Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Yep but the blame will all be continually attached to the incompetency of Bozo, Truss and Rishi...
For the first 18 months I think we will hear a lot about how things were left in 2010, how they are now and that more money is required.
Don't know whether it will work but I suspect it will ensure the Tories and not Labour carry the blame.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
It's a perfect combination of ineptness, triviality and taking of the piss. Sums up the 2019-24 Parliament.
I'll take that as a reminder to do the Sunday Rawnsley, before I take the dog out into the hot sun:
When a downpour-drenched Rishi Sunak made his soggy start to this election, I suggested to you that the Tory campaign could simply unravel. So it has proved. Their bitterest enemies couldn’t have done a better job of painting the Tories as rotten and idiotic chancers.
The mood among staff at Tory headquarters, already bleak, has grown even more funereal. The only consolation they can cling to is that it can’t do too much damage to their ratings because they are already so dire. Catastrophic or apocalyptic? That is the question that now divides Tories with 10 campaign days to go before polling stations open.
I ought to report that there is a lot of wariness in both the blue and red camps about the most sensational of the poll projections. Note, though, that this is only a debate about whether the scale of the Tory defeat is going to be enormous or merely huge.
His fellow Tories will make Mr Sunak carry the can. Both because it is hypocritically convenient for the rest of the Conservative party to dump all the blame on him and because he’s given them the excuse to do so by presiding over such an atrocious campaign. He chose the timing, he picked the team and he has been the frontman. Despite the Tories’ historical reputation for running a mean campaign machine, this one has failed to deliver its messages. One iteration of the Tory attack on Labour is that Sir Keir has “no plan”. Another version is that he has a sinister scheme to impose a generation-long, one-party socialist state on Britain that will tax everyone into the grave. The Labour leader can’t be both an empty vessel and a cunning conspirator, so the Tories haven’t persuaded voters he is either.
The prime minister has a few remaining friends in his party and they will protest that the electorate was already lost to the Tories before the campaign started. Some say that, thanks to the recklessness of Liz Truss and the debaucheries of Boris Johnson, it was probably lost before Mr Sunak set foot in Number 10. Even if true, the most striking failure of his election is that it has been a vivid reminder of everything the voters had come to loathe about his party. Incompetent, shambolic, unbelievable and slicked with sleaze, the Tories have campaigned as badly as they have governed. It is an appropriate finale to their rule.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
Good morning again Ian. A gentle comment from me but having made big play of Alex’s warning about NOT using the MRPs to focus on individual constituency results you have been doing exactly that!
I’ve asked you a few times to provide the link to your claim that yesterday’s MRP showed LibDems for Newton Abbot? I was out and the only MRP I saw yesterday was from Savanta which has Labour, not LibDems. This was published in the Telegraph and tallies with New Statesman’s assessment using Best for Britain, with Labour the main contenders. YouGov’s MRP had the Conservatives holding on.
I don’t doubt that you have a link, I’d just like to see it please. Evidence and all that.
It’s certainly a confused picture. The LibDems have pulled resources out of Newton Abbot to focus elsewhere in the South-west, whilst Labour have begun piling in.
We could well have a 3-way split with Anne Morris (Con) coming through again.
I told you in my post that the link was upthread, in the post immediately above yours in the conversation, one click away. You can get the seat data by clicking on the map.
Completely separate, there's the second YouGov MRP, which does have a base of local panellists in the poll, putting the Tories on 29.2% and the LibDems on 24.7% with Labour back on 16.1%
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Of course you do.
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
But surely, all the factors outlined above are the very reason the MRP outcomes are very blunt tools indeed.
One more rumination on Brexit before I have to get my shit together for an afternoon on the pop in that Leeds: the referendum was held eight years ago today. It is damning that, especially whilst that anniversary falls within this GE campaign, how much the Tory Party isn’t mentioning Brexit. We know why Labour don’t want to talk about it, but if Brexit is so wonderful why isn’t it the front and centre of Tory messaging? Isn’t it the Conservative’s crowning glory, freeing us from the sinister yoke of those shifty continentals?
