islington North they haven't got Corbyn in their predictions.
For Chesham and Amersham they make it CON 36 LAB 26 LD 18 - meanwhile Baxter has it at LD 44 CON 36.5 LAB 9.8 - because they of course elected a Lib Dem in 2021 and so the 'non-Tory' candidate of choice has shifted.
Ah - I've just seen their model is only based off of historic voting data up to 2019 and doesn't take into account anything since then nor any tactical voting. Not sure if we can glean much from that considering all that's happened in the last 5 years.
The economist model is dire especially as the 2019 data misses Brexit voters in a large number of seats, but the one thing you can take from it is that the Tories are going to do worse than the Economist model predicts.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
When that stupid bint went for Farage the other week, they should have had her in front of the magistrates 24 hours later, rather than giving her a court date after the election. They need to make an example out of someone, and quickly, before someone gets injured.
Also the media should not give these people free publicity e.g. promoting her OFs. Same as the ecofascists invading the sporting events, you don't give them publicity, you don't show them, you say pitch invaders, been dealt with, move on and then no interviewing them on the media the next day about why they did it etc.
Streaking basically stopped when TV decided never to show them or talk about it.
No. Disrupting events is not the same as attacking people, and you shouldn't try to equate the two.
It depends what you mean by disrupting.
Criminal damage/trespass/blocking transportation etc are equivalent to attacking people.
The latter could result in someone's death.
Not sure about that. Consider the road closures around Royal events, the London Marathon, cycling events, peaceful protest. These undoubtedly "block transportation" but it's a stretch to equate that with throwing a rock at someone.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
He needs to do a zip wire stunt to warn against the dangers of voting for an amiable populist.
For example for Islington North they haven't got Corbyn in their predictions.
For Chesham and Amersham they make it CON 36 LAB 26 LD 18 - meanwhile Baxter has it at LD 44 CON 36.5 LAB 9.8 - because they of course elected a Lib Dem in 2021 and so the 'non-Tory' candidate of choice has shifted.
Ah - I've just seen their model is only based off of historic voting data up to 2019 and doesn't take into account anything since then nor any tactical voting. Not sure if we can glean much from that considering all that's happened in the last 5 years.
I think it's more likely than Electoral Calculus's forecast which has the Tories on 76 seats. I agree they need to take the candidates into account.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Tax up.
Spending up.
Welfare up.
Where's the delusion?
Tax is up to pay for the pandemic. Spending is down in real terms (which is why public services are struggling). I don't know about welfare, but unless you're including pensions, it's not due to policy choices.
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
But the 2010 boundaries were different to 2005 and that didn't present any problems for the exit poll.
OT it is the US Open golf this weekend and (h/t Racing Post's Steve Palmer) the gap between the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, and Rory McIlroy at number three, in World Ranking Points is the same as the gap between Rory and the world 613th.
He is a full shot a round ahead of second in the world, and two shots clear of 20th in the world. That is pretty remarkable, similar gap to the field as early Tiger.
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
Well you are not going to make any money except in constituency bets where you may know the local picture differs from the national one.
But those are equally bets you can make now and the odds will likely be better now than on the day.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
Who is this Ed geezer anyway? Is he the new manager of Accrington Stanley?
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
Fair point. Will that compromise the reliability of the XP?
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Tax up.
Spending up.
Welfare up.
Where's the delusion?
I think there’s a bit of nuance to this. When Cameron came in the Tories were in their Compassionate Conservative phase which meant broadly speaking moderately right economically, moderately left/liberal in social terms. The problem the Tories currently have is that to their target voters they appear to be fiscally incontinent and socially increasingly conservative. Economic conservatism and social liberalism works, the reverse not so much as the Tories will discover.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
Nah, its trying to be three or four quite different versions of the Tories at once, and failing to deliver on all fronts. So each Tory faction just blames the other rather than thinking a united government with a coherent platform might at least have some chance.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
But the 2010 boundaries were different to 2005 and that didn't present any problems for the exit poll.
+1 - there have already been articles written on the exit poll and how it handles things like new boundaries...
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
But that's how finances work. If you have a mortgage you aren't setting aside a fund out of which to make future payments, you are relying on the prospect of future wages. People tend to start costing the NHS once they hit 50. Do you want to deny them treatment because nobody set aside a fund in 1974 to pay for their future ailments?
No.
I want today's well off pensioners who are in a privileged position to pay at least the same rate of tax as someone earning the same income via PAYE.
They already do you dumb assed clown
The sites thickest poster still doesn't understand that National Insurance is a tax.
Never change malcolm.
