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Lib Dems! Winning here? – politicalbetting.com

Rishi Sunak's 'unfavourable' rating is now at its highest level everFavourable: 21% (-3 from 4-5 Jun)Unfavourable: 72% (+2)https://t.co/ziVA6BwJE6 pic.twitter.com/lkQb7ADWRf
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Won here!!
And Rishi Sunak is seeing something of a May 2017 effect but just a lot worse. Is he the most popular PM on record yet?
There is a chronic housing shortage today, not years from now, but right now. Here and now, people living in this country - both migrants, people born here, old people and young people, who need a home and there are not enough of them.
Waiting for Godot to sort out every problem prior to building houses is not a solution when the people who need the houses are already in this country today.
You need to build the houses and build the facilities. Right here, right now.
If its expanded over a lifetime, then there's been a lifetime to build new facilities too - but either way its not enough to reverse the chronic housing shortage that already exists. So sorry "build elsewhere" is not a solution, that's what every NIMBY wants, we need millions of homes and that means building everywhere. Immediately, without delays.
I mean, I think they're a sell but the potential reward is tiny compared to the risk that Con really implodes and they become a viable right wing stop Labour option.
Is anyone on Reform on the spreads? I would like to raise a figurative hat to your chutzpah if so.
It’s all too easy for me to latch onto this but I do think there’s something in it.
I’m a case in point. Although I really want to vote Labour in Newton Abbot, I know that my best chance of defeating the sitting MP Anne Morris is to vote LibDem, so that’s what I’m doing.
My No 1. priority is to give the tories as a big a kicking as I possibly can. The rest is secondary.
Labour is committed to reducing gambling-related harm. Recognising the evolution of the gambling landscape since 2005, Labour will reform gambling regulation, strengthening protections. We will continue to work with the industry on how to ensure responsible gambling.
https://labour.org.uk/change/build-an-nhs-fit-for-the-future/
Starmer’s rating is rising because people see him as a winner. OTOH, people see Sunak as a loser.
Lowest EVER Conservative % (worse than Truss).
Highest Lib Dem % in 2024.
🇬🇧 Westminster Voting Intention (12-13 June):
Labour 42% (-3)
Conservative 18% (-1)
Reform 17% (–)
Lib Dem 13% (+3)
Green 5% (–)
SNP 3% (–)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 7-10 June
https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1801291564997636520
Break down the barriers to opportunity
Build an NHS fit for the future
“Aliens May Already Live on Earth, Harvard Researchers Say”
https://www.newsweek.com/alien-life-extraterrestrial-living-earth-harvard-1912264
I had a good look at it a week or so ago, and the risk/reward ratio is frightening.
I'm a buyer of LDs now. That's fairly low risk.
Serving the country
- Partying in Downing Street mentioned.
- SNP as bad as Tories (note – implied)
- Labour transformed from party of protest (note – we’re not Corbyn anymore!)
- Ethics and Integrity Commission, restrict lobbying for ex ministers.
- Modernisation Committee to reform procedures and improve working practices (note – I’m 100% sure committees like this exist or have existed before)
- Ban on taking up paid advisory roles for MPs.
- ‘Immediate modernisation’ of Lords – end hereditary peers and mandate retirement age, 80 years. Participation requirement, make removal easier. Committed to new second chamber more representative of regions and nations (note – small scale, but worthwhile start without wasting time on wholesale change right way – much vaguer on second chamber than previous manifestos)
- 16 year old votes.
- Address inconsistencies in voter ID rules (note – not abolishing? Interesting)
- Council of Nations and Regions (note - includes mayors of combined authorities, which seems a bit grand for them)
- Wales and Scotland – basically they will work with both etc
- NI – repeal legacy act, implement Windsor framework in full.
Britain reconnected- Unshakeable commitment to NATO
- Confident outside EU, but leading nation in continent again. Make Brexit work. (note – such a 2019 slogan)
- No return to single market, customs union or freedom of movement.
- UK-EU security pact
- Military strategic headquarters and national armaments director for stronger defence centre.
- Committed to AUKUS, Ukraine, protecting Falklands.
- 1st mission to regrow economy. Trade strategy published, seek sector specific deals.
- Immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Statehood inalienable right not in gift of neighbour (well, technically it is for everyone – if you are not recognised you are not a state)
- 0.7% for international aid ‘ as soon as fiscal circumstances allow’ (note – the same as the Tory pledge I believe).
Labour’s fiscal plan- Fiscal rules are non-negotiable and will apply to every decision.
- Budget must move into balance.
- Table of finances included - could be nonsense, I have no way of knowing
- Also Green prosperity plan funded in part by windfall tax, an changes in departmental spending. Includes halving consultancy spend (note – I doubt that is easy or it’d already be done).
ChangeReform need some major new breakthrough
Crossover sooooo close again.