How poor must the Tory polling and focus grouping around Brexit be for them to ignore it? When you take a step back and think about that for a second the message it conveys is so powerful: they know - beyond the 20% or so of the country for whom Farage is still a plain-speaking common sense prophet of glorious Anglo-Saxon, anti-Muslim autarchy - that Brexit is as popular as a bucket of cold sick.
Lol! Adam Bienkov has an article on byline times highlighting that the real high stakes "betting" has been done on the financial markets. For recent other examples see Kwarteng/Odey.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin.
Wycombe is a lab gain according to 4 mrps, Richmond is one of 42 Con holds they all agree on (NS, YG, Ipsos, EC)
Telegraph MRP is paywalled which has Rishi losing his.
Rishi's hold is ~ 3-4k whereas the Lab gain from Baker according to all the MRPs (Tele is worst for the Tories) looks to be a majority of around 10,000.
Baker is toast.
Please tell me the pun was deliberate.
I've been kneeding to make it for a while.
Even so, his political career is likely brown bread....
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
They probably do need to get their shift further to the right out of the way early. If they choose, say, Mordaunt and she doesn’t then win the following election the membership will want to try someone “properly right wing” then.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
I certainly think it may well finish off any late swingback, it will drive Tory abstentions up
The swingback might already have been posted in. The grey vote early...
One more rumination on Brexit before I have to get my shit together for an afternoon on the pop in that Leeds: the referendum was held eight years ago today.
@implausibleblog Cleverly's car crash interview on Conservatives placing bets on the election
Trevor Philips, "Is it a sign or moral decay that your Conservative party colleagues were more interested in stuffing their pockets with gambling, than on helping hard pressed families in a cost of living crisis"
James Cleverly, "There is an investgation by the gambling commission"
TP, "It's not just one or two people, there's a lot of them"
JC, "That's not my understanding"
TP, "Were any of your cabinet colleagues involved"
JC, "The Gambling commission says we can't discuss this"
TP, "Why doesn't Rishi Sunak call in the alleged offenders, ask them did you place a bet, yes or no, and if the answer is yes, sack them"
JC, "Because that's the gambling commissions role"
TP, "No, he's the Prime Minister, they work for him"
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
I certainly think it may well finish off any late swingback, it will drive Tory abstentions up
The swingback might already have been posted in. The grey vote early...
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
I certainly think it may well finish off any late swingback, it will drive Tory abstentions up
The swingback might already have been posted in. The grey vote early...
Nah, not that many will have gone back yet, maybe 5% of all votes? Not enough to produce swingback that troubles the scorers
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Of course you do.
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Goodbye To All That etc.
I could see Labour having very low approval ratings fairly soon. They’re already not that high.
Polling is a different matter though. For Labour to go from 40 to 20 they need to lose those votes to another party. It seems unlikely that would be the Tories, and very unlikely it would be Reform, given the polled opinions of Labour voters on things like the EU and immigration. But I really can’t see LD and Green picking up all those votes.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
But surely, all the factors outlined above are the very reason the MRP outcomes are very blunt tools indeed.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
But surely, all the factors outlined above are the very reason the MRP outcomes are very blunt tools indeed.
Also bear in mind that over the past 100 years the Tories have never polled less than 39%.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
BTW, in what has been a surprisingly civil campaign so far given the national picture, the only effin' and jeffin' I have had on the doorsteps was from a local LibDem businessman and his wife.
Had a lovely chat with a Labour Party member who was very complimentary about our former MP/now candidate. Not enough to vote for him, but enough to hope he beats the LibDem.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
I certainly think it may well finish off any late swingback, it will drive Tory abstentions up
The swingback might already have been posted in. The grey vote early...
This grey has already voted.
Sorry to disappoint you, Beib, but I am not a swinger.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
But surely, all the factors outlined above are the very reason the MRP outcomes are very blunt tools indeed.