You're confusing hypothecation with its absence.
It's an odd tax when you get something back. That's the issue - as is the current government calling it National INSURANCE and saying stuff like
" ... The qualifying years on your National Insurance record affect how much State Pension you get. Check your State Pension forecast to see what you might get when you reach State Pension age. Your spouse or civil partner’s pension
Your new State Pension is usually based on your own National Insurance record. In some cases you might inherit State Pension or increase it through a spouse or civil partner."
Government's say all kind of nonsense, but a tax is a tax is a tax no matter what they call it. NI is a tax, no ifs, buts or equivocations.
As such it should be paid equally by everyone no matter how old or young they are. Someone in their fifties who has a full NI record still has to pay it, why shouldn't someone in their sixties, seventies, eighties or beyond? On all income not just PAYE.
Well, just because you say it is doesn't mean it is. And HMG don't call it a tax. They make it sound like an insurance company product. (Which, btw, is charged for up to a certain age, [edit] unless sickness etc happens, irrespective of when the pension is actually taken).
Your analysis is completely meaningless to the majority of people in the UK. You'd need to abolish NI and increase ICT.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
It's a category error that comes from being "culturally Tory".
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
There has been discussion on TwiX as to whether it was rocks or concrete or wet cement that was thrown. Do you want the BBC to sit on the story until this has been established, or go with "objects"?
Construction waste is accurate.
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue.
Give them a break, half of their reporters are busy following whatever is happening in the US, 40% are busy prepping for Glastonbury and 9% are working on the Taylor Swift tour. The remaining 1% of reporters are spread thin and so finding the time to check details is tricky.
Glastonbury is going to be tedious affair as every artist comes on stage to shout "f##k the Tories", "Tories out". So edgy.
I think your prejudice is showing, I doubt more than a handful will even mention it just not what festivals are like. Even festivals like Glasto that has long association with causes like CND.
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
Fair point. Will that compromise the reliability of the XP?
No, it won't have any effect on it at all. The exit poll uses certain polling districts, it doesn't rely on constituencies in terms of data gathering. Constituencies only become important when making the forecast.
I am more than happy for the Tories to take the lesson from their current malaise that they have been insufficiently right-wing, as it will guarantee their ongoing exclusion from power. So by all means, follow the advice of some guy from the Legatum Institute (dark money conduit and the driving force behind Brexit and associated madness) who cut his teeth working for Jacob Rees Mogg. I am sure he has his finger on the pulse of the median voter's concerns.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
I think it wants to be right wing, but is too incompetent to be right wing.
Certainly a lack of competence is a big issue for the current government, but a right-wing ideological fixation on cutting spending to make public services more efficient is why a lot of things don't work, like the criminal justice system. It's also right-wing ideology that has provided a water industry on the verge of bankruptcy, which has privatised profits and hopes to nationalise the debt incurred.
Saying the government has been left-wing is simply a lazy comfort blanket for righties to avoid thinking about where they went wrong.
What would Casino say if this was a fag-end Labour government? "This is your failure. Own it. Learn from it."
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
This is all relative. Despite the tax burden, public services are still more desirable than tax cuts. The UK has shifted toward France and the Nordics and away from the US/Australia, leaving the Tories behind. They either need to adjust or start winning some arguments.
Actually the risk for Ed was that he was seen as boring and grey. These stunts may not do much for gravitas, but they certainly deal with the "boring issue". More to the point, the campaign against the shit in the rivers has really struck a chord. The manifesto is reasonably solid, and the local campaigns are going well.
I am hearing some pretty good news in several key targets, to the point that the next layer of targets is now getting some attention. So I think the Lib Dems are having a better campaign across the board. Labour are too timid and the Tory clown car could hardly be worse.
I´d be a bit surprised if we don´t see a bet of progress in the general polls soon too. This is clearly a drastically happier campaign than 2019.
I was in Henley last weekend - 7-0 in terms of LD-Tory signs as well as a lot of former Conservatives I spoke to going either to Ref or the LDs. I'd be shocked if it stays Tory at this point.
I think signage as evidence for anything is totally outdated these days. It was widely reported in 2015 and 2019 very little sign of Tory support anywhere on the street.
You're not allowed to put up signs on public property any more, are you?
I got a call the other day letting me know that the Reform candidate was putting up signs near me and that I might want to pop down and photograph them as evidence. By the time I got there 10 minutes later, he was already hurriedly taking them down again
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Tax up.
Spending up.
Welfare up.
Where's the delusion?
Tax is up to pay for the pandemic. Spending is down in real terms (which is why public services are struggling). I don't know about welfare, but unless you're including pensions, it's not due to policy choices.