But presumably there is a percentage above which they suddenly take a whole bunch of previously safe Con seats. Very very unlikely they reach that level, I admit, but the risk/reward in the
spreads just seems... off-putting.
Tell the truth and shame the devil.
Heck, they might make him deputy leader in exchange for a formal merger.
And you have the discourtesy to treat me like the shit you want to see overflowing from your new estates becvause you don't believe in planning.
No wonder we get Nimbies when we have libertarians like you.
The "as yet to be peer reviewed" is nevertheless a hint of amusement, a bit like Wikipedia's "Citation Needed." At the same time, we could be in for some surprises in the next few decades on this topic, though. I don't think most people have adjusted to , or are aware of the greater expert interest in the topic, at the moment.
Dense text, could have used some bullet pointing of key pledges more often. Hard to get into what is proposed sometimes. Lots of ‘will reform’ with no more detail, and lots of unnecessary fluff.
I don’t fully believe some of the stuff around housing in it, but it is more realistic and positive about it than any manifesto so far, which is good. Very little on climate, which surprised me. Punchy on foreign policy and policing.
Most of it was far too long, with a lot of caveated phrasing.
Call it a C-. Functional, but I didn’t feel like I learned much from it.
On a minor point, honestly the SDP’s rather loony manifesto was the best in relation to clear headings. Everyone else has weird, tortured chapter headings instead of just ‘Energy’ ‘Local Government’ ‘Industry’ etc.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/18407-theresa-may-now-almost-unpopular-pre-campaign-corb
I published this thread at 5.30pm and that poll came out at 5.32pm.
I do, and I'm mildly disturbed that my musings on my mismatched body parts are memorable enough that you can recall them. Big thighs and massive calves. But short legs and a long body. Large head and a large neck, but short arms. Like, I don't know, a T-Rex or something.
I mean, you wouldn't look at me and your eyes instantly water with the oddness of me, but finding clothes to fit is not straightforward. I have large body parts without being a large human, if that makes sense.
A three percent Lab to LD swing everywhere is probably bad for Rishi.
A fifteen percent swing in the right 100 or so constituencies is potentially terrifying.
And by now, the profusion of orange diamonds means that the LibDem targeting strategy ought to be literally visible from space.
LD 65
Con 36
SNP 14
Reform 3
Green 2
Electoral Calculus, ouch
It won't last - they will have a big enough majority to note worry, but they may want to break into areas in the south they have little locals representation, off the back of winning MPs there, so they will not want to upset them with Green Belt stuff.
In a Scottish seat previously held by the Lib Dems, but where they were squeezed to third in 2017/19. Now nominally marginal between SNP and Tory. Canvassing last night, previously majority Con area, now strongly Lib Dem, Tory vote collapsed.
Having fought in the area in 2019 it is pretty obvious that there has been a giant swing. Something big is coming.
Its not big enough to resolve the housing shortage.
That's what happens when the population changes, places get bigger.
Not a single local authority has tripled in size, so you're exaggerating how big its grown anyway.
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:.."
Perhaps a third of the remaining Tories might join them, and another lot might go to Reform, in that scenario.
*On which subject, mods (@TSE), can we give a bit more publicity to @Farooq's excellent prediction competition? Perhaps a thread on it? He put a lot of thought into it and I'm worried it might have got lost among the general chat, and I don't know if he's one to blow his own trumpet so might never get mentioned again. Be a shame if it petered out with only a handful of entrants.
It is interesting
Check this as well. A UFO seen in Tehran by multiple witnesses, and filmed
Looks very convincing so it’s either a rather clever hoax, or - the other main explanation - drones. What do you reckon?
If it is a hoax it is one of the best - with several different angles - and yet we live in an era when tech can create wildly convincing fake videos, of course
https://x.com/greatwhyteshk/status/1798071608516727270?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
I’m heavily in on Lib Dem’s and Reform on the ‘Most Seats without Labour’ market - initially as a trading bet but the longer this holds the longer I’m just going to stick.
I still think it’s value even at lower prices because the Lib Dem tactical vote and their party’s ground game, as the header here suggests, is perhaps more efficient than any other party.
https://x.com/maddenifico/status/1801075544114544883
Only took them three years to get around to it.
If you hire me to do a job and pay me a salary I pay tax on that.
If I then privately hire someone else to do a job for me and pay them for that, then they owe tax on what I paid them - but I can't offset that against my own taxes.
Whatever happened to Labour's plan to allow some mega-casinos to be built?
The space for one here (created by demolishing an Odeon cinema) remains a car park to this day.
The Lib Dem position as a soft Anti Labour vote AND an Anti Tory vote AND a ‘Protest, but not Farage’ vote is uniquely placed to do very well.
I have a bit of sympathy for what Leon and others said earlier - about going more vocal with the single market / Pro-EU stance to try eat into Labour more -but I think doing so would cause a net loss of seats - it might play well in the Wimbledon type areas but it would get many Tories to go elsewhere.