Of course. But it was 44% v 22%, not 34% v 32%.
But they can be totally out. Savanta, for example, have Greens on 8% in Waveney Valley, the constituency poll 39%, so a huge miss is possible
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
In fairness they have always said that productivity was important (while doing nothing about it). It would be a shame to waste their last 10 days.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Labour could go from 500 seats to 100 in one election.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Of course you do.
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Goodbye To All That etc.
I could see Labour having very low approval ratings fairly soon. They’re already not that high.
Polling is a different matter though. For Labour to go from 40 to 20 they need to lose those votes to another party. It seems unlikely that would be the Tories, and very unlikely it would be Reform, given the polled opinions of Labour voters on things like the EU and immigration. But I really can’t see LD and Green picking up all those votes.
If we consider an optimistic scenario for the Lib Dems and the Greens at GE2024, then the Lib Dems will receive a boost by making a large increase in their seats, and will be at least third in seats, while the Greens also pick up a seat or three, perhaps having more MPs than Reform.
I'd think it would be very easy for both parties to pick up mid-term protest opinion poll scores.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Of course you do.
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Goodbye To All That etc.
I could see Labour having very low approval ratings fairly soon. They’re already not that high.
Polling is a different matter though. For Labour to go from 40 to 20 they need to lose those votes to another party. It seems unlikely that would be the Tories, and very unlikely it would be Reform, given the polled opinions of Labour voters on things like the EU and immigration. But I really can’t see LD and Green picking up all those votes.
There would be a lot of abstention. In any case, many people only vote Labour because they hate the Conservatives. If the Conservatives simply vanish from the scene at this election, those people no longer have a reason to vote Labour.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
Good morning again Ian. A gentle comment from me but having made big play of Alex’s warning about NOT using the MRPs to focus on individual constituency results you have been doing exactly that!
I’ve asked you a few times to provide the link to your claim that yesterday’s MRP showed LibDems for Newton Abbot? I was out and the only MRP I saw yesterday was from Savanta which has Labour, not LibDems. This was published in the Telegraph and tallies with New Statesman’s assessment using Best for Britain, with Labour the main contenders. YouGov’s MRP had the Conservatives holding on.
I don’t doubt that you have a link, I’d just like to see it please. Evidence and all that.
It’s certainly a confused picture. The LibDems have pulled resources out of Newton Abbot to focus elsewhere in the South-west, whilst Labour have begun piling in.
We could well have a 3-way split with Anne Morris (Con) coming through again.
I told you in my post that the link was upthread, in the post immediately above yours in the conversation, one click away. You can get the seat data by clicking on the map.
Completely separate, there's the second YouGov MRP, which does have a base of local panellists in the poll, putting the Tories on 29.2% and the LibDems on 24.7% with Labour back on 16.1%
Yes YouGov had it LibDem best placed, which I acknowledged. You would expect that with a lower national Labour percentage share of course.
I think where there is confusion is that you mentioned it as being an MRP but it is not an MRP. What you are referring to is Ben Walker’s prediction model Britain Predicts. That’s not a poll and it’s not a MRP. I don’t really know how accurate Britain Predicts is?
Whilst it was published in the New Statesman, their link to the actual MRP is by Best for Britain showing Labour, not LibDems, as the best placed to defeat the tory incumbent. This was also what Savanta’s MRP published yesterday suggested.
I’m not dissing you. It looks like a genuine toss-up. It’s just than anyone saying ‘it’s definitely LibDem’ etc. is being partisan not evidential.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
I certainly think it may well finish off any late swingback, it will drive Tory abstentions up
The swingback might already have been posted in. The grey vote early...
This grey has already voted.
Sorry to disappoint you, Beib, but I am not a swinger.
BTW, in what has been a surprisingly civil campaign so far given the national picture, the only effin' and jeffin' I have had on the doorsteps was from a local LibDem businessman and his wife.