Tax is up as a percentage of GDP. Spending is up as a percentage of GDP too. Welfare expenditure is up as a percentage of GDP too.
Why would you not include pensions? The triple lock is a policy choice.
The Tories may have different client voters they're spending big on, but they're a high-tax, high-expenditure leftwing party now in their actions. That's a matter of objective fact.
Come on BBC, "objects", he wasn't throwing teddy bears or flowers, you mean construction waste of rocks / bricks. Luckily it looks like he was so weak as piss he can't throw with much force.
I am not fan of Farage, but again this twisting and downplaying of events is a) unacceptable and b) counterproductive. I said the same thing when people attacked Corbyn. You beat people you disagree with, with better arguments and at the ballot box.
There has been discussion on TwiX as to whether it was rocks or concrete or wet cement that was thrown. Do you want the BBC to sit on the story until this has been established, or go with "objects"?
Construction waste is accurate.
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue.
Give them a break, half of their reporters are busy following whatever is happening in the US, 40% are busy prepping for Glastonbury and 9% are working on the Taylor Swift tour. The remaining 1% of reporters are spread thin and so finding the time to check details is tricky.
Glastonbury is going to be tedious affair as every artist comes on stage to shout "f##k the Tories", "Tories out". So edgy.
I think your prejudice is showing, I doubt more than a handful will even mention it just not what festivals are like. Even festivals like Glasto that has long association with causes like CND.
Maybe I just go to gigs / festivals with more political artists. Given the lineup this year you are probably right, Coldplay, Keane, James, Avril Lavigne, Shania Twain....its an early / mid 2000s V-Festival. They even have the total fraud Seasick Steve who was super popular then as people bought it BS story of being a hobo with his guitar made out of trash, rather than a highly accomplished musician who had been on lots of famous records.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
But that's how finances work. If you have a mortgage you aren't setting aside a fund out of which to make future payments, you are relying on the prospect of future wages. People tend to start costing the NHS once they hit 50. Do you want to deny them treatment because nobody set aside a fund in 1974 to pay for their future ailments?
No.
I want today's well off pensioners who are in a privileged position to pay at least the same rate of tax as someone earning the same income via PAYE.
They already do you dumb assed clown
The sites thickest poster still doesn't understand that National Insurance is a tax.
Never change malcolm.
You're confusing hypothecation with its absence.
It's an odd tax when you get something back. That's the issue - as is the current government calling it National INSURANCE and saying stuff like
" ... The qualifying years on your National Insurance record affect how much State Pension you get. Check your State Pension forecast to see what you might get when you reach State Pension age. Your spouse or civil partner’s pension
Your new State Pension is usually based on your own National Insurance record. In some cases you might inherit State Pension or increase it through a spouse or civil partner."
Government's say all kind of nonsense, but a tax is a tax is a tax no matter what they call it. NI is a tax, no ifs, buts or equivocations.
As such it should be paid equally by everyone no matter how old or young they are. Someone in their fifties who has a full NI record still has to pay it, why shouldn't someone in their sixties, seventies, eighties or beyond? On all income not just PAYE.
Well, just because you say it is doesn't mean it is. And HMG don't call it a tax. They make it sound like an insurance company product. (Which, btw, is charged for up to a certain age, [edit] unless sickness etc happens, irrespective of when the pension is actually taken).
Your analysis is completely meaningless to the majority of people in the UK. You'd need to abolish NI and increase ICT.
HMG do call it a tax actually. In law and international tax treaties.
What they call it in marketing materials is irrelevant. It's not a product.
Yes we should abolish NI and increase ICT, I've been consistent on that.
Did Ed not learn from Farage’s near-fatal efforts at doing crazy stunts around an election?
It’s true that the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about - but if everyone’s calling you an idiot and you’re running the risk of getting yourself injured in the process…
But every stunt has a point. Sewage in the water - fall into a lake, Children's mental health - go down a slide Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
He needs to do a zip wire stunt to warn against the dangers of voting for an amiable populist.
Point of order: publicity stunts do not a populist make.
PBers often talk about legendary election night betting odds:
getting 14/1 on Leave after Farage conceded on EU Referendum night
getting 4/1 on Joe Biden in 2020 when the early results looked decent for Trump
etc etc
I do wonder if the July 4th Exit poll is going to present some great opportunities because it will be so hard to know exactly how to apply the %s to seats. The Exit Poll that millions view on TV might be wide of the mark on seat totals, particularly outside of Labour / Conservatives.