Let us not forget the much more realistic aim of the Lib Dems is to come 2nd this time round. If they do that then they could be in a position to be in Government in 2029. No point throwing that chance away by emboldening the Tory vote across the country at a time when it is at its weakest.
The correct move instead is to soft signal it now, as they are doing, and pivot to Rejoin (or softer Rejoin) for 2029. If you’re the opposition you can hammer Labour on it in a few years’ time, and potentially even get some defections from more discontented Labour MPs, backed up by a younger population that will probably have more of an appetite for it.
They’re most likely to get 0 or 1, but an open-ended bet against the upside at 4, no thanks.
Same with the Greens by the way.
(facepalm)
For that reason increasingly I think any breakthroughs here might come from verbal testimony first, not video or photography. Let's see what transpires in Congress.
The language does imply that Sunak's smoking phase out is coming back somewhere in the legislative pipeline, but the consequences of having, years in the future, 31 year olds able to buy cigarettes but 30 year olds not still haven't been thought through. Perhaps this will end with the fines for such illegal tobacco sales being made so stiff that retailers decide it is not worth the risk of selling them to anyone? I don't know - it seems to me a more effective way of stamping out the habit would be to outlaw it totally, but I suppose that Labour doesn't want to create another class C drug for policing to have to cope with...
The sensible bit was they reused the rules from the American occupation of Japan to exempt real, historic swords while condemning to the scrap heap the cheap shit.
If I'm paid a salary via PAYE by my employer, then I hire an electrician or plumber or anyone else to do a job for me . . . then I can't offset my PAYE by the electricians taxes.
What's a "hobs bonus"?
Is this a British response to Mr Chump's fit about banning of gas cookers?
The Mineworkers Pension scheme one is about assets of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme not all being used on miners' pensions in some manner. It's a very long term campaign.
Here's a local report:
https://www.chad.co.uk/news/politics/nottinghamshire-former-mineworker-welcomes-the-labour-partys-commitment-to-end-injustice-of-mineworkers-pension-scheme-4664692
She's feisty and real. Not what I thought of her at all a year ago and she's made Starmer look better than he sometimes deserved
On a personal level I can offset any cap gains losses against future gains.
There are other examples.
I offered two explanations: hoax, or drones (with an implied third explanation: modern CGI)
It is you that leaps in and Brexit-comments: “aliens!!! You said aliens!!!!”
HMRC gives different rules to Ltd companies and individuals.
Firms are often allowed to offset things that individuals are not. So the concept of HMRC refusing to allow an offset to individuals is not a unique one.
Getting the Boyes rifle back into production is a key deliverable for that.
New poll
@BMGResearch for @theipaper
Labour 41%
Conservatives 21%
Reform 14%
Lib Dems 12%
Greens 6%
Little movement in last week - Tories need something to turn up...
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1801296925775233292
Lab -1, Con -2, Ref -2, LD+3
There's been so much churn in the last 10 years in Scotland, the voters may have broken out of the habits of sticking with one party and are truly judging things on an election by election basis.
Good for them.
General Betting Duty, Pool Betting Duty and Remote Gaming Duty
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/general-betting-duty-pool-betting-duty-and-remote-gaming-duty
On a commercial basis firms can offset some stuff that individuals can't.
And on an individual basis you are allowed some offsets but not others.
Which matches what I said about the taxman regularly doesn't allow offsets. Which != the taxman never allows offsets.
There are times offsets are permitted, and there are other times they're not. Its not like they're absolutely always permitted, or absolutely never are.
The ex-Tory, now standing for Nigel Farage's party, was snapped getting into his silver BMW X5, which had been parked in a disabled space in a car park in Sutton-in-Ashfield
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uks-lee-anderson-caught-33025627
And so the election is beginning to look a bit more snoozey again.
Those 15 are freebies and you can use them as you wish, but if you can justify the use of a round you get posted a replacement.
Justifications might include “he was standing on the wrong side of the escalator” or “he had his top button done up with no tie”. All the serious offences.
There's interest in how big the majority, and how bad the Tories, so it is exciting in that sense, but the outcome is as clear cut as you can get.
So we are now past the moment when any piece of video or photo evidence, no matter how good, will do “the job”
And also many people are inclined to dismiss anything anyway, as we see
That’s got me thinking - what next? This evolution leaves us with eye witness testimony, but that is all too easily dismissed as “he’s a loony” - or we may get very senior people saying “yes we have evidence” but that can likewise be dismissed as psy-ops, contagion, mass hallucination
The conclusion is that we will now never have evidence for UFOs that convinces anyone, and indeed we will never have clinching evidence of anything - anything at all - ever again - and everyone can live in denial of anything they choose. It’s going to be mad. We will all live in our own tiny bubble of personal reality, no objective reality will exist, not any more
The wet market hypothesis was arguably an early test run of this: post truth reality