Had a lovely chat with a Labour Party member who was very complimentary about our former MP/now candidate. Not enough to vote for him, but enough to hope he beats the LibDem.
With my best KLAXON on, tentatively looking over some subsampling (klaxon!) I think the SW may be a little more shielded from the meltdown. Parts of the SW, Outer London and Borders/NE Ecosse as better hold ups than the rest where it will be clinging on for dear life to the 20k majorities plus . Wales will likely be a wipeout (Brecon?)
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin.
Wycombe is a lab gain according to 4 mrps, Richmond is one of 42 Con holds they all agree on (NS, YG, Ipsos, EC)
Telegraph MRP is paywalled which has Rishi losing his.
Rishi's hold is ~ 3-4k whereas the Lab gain from Baker according to all the MRPs (Tele is worst for the Tories) looks to be a majority of around 10,000.
Baker is toast.
Please tell me the pun was deliberate.
I've been kneeding to make it for a while.
Even so, his political career is likely brown bread....
I see that the Tories have written off this election, and have moved on to how Starmer's unpopularity and ineptness as PM will lead to a huge hemorrhaging of Labour seats in 2029.
Meanwhile, I'm already planning my itinerary for July 4/5, being too old to stay up all night. I need to plan my time around the announcement that will give me most pleasure. Anybody know what time JRM's seat announces?
Angela Carter-Begbie, who is standing in Queen's Park and Maida Vale, has said 'Putin wants peace – it's the West that don't', that 'Ukraine was horrible to the Russians first' and that 'Putin put his people first'.
John Clark, standing in Bangor Aberconwy, described Putin as 'sane and reasonable'. He has also said supporting Ukraine was 'not in Britain's interests' and replied to Lord Cameron's support for Ukraine by saying: 'You are asset-stripping our country to pay for your globalist friends to expand their empire.'
Hamish Haddow, in Chipping Barnet, falsely claimed Boris Johnson 'stopped the Ukraine peace talks on request by [Joe] Biden' and said 'every Ukrainian death [is] firmly on Boris'.
Teresa DeSantis, in Chichester, said Boris was 'acting like Zelensky's rent boy, touting for war' while Jack Aaron in Welwyn Hatfield called Putin's use of force in Ukraine 'legitimate' and likened him to Churchill. Malcolm Cupis, in Melksham and Devizes, compared calls for Ukraine refugees in the UK to be exempt from car registration fees to 'ethnic cleansing'.
Peter Morris in Melton and Syston, claimed the war was about 'the US defence budget' while Jack Brookes, in Birmingham Erdington, claimed Boris 'kept the war going'.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
Rory's voting LibDem this time, so it would actually be a small skip to actually join.
The story this morning is an aide to the Home Secretary calling Rwanda 'crap'
Who do they send out do defend it on the media round?
the guy that call Rwanda 'batshit'
The Labour mole in CCHQ is perilously close to blowing their cover...
It would be much easier to secrete a Reform party mole to CCHQ given most Tory members and a good slew of their elected officials voted for Reform in their previous incarnation in the 2019 euros.
I suspect Reform infiltration of the Tories would make Maomentum blush.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin.
Wycombe is a lab gain according to 4 mrps, Richmond is one of 42 Con holds they all agree on (NS, YG, Ipsos, EC)
Telegraph MRP is paywalled which has Rishi losing his.
Rishi's hold is ~ 3-4k whereas the Lab gain from Baker according to all the MRPs (Tele is worst for the Tories) looks to be a majority of around 10,000.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
You make the very good point, Cicero, that even if as many as 120 survive the cull, most of them will be sitting on small majorities. That ought to concentrate the mind.
Interesting anecdata: someone sent me a link to Jacob Rees Mogg's latest instagram post this morning (what a lovely thing to wake up to!)