Canny punters could e.g. see the Lib Dems on 12%, see the odds lengthen accordingly as it might be seen as slightly disappointing - but then back them for big seat gains because they believe they'll be efficient enough to win good seats with that number.
The opposite could be said of Reform. Maybe Reform get 17%, and there's a rush of money on them winning multiple seats - but in the end they win 0-1, and you can lay all the money that's gone on them getting 5+ seats.
Would love to see a write up that tries to predict potential opportunities like this.
The exit poll doesn't give vote shares, just seats.
I stand corrected - is there anything with can glean from that / their methodology, maybe compared to the initial seats that are coming in from Sunderland etc? I remember some punters on here talking about how they used Sunderland remain/leave totals in the EU referendum to know which way to bet straight away.
It's obviously very difficult to get this exactly but I'm sure some people will have interesting theories / ideas.
You’re not going to make money betting against Sir John Curtice and the exit poll.
This is your regular reminder that the election boundaries in 2024 are different compared to 2010/15/17/19
Fair point. Will that compromise the reliability of the XP?
No, it won't have any effect on it at all. The exit poll uses certain polling districts, it doesn't rely on constituencies in terms of data gathering. Constituencies only become important when making the forecast.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Tax up.
Spending up.
Welfare up.
Where's the delusion?
Tax is up to pay for the pandemic. Spending is down in real terms (which is why public services are struggling). I don't know about welfare, but unless you're including pensions, it's not due to policy choices.
Tax is up as a percentage of GDP. Spending is up as a percentage of GDP too. Welfare expenditure is up as a percentage of GDP too.
Why would you not include pensions? The triple lock is a policy choice.
The Tories may have different client voters they're spending big on, but they're a high-tax, high-expenditure leftwing party now in their actions. That's a matter of objective fact.
Not compared to the rest of the developed world they are not. And certainly not compared with the British public, who are about to vote in an even more left wing party.
I don't think "wingedness" can be objective. It's all relative.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
It's a category error that comes from being "culturally Tory".
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
It's a bit like calling anyone who is racist right wing.
But I'm objectively looking at left as increasing tax/spend and right as cutting tax/spend. On that objective metric this government is left on both metrics.
It is no secret that AfD and Sara Wagenknecht are pro-Russian. SW dresses it up as "Peace now", with the obvious meaning "Let Russia keep the land they have stolen from Ukraine"
New YouGov / Sky News exclusive voting intention taken yesterday and today - out at 5pm
Remember it was YouGov last week that set the cat amongst the pigeons with REFUK and the Cons very close on both their old (CON 18% REFUK 18%) and new (CON 19% REFUK 17%) methodology.
This will now come post D-Day gate and post Farage debate appearance. Not crazy to think crossover might still be on.
And yes I am saying this largely because of my betting interest in the matter! Will be cashing out straight away if we don't see something similar. But I notice the odds on Reform and the Lib Dems have both drifted out again - they both tumbled a lot after the last YouGov poll, so if you fancy similar again, it could be time to get those trading bets on. (DYOR etc etc)
I was thinking about @kle4 and his tactical voting dilemma in, I think, South West Wiltshire.
I'm a big one for alternative measures to polling to find l work out what is going on locally or nationality, more as supplementary information to capture tidbits and nuance the polls might be missing, rather than instead of polls - as a standalone piece of information, polling always remains the cornerstone.
But I cannot look much beyond second place last time out (or in the GE19 nominals) for where any tactical vote should go. OK, the LDs are ahead of Lab, yet still behind Con, in recent LEs in which Labour barely stood, but Labour was comfortably 2nd in the last GE when they did stand. The converse goes for Nick Palmer's punt in Didcot & Wantage, he's entitled to try, but I don't hold much truck by it.
The only thing I'd pay attention to beyond that is obvious targeting in the local campaign. If, on-topic, Ed Davey runs naked through your local standing stones at Midsummer sunset, I'd pay attention to the signal that sends.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
It's a category error that comes from being "culturally Tory".
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
It's a bit like calling anyone who is racist right wing.
But I'm objectively looking at left as increasing tax/spend and right as cutting tax/spend. On that objective metric this government is left on both metrics.
So many of the policies over the past few years are straight out of Gordon Brown era playbook. The massive fiscal drag by not increasing thresholds, the new NI++ (swiftly dropped), then the we are cutting NI but actually most people will still be worse of as we tax other things. Booze and ciggy taxes up. The crazy smoking ban where in the future 50 year olds will be getting their 51 year old mate to buy them from the Premier.
New YouGov / Sky News exclusive voting intention taken yesterday and today - out at 5pm
Remember it was YouGov last week that set the cat amongst the pigeons with REFUK and the Cons very close on both their old (CON 18% REFUK 18%) and new (CON 19% REFUK 17%) methodology.
This will now come post D-Day gate and post Farage debate appearance. Not crazy to think crossover might still be on.
And yes I am saying this largely because of my betting interest in the matter. Will be cashing out straight away if we don't see something similar. But I notice the odds on Reform and the Lib Dems have both drifted out again - they both tumbled a lot after the last YouGov poll, so if you fancy similar again, it could be time to get those trading bets on. (DYOR etc etc)
I think Sky would have ramped it were it to show crossover. They are not the understated refined Machiavellians we imagine Mr Redfield & Mr Wilton to be.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
But that's how finances work. If you have a mortgage you aren't setting aside a fund out of which to make future payments, you are relying on the prospect of future wages. People tend to start costing the NHS once they hit 50. Do you want to deny them treatment because nobody set aside a fund in 1974 to pay for their future ailments?
No.
I want today's well off pensioners who are in a privileged position to pay at least the same rate of tax as someone earning the same income via PAYE.
They already do you dumb assed clown
The sites thickest poster still doesn't understand that National Insurance is a tax.
Never change malcolm.
You're confusing hypothecation with its absence.
It's an odd tax when you get something back. That's the issue - as is the current government calling it National INSURANCE and saying stuff like
" ... The qualifying years on your National Insurance record affect how much State Pension you get. Check your State Pension forecast to see what you might get when you reach State Pension age. Your spouse or civil partner’s pension
Your new State Pension is usually based on your own National Insurance record. In some cases you might inherit State Pension or increase it through a spouse or civil partner."
Government's say all kind of nonsense, but a tax is a tax is a tax no matter what they call it. NI is a tax, no ifs, buts or equivocations.
As such it should be paid equally by everyone no matter how old or young they are. Someone in their fifties who has a full NI record still has to pay it, why shouldn't someone in their sixties, seventies, eighties or beyond? On all income not just PAYE.
Well, just because you say it is doesn't mean it is. And HMG don't call it a tax. They make it sound like an insurance company product. (Which, btw, is charged for up to a certain age, [edit] unless sickness etc happens, irrespective of when the pension is actually taken).
Your analysis is completely meaningless to the majority of people in the UK. You'd need to abolish NI and increase ICT.
HMG do call it a tax actually. In law and international tax treaties.
What they call it in marketing materials is irrelevant. It's not a product.
Yes we should abolish NI and increase ICT, I've been consistent on that.
Still missing the point. We're talking politics not legalese. Marketing materials *are* relevant, because they are what the person paying for it understands. In that sense it *is* a product - albeit one that is marketed politically and compulsorily. You only need to look at the compulsory employer pensions provided by state-organised schemes for another example - edit: some provided by commercial firms ultimately IIRC.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
It's a category error that comes from being "culturally Tory".
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
It's a bit like calling anyone who is racist right wing.
But I'm objectively looking at left as increasing tax/spend and right as cutting tax/spend. On that objective metric this government is left on both metrics.
I don't think that's the fundamental definition of left or right wing.
Makes it hard to have a discussion if we can't agree on the meaning of words.
Davey's strategy is working imo. I see him as Mr Fun now. Never did before.
+1 Before this campaign, Sir Ed was cut from the same dull, forgettable, beige cloth as Sir Keir in my mind. The stunts have succeeded in changing that perception.
SED needs to be careful to not push it too far though. It's not an easy act to pull off the pratfalls etc without coming across as a zany, Homer Simpson tie-wearing, "you don't have to be MAD to work here but it helps!" dickhead like the Colin Hunt character in the Fast Show. (I'd say the bike stunt in Knighton early in the campaign crossed this line.)
I think SED has done absolutely the right thing. At first it seems Kooky but all he's done is followed the successful Avis marketing strategy. "We're never going to be the biggest so we tray harder"
....and it works and it's working.
I think it's much simpler than that. Both the Conservatives and Labour are led by charisma-free zones; If you went to the pub with Sunak, he'd get his laptop out and start Excel to calculate how many pints his fortune could buy; whilst SKS would spend hours talking about legal minutiae.
Davey needs the Lib Dems to have airtime, and these stunts do that. But more than that; he looks as though he is enjoying things that *we* enjoy. He looks normal. He looks like one of us: which neither SKS or Sunak do, however much they go on about their toolmaker or chemist parentage.
He was likened to Harry Worth, but those of us old enough to remember the comedy star will know that people actually liked him...or the persona at least. So it is a flattering comparison and one that will do him no harm.