It's a video message making an impassioned plea to his voters not to desert the Conservatives for Reform. The comments section is... interesting. Very pro-Reform, in a way that PB might not be picking up - https://www.instagram.com/jacob_rees_mogg/reel/C8hG4n1vNWg/?hl=en
If that's the mood of the average Conservative ultra, then maybe the merger with Putinist shill Farage is still on.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
BTW, in what has been a surprisingly civil campaign so far given the national picture, the only effin' and jeffin' I have had on the doorsteps was from a local LibDem businessman and his wife.
Had a lovely chat with a Labour Party member who was very complimentary about our former MP/now candidate. Not enough to vote for him, but enough to hope he beats the LibDem.
The real old skool shit storm of nastiness has been in Plymouth Moor View. A real throwback to vicious campaigns?
It may take some of you back to legendary ones like Bradshaw v Adrian Rogers (Exeter 1997), Mellor v Goldsmith (1997) and, of course, Hughes v Tatchell (1983).
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
In fairness they have always said that productivity was important (while doing nothing about it). It would be a shame to waste their last 10 days.
There seems no limit to the ways Conservatives politicians find to disgrace themselves.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
You make the very good point, Cicero, that even if as many as 120 survive the cull, most of them will be sitting on small majorities. That ought to concentrate the mind.
It will be no time for Prima Donna politics.
Biggest Tory majority will be interesting. 7000 votes?
This betting on their own result thing is producing an awful mood music, for the Tories. It sort of crystallises a sense of defeatism opportunism, and finality, all at the same time.
The Classic FM headline on my older relative's transistor radio, blaring out the window into the summer sunshine, is that more Tory cabinet members have been forced to deny that they've also been betting on the results. There's some sort of mood afoot which is a cross between ebd of the Tory empire, and summer demob-happy.
It doesn’t matter if Labour poll badly in the short term if the end result is that they actually sort some problems out. Who cares? (Other than betting opportunities obviously.)
If they do a shit job they should be kicked out after 5 years regardless of how many initial seats. Some of the tories on here reckon we should vote Tory anyway despite their dogshit record because of the Labour monster under the bed. Yeah but no.
I see that the Tories have written off this election, and have moved on to how Starmer's unpopularity and ineptness as PM will lead to a huge hemorrhaging of Labour seats in 2029.
To be fair to the old tories on here, it must be quite a tough time. They know inside that they’re in for a hell of a beating and they’re not coming back to power anytime soon. So consoling themselves through fantasy is entirely in keeping with the last few years e.g. thinking Boris Johnson or Liz Truss were remotely suitable to lead this country
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Yep but the blame will all be continually attached to the incompetency of Bozo, Truss and Rishi...
For the first 18 months I think we will hear a lot about how things were left in 2010, how they are now and that more money is required.
Don't know whether it will work but I suspect it will ensure the Tories and not Labour carry the blame.
2010 ?
Mass unemployment, higher inflation, collapsing banks and the NHS with half a million fewer workers.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
The YouGov MRP has Labour winning Wycombe by 44% to 22%, so don't risk too much on Baker!
Good morning again Ian. A gentle comment from me but having made big play of Alex’s warning about NOT using the MRPs to focus on individual constituency results you have been doing exactly that!
I’ve asked you a few times to provide the link to your claim that yesterday’s MRP showed LibDems for Newton Abbot? I was out and the only MRP I saw yesterday was from Savanta which has Labour, not LibDems. This was published in the Telegraph and tallies with New Statesman’s assessment using Best for Britain, with Labour the main contenders. YouGov’s MRP had the Conservatives holding on.
I don’t doubt that you have a link, I’d just like to see it please. Evidence and all that.
It’s certainly a confused picture. The LibDems have pulled resources out of Newton Abbot to focus elsewhere in the South-west, whilst Labour have begun piling in.
We could well have a 3-way split with Anne Morris (Con) coming through again.
I told you in my post that the link was upthread, in the post immediately above yours in the conversation, one click away. You can get the seat data by clicking on the map.
Completely separate, there's the second YouGov MRP, which does have a base of local panellists in the poll, putting the Tories on 29.2% and the LibDems on 24.7% with Labour back on 16.1%
Yes YouGov had it LibDem best placed, which I acknowledged. You would expect that with a lower national Labour percentage share of course.