Nerds like me don't really like it because we like to believe elections are about policies and stuff like that, but for a rather bland uncontroversial leader of a Party that struggles to catch the headlines it's a decent enough strategy. It's working so far anyway.
He should carry on with it, I think. He should turn up at the Euros and be seen drinking beer with the fans. As long as he doesn't leave at half-time to do an interview it's a sure-fire winner.
New YouGov / Sky News exclusive voting intention taken yesterday and today - out at 5pm
Remember it was YouGov last week that set the cat amongst the pigeons with REFUK and the Cons very close on both their old (CON 18% REFUK 18%) and new (CON 19% REFUK 17%) methodology.
This will now come post D-Day gate and post Farage debate appearance. Not crazy to think crossover might still be on.
And yes I am saying this largely because of my betting interest in the matter. Will be cashing out straight away if we don't see something similar. But I notice the odds on Reform and the Lib Dems have both drifted out again - they both tumbled a lot after the last YouGov poll, so if you fancy similar again, it could be time to get those trading bets on. (DYOR etc etc)
I think Sky would have ramped it were it to show crossover. They are not the understated refined Machiavellians we imagine Mr Redfield & Mr Wilton to be.
Interesting. Just had a look for Sam Coates' trailer tweet last week - seems fairly muted as well despite the big headlines that came out of it to be fair. But I do agree that crossover might have been more hyped. We shall see. https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1798346115802390889
Use AI to free up Doctors / Nurses time - as someone who knows a bit about AI how is that going to work?
Radiology would be one example
The claims from the AI boosters that AI would make radiology obsolete & we should stop training radiologists immediately as it was all wasted effort have been shown to be wildly naïve & over confident. In reality AI has (so far) turned out to be terrible at correctly identifying problematic scans: the false negative rate is way, way too high. However, it has turned out to be pretty good at identifying which scans amongst the ones rejected as negative by radiologists deserve a second look.
I’ll have to see if I can dig out the paper but, paradoxically, the evidence is that AI actually increases the demand for radiologists. By using AI we get better accuracy & better patient outcomes but only because we can use it to identify cases that radiologists might have missed. That in turn means spending more radiologist time on checking scans that AI picked up as potential false negatives, not less!
We get better radiologist accuracy, but only by spending more £ on radiologist time & even more £ on the AI systems. The healthcare expense curse wins again!
In the past, some candidates in the US would spend a day working at a "regular" job. Would that be possible in the UK, or would "health and safety" rules prevent it?
Other candidates have gone on long walks to show their fitness, and to meet voters individually. Lawton Chiles is one of the most famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawton_Chiles
I would be wary of how much impact Ed Davey is actually making. On PB we regularly (myself included) fall into the trap of believing because we are noticing all these things, the normal punter is.
People might have seen the picture, but it doesn't mean they have engaged any further. The public don't pay that much attention and he wasn't invited to do the main debate that was watched by a much smaller audience than previously, but still 5 million.
That been said, the Lib Dem tactics aren't to win everywhere, it is to target specific areas they think they can beat the Tories. The key question is are those people aware of The Unknown Stuntman, Ryan Gosling, I mean Ed Davey.
I'm sorry, but it's delusional to identify this Tory government as left-wing.
Yes, it can only look to be on the left if you're viewing it from a long long way to the right. And then of course it will.
It's a category error that comes from being "culturally Tory".
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
It's a bit like calling anyone who is racist right wing.
But I'm objectively looking at left as increasing tax/spend and right as cutting tax/spend. On that objective metric this government is left on both metrics.
I don't think that's the fundamental definition of left or right wing.
Makes it hard to have a discussion if we can't agree on the meaning of words.
Not just on PB but more generally. Look at the (rather startling) Tory faithful's reaction to the idea that NI is a tax and can be cut without any connection to the state pension. BR is on a hiding to nothing calling it a tax in terms of a political message that is comprehensible to the ordinary punter, even if there are some merits to that analysis.
FPT: If the picture I saw of the official painting are reasonably accurate, those animal rights activists did King Charles a favor. (Granted, they still shouldn't have done it.)
Use AI to free up Doctors / Nurses time - as someone who knows a bit about AI how is that going to work?
Radiology would be one example
The claims from the AI boosters that AI would make radiology obsolete & we should stop training radiologists immediately as it was all wasted effort have been shown to be wildly naïve & over confident...
That was famously Geoffrey Hinton who made that prediction. Despite being a godfather of modern ML / AI, he has a bit of a Jim Cramer record on predictions. In fact, today he spout quite a lot of nonsense. Yann LeCun is also making so rather weird statements from time to timt.