I think where there is confusion is that you mentioned it as being an MRP but it is not an MRP. What you are referring to is Ben Walker’s prediction model Britain Predicts. That’s not a poll and it’s not a MRP. I don’t really know how accurate Britain Predicts is?
Whilst it was published in the New Statesman, their link to the actual MRP is by Best for Britain showing Labour, not LibDems, as the best placed to defeat the tory incumbent. This was also what Savanta’s MRP published yesterday suggested.
I’m not dissing you. It looks like a genuine toss-up. It’s just than anyone saying ‘it’s definitely LibDem’ etc. is being partisan not evidential.
I never said it was an MRP. I said it was a model, which it is.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
That would probably be a good thing for what is left of the Tory Party. Former self-styled "Brexit Hard Man Steve Baker" seems to have had a Damascene conversion to sanity in recent years.
The rump Tory party will need someone who is sane. Especially someone who used to be a headbanger but has seen the light.
Steve Baker is an odd fish, he sits slightly uncomfortably with the Tories, and his mostly right wing views are much more Libertarian than say Rees Moggs Cosplay Toryism. He is a genuine independent and that might just save him.
He’s also a lovely guy and a very hard worker. Despite being very far away from him politically he is one of my favourite MPs that I’ve worked with. Not sure if that counts for much in this current electoral climate though.
Yes, I quite like Steve Baker. I don't agree with him on everything, but who does?
Got to admire.someone who makes the decision that his long booked holiday cat sailing in the med takes precedence over the first week or so of campaigning. That was definitely the right decision.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
You make the very good point, Cicero, that even if as many as 120 survive the cull, most of them will be sitting on small majorities. That ought to concentrate the mind.
It will be no time for Prima Donna politics.
Biggest Tory majority will be interesting. 7000 votes?
I reckon they will still notch up some 15k majorities. Even in 1983 some of the South Welsh seats notched up 21k majorities for Labour...
Biden is (just) ahead in 538's national polling average for the first time, though still has an electoral college disadvantage. He's slightly behind in the Pennsylvania average, and only has a very narrow path to victory.
Biden has lost. He slipped too far behind in the electoral college votes weeks ago. The “he’s a dementia patient not a president” attack line has won over more than enough independents. Trump is getting back in.
Crazy politics everywhere. Voters don’t seem to know what they really want, except that they really want it.
Anybody opining with absolute certainty about the US Presidential election is an idiot. We're still almost five months from the election, and almost anything could happen, not least a health event for one (or both) of the candidates.
Yes call me an idiot.
And yes, when I called the election this early, its on basis of no swans or health emergencies come along, just continue on it’s inevitable current narrative.
But the position Trump has in the college pickups, the Blue Wall, bell weather Ohio, is just too strong at this stage of any election, especially one where what can an incumbent still throw at it, that should actually already be working by now but isn’t?
Isn’t there enough evidence for you the Dem ticket polls stronger down ticket than at the top?
PB certainly needs to switch from its preoccupations with the Popular Vote polling to the college polling, as a narrow PV win for Biden really is curtains for him, is not an idiotic comment from me either, just merely being honest and helpful.
I’m not shrilling for Trump. I don’t like the idea. I think voters in UK and US have gone nuts, but we survived 4 years of Trump before, and will again. And no, none of this “but you will never get him out if he gets back in” nonsense - the security forces and military will remove MAGA from the White House in five years time if they need to.
There. I’ve called it. Both UK and US elections over in betting terms, we know the results. I’m going to play with my Wilbur.
BTW, in what has been a surprisingly civil campaign so far given the national picture, the only effin' and jeffin' I have had on the doorsteps was from a local LibDem businessman and his wife.
Had a lovely chat with a Labour Party member who was very complimentary about our former MP/now candidate. Not enough to vote for him, but enough to hope he beats the LibDem.
The real old skool shit storm of nastiness has been in Plymouth Moor View. A real throwback to vicious campaigns?
It may take some of you back to legendary ones like Bradshaw v Adrian Rogers (Exeter 1997), Mellor v Goldsmith (1997) and, of course, Hughes v Tatchell (1983).
Nothing has been nastier than Hughes v Tatchell. A liberal - also a closeted homosexual - running a homophobic campaign - will take some beating too.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
That would probably be a good thing for what is left of the Tory Party. Former self-styled "Brexit Hard Man Steve Baker" seems to have had a Damascene conversion to sanity in recent years.
The rump Tory party will need someone who is sane. Especially someone who used to be a headbanger but has seen the light.
Steve Baker is an odd fish, he sits slightly uncomfortably with the Tories, and his mostly right wing views are much more Libertarian than say Rees Moggs Cosplay Toryism. He is a genuine independent and that might just save him.
He’s also a lovely guy and a very hard worker. Despite being very far away from him politically he is one of my favourite MPs that I’ve worked with. Not sure if that counts for much in this current electoral climate though.
Yes, I quite like Steve Baker. I don't agree with him on everything, but who does?
Got to admire.someone who makes the decision that his long booked holiday cat sailing in the med takes precedence over the first week or so of campaigning. That was definitely the right decision.
Many of us would have preferred if all the politicians and media had waited another week...
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
Whatever comes of the Conservatives after the election they need to employ someone like Cyclefree to tell them how to behave.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
25% would still result in farms being rapidly sold.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Labour could go from 500 seats to 100 in one election.
It's certainly possible.
The predictions that Labour is poised for nearly two decades in government assume that essentially nothing happens, that Labour has the same benign economic and geopolitical conditions as in 1997-2001.
It also assumes that British politics remains a game played only by Labour and the Tories, and that the Tories are in deep rehab, as they were after 1997.
Neither of those things are true. The situation for the next government is exceptionally difficult, and the electorate have not been prepared for that difficulty.
In 1997 the two-party share of the vote was 73.9%, and the three-party share was 90.7%. The averages calculated by Sean F give a two-party share of 59.6% and a three-party share (i.e. including LDM) of 70.8%. The electorate will have other choices.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
Very good PtP!
In retrospect the Expenses scandal should have been called Billingsgate.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
You make the very good point, Cicero, that even if as many as 120 survive the cull, most of them will be sitting on small majorities. That ought to concentrate the mind.
It will be no time for Prima Donna politics.
Biggest Tory majority will be interesting. 7000 votes?
I reckon they will still notch up some 15k majorities. Even in 1983 some of the South Welsh seats notched up 21k majorities for Labour...
Honestly can't see it, unless I'm missing a particularly popular local MP with a big majority. I guess it depends if the decline in their vote share from mid 20s to 20 is universal or they are starting to totally disappear in some locales but maintaining vote efficiency in pockets
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
Whatever comes of the Conservatives after the election they need to employ someone like Cyclefree to tell them how to behave.
You shouldn't need an expert to tell you how to behave. Some common sense and a moral compass should do it.
Daily Mail says Priti Patel is the likely 'unity' candidate left standing
Please no. What a unpleasant person. Please God no.
She would make an excellent post-election leader for the Tories. This is the time that all the crazies come out. The real leader is still 5 to 7 years away...
Agreed about your second point, but in fact I think that with maybe 120 MPs, many on very thin majorities, the Tory Party will be a very delicate flower. The kind of rough handling at anyone close to Farage, like PP, is likely give to the party may end up killing it outright. I could see many MPs joining Rory Stewart et al in a long march to the Liberal Democrats if Patel gets the leadership.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
You make the very good point, Cicero, that even if as many as 120 survive the cull, most of them will be sitting on small majorities. That ought to concentrate the mind.
It will be no time for Prima Donna politics.
Biggest Tory majority will be interesting. 7000 votes?