Davey's strategy is working imo. I see him as Mr Fun now. Never did before.
+1 Before this campaign, Sir Ed was cut from the same dull, forgettable, beige cloth as Sir Keir in my mind. The stunts have succeeded in changing that perception.
SED needs to be careful to not push it too far though. It's not an easy act to pull off the pratfalls etc without coming across as a zany, Homer Simpson tie-wearing, "you don't have to be MAD to work here but it helps!" dickhead like the Colin Hunt character in the Fast Show. (I'd say the bike stunt in Knighton early in the campaign crossed this line.)
This is impeccable timing given the Tory manifesto for disabled people:
Comments
This is from the party that has a reputation for economic stability... Christ almighty.
If there's a choice between left wing parties that will increase taxes on work and boost welfare we may as well vote Labour.
At least with Labour the welfare will be targeted perhaps on those who are struggling.
And at least with Labour the Tories might sort themselves out and be rehabilitated eventually into being once more fit for office.
But why vote Tory?
The BBC have this weird habit now of doing such things in recent times e.g. the refusal to say the guy who killed himself after jewellery robbery, well killed himself. All the other media outlets reported that after his family made a statement to say this was the case. It wasn't like the family said please don't talk about it, it wasn't like there was a criminal case ongoing, the family wanted to highlight the issue that the poor guy was so upset about the robbery he ended his own life.
Of course, for the same reason, it is not true in this case. Because, as you have just pointed out tax is still going up and the better paid will be paying more tax, not less. Those who do not pay tax at all will not be affected in either scenario.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/uk-general-election/forecast
Davey needs the Lib Dems to have airtime, and these stunts do that. But more than that; he looks as though he is enjoying things that *we* enjoy. He looks normal. He looks like one of us: which neither SKS or Sunak do, however much they go on about their toolmaker or chemist parentage.
Starmer who will form the next government is about as inspiring and exciting as nettle tea.
I may end up spoiling my ballot.
A joke that might be funny when said at midnight to 100 drunk people in a comedy club, can be rather inappropriate on national radio.
But of course that was in the days when the BBC got to mark the homework of their own producers, whom they didn’t want to throw under the bus.
As such it should be paid equally by everyone no matter how old or young they are. Someone in their fifties who has a full NI record still has to pay it, why shouldn't someone in their sixties, seventies, eighties or beyond? On all income not just PAYE.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmlddjv0eego#:~:text=Delays were increasing at crown,to the latest official data.
Edit - I was wrong January 2018 not 2019, so 7 years before justice even begins
Spending up.
Welfare up.
Where's the delusion?
Sewage in the water - fall into a lake,
Children's mental health - go down a slide
Free school meals - bake a cake
Would anyone have noticed him making serious points standing in a suit behind a lectern?
I'm shocked how low the absolute numbers are, tbh.
Jimmy Carr's bit on the gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses on the other hand passed the test of funny (IMO) and also not about actual living individuals that crazies might go out and target.
For example for Islington North they haven't got Corbyn in their predictions.
For Chesham and Amersham they make it CON 36 LAB 26 LD 18 - meanwhile Baxter has it at LD 44 CON 36.5 LAB 9.8 - because they of course elected a Lib Dem in 2021 and so the 'non-Tory' candidate of choice has shifted.
Ah - I've just seen their model is only based off of historic voting data up to 2019 and doesn't take into account anything since then nor any tactical voting. Not sure if we can glean much from that considering all that's happened in the last 5 years.
But those are equally bets you can make now and the odds will likely be better now than on the day.
Their voters expected them to cut taxes and immigration — they did the opposite
Fred de Fossard"
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-conservatives-have-been-too-soggy-not-too-harsh/
Your analysis is completely meaningless to the majority of people in the UK. You'd need to abolish NI and increase ICT.
If you hold broadly Tory views (as I did), then "economically incompetent" is synonymous with "left-wing". So an economically incompetent Tory government *is* "left-wing" by definition.
The fact that their policies weren't e.g. redistributive (at least - not redistributive towards the poor) etc. etc. is irrelevant for the purposes of this definition.
Saying the government has been left-wing is simply a lazy comfort blanket for righties to avoid thinking about where they went wrong.
What would Casino say if this was a fag-end Labour government? "This is your failure. Own it. Learn from it."
Spending is up as a percentage of GDP too.
Welfare expenditure is up as a percentage of GDP too.
Why would you not include pensions? The triple lock is a policy choice.
The Tories may have different client voters they're spending big on, but they're a high-tax, high-expenditure leftwing party now in their actions. That's a matter of objective fact.
@RishiSunak
You will always be better at spending your own money than the government is.
Although if the pre-publcity is right, it will confirm not much change.
What they call it in marketing materials is irrelevant. It's not a product.
Yes we should abolish NI and increase ICT, I've been consistent on that.
I don't think "wingedness" can be objective. It's all relative.
But I'm objectively looking at left as increasing tax/spend and right as cutting tax/spend. On that objective metric this government is left on both metrics.
https://x.com/samcoatessky/status/1800532695195570285?s=46
New YouGov / Sky News exclusive voting intention taken yesterday and today - out at 5pm
Remember it was YouGov last week that set the cat amongst the pigeons with REFUK and the Cons very close on both their old (CON 18% REFUK 18%) and new (CON 19% REFUK 17%) methodology.
This will now come post D-Day gate and post Farage debate appearance. Not crazy to think crossover might still be on.
And yes I am saying this largely because of my betting interest in the matter! Will be cashing out straight away if we don't see something similar. But I notice the odds on Reform and the Lib Dems have both drifted out again - they both tumbled a lot after the last YouGov poll, so if you fancy similar again, it could be time to get those trading bets on. (DYOR etc etc)
I'm a big one for alternative measures to polling to find l work out what is going on locally or nationality, more as supplementary information to capture tidbits and nuance the polls might be missing, rather than instead of polls - as a standalone piece of information, polling always remains the cornerstone.
But I cannot look much beyond second place last time out (or in the GE19 nominals) for where any tactical vote should go. OK, the LDs are ahead of Lab, yet still behind Con, in recent LEs in which Labour barely stood, but Labour was comfortably 2nd in the last GE when they did stand. The converse goes for Nick Palmer's punt in Didcot & Wantage, he's entitled to try, but I don't hold much truck by it.
The only thing I'd pay attention to beyond that is obvious targeting in the local campaign. If, on-topic, Ed Davey runs naked through your local standing stones at Midsummer sunset, I'd pay attention to the signal that sends.
Spending on welfare is higher as a percentage of GDP under Rishi Sunak than it was under Gordon Brown.
That the redistribution is not going to the poor doesn't make it any cheaper or reduce the fact its happening.
Makes it hard to have a discussion if we can't agree on the meaning of words.
SED needs to be careful to not push it too far though. It's not an easy act to pull off the pratfalls etc without coming across as a zany, Homer Simpson tie-wearing, "you don't have to be MAD to work here but it helps!" dickhead like the Colin Hunt character in the Fast Show. (I'd say the bike stunt in Knighton early in the campaign crossed this line.)
Nerds like me don't really like it because we like to believe elections are about policies and stuff like that, but for a rather bland uncontroversial leader of a Party that struggles to catch the headlines it's a decent enough strategy. It's working so far anyway.
He should carry on with it, I think. He should turn up at the Euros and be seen drinking beer with the fans. As long as he doesn't leave at half-time to do an interview it's a sure-fire winner.
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1798346115802390889
I’ll have to see if I can dig out the paper but, paradoxically, the evidence is that AI actually increases the demand for radiologists. By using AI we get better accuracy & better patient outcomes but only because we can use it to identify cases that radiologists might have missed. That in turn means spending more radiologist time on checking scans that AI picked up as potential false negatives, not less!
We get better radiologist accuracy, but only by spending more £ on radiologist time & even more £ on the AI systems. The healthcare expense curse wins again!
Other candidates have gone on long walks to show their fitness, and to meet voters individually. Lawton Chiles is one of the most famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawton_Chiles
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley -- who is even older than I am -- visits every Iowa county, every year: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/about/events
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley
People might have seen the picture, but it doesn't mean they have engaged any further. The public don't pay that much attention and he wasn't invited to do the main debate that was watched by a much smaller audience than previously, but still 5 million.
That been said, the Lib Dem tactics aren't to win everywhere, it is to target specific areas they think they can beat the Tories. The key question is are those people aware of The Unknown Stuntman, Ryan Gosling, I mean Ed Davey.
I wanted to know how he felt about the D-Day issue but I didn't want to lead him on so just asked him in all innocence in a WhatsApp audio.
Flip me. a 5 minute tirade came back. He's incandescent etc. And he will not longer be voting Conservative because he's so disgusted.
So you're by no means alone @Big_G_NorthWales
https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1800537231494349009?t=lGsJsCAyLoApYeUH6oJhDA&s=19
(Need to get that fender in though.)