Oh I think the voters of Christchurch can be relied upon to give Sir Christopher Chope a five figure majority.
Biden is (just) ahead in 538's national polling average for the first time, though still has an electoral college disadvantage. He's slightly behind in the Pennsylvania average, and only has a very narrow path to victory.
Biden has lost. He slipped too far behind in the electoral college votes weeks ago. The “he’s a dementia patient not a president” attack line has won over more than enough independents. Trump is getting back in.
Crazy politics everywhere. Voters don’t seem to know what they really want, except that they really want it.
Anybody opining with absolute certainty about the US Presidential election is an idiot. We're still almost five months from the election, and almost anything could happen, not least a health event for one (or both) of the candidates.
Yes call me an idiot.
And yes, when I called the election this early, its on basis of no swans or health emergencies come along, just continue on it’s inevitable current narrative.
But the position Trump has in the college pickups, the Blue Wall, bell weather Ohio, is just too strong at this stage of any election, especially one where what can an incumbent still throw at it, that should actually already be working by now but isn’t?
Isn’t there enough evidence for you the Dem ticket polls stronger down ticket than at the top?
PB certainly needs to switch from its preoccupations with the Popular Vote polling to the college polling, as a narrow PV win for Biden really is curtains for him, is not an idiotic comment from me either, just merely being honest and helpful.
I’m not shrilling for Trump. I don’t like the idea. I think voters in UK and US have gone nuts, but we survived 4 years of Trump before, and will again. And no, none of this “but you will never get him out if he gets back in” nonsense - the security forces and military will remove MAGA from the White House in five years time if they need to.
There. I’ve called it. Both UK and US elections over in betting terms, we know the results. I’m going to play with my Wilbur.
Women's rights to control their reproductive decisions will be a massive driver of turnout in the election. And every Republican from Trump down is on the wrong side of that issue.
Plus every poll of real voters shows the opinion polling to be massively off - the Democrats just do W-A-Y better than the polling says they should.
It's been very obvious for a very long time that Farage is a Putinist. He's not exactly hidden it. Neither has Trump. What's bizarre is how many Tories who want to unite the right with Farage in the UK and who back Trump for the US presidency have chosen to ignore or deny it. I suppose they will mostly carry on doing so.
They’ve looked at oligarchy and want some for themselves. That’s the attraction.
Just to quick and obvious correction, my post below should ofcoutse have said betting on their own dates, not results !
The double Freudian slip there is I think because there's an obvious sense of the Tories banking and being aware of poor results for themselves, too. It all feels a bit of a formality.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
Very good PtP!
In retrospect the Expenses scandal should have been called Billingsgate.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Labour could go from 500 seats to 100 in one election.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Labour could go from 500 seats to 100 in one election.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
Of course you do.
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Goodbye To All That etc.
I could see Labour having very low approval ratings fairly soon. They’re already not that high.
Polling is a different matter though. For Labour to go from 40 to 20 they need to lose those votes to another party. It seems unlikely that would be the Tories, and very unlikely it would be Reform, given the polled opinions of Labour voters on things like the EU and immigration. But I really can’t see LD and Green picking up all those votes.
There would be a lot of abstention. In any case, many people only vote Labour because they hate the Conservatives. If the Conservatives simply vanish from the scene at this election, those people no longer have a reason to vote Labour.
I don't see why the Greens couldn't get up to 15-20% if they consolidate the radical left behind them.
That alone would knock Labour down to 30% at best and swing voter defections, to a myriad of alternatives, would push them to the mid-20s.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
Very good PtP!
In retrospect the Expenses scandal should have been called Billingsgate.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
However it would be extremely dangerous for the Tories to think they can just carry on with the same policies and hope Labour is hated more than them at the next, or subsequent elections.
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
The most valid point is what people will bet on this site. As I have said under 100 seats for the Tories is a bet that will be lost. 125 to 150 for them is a safe bet. Labour 425. Lib Dems 50. Roughly I feel this may be the spread plus the other parties.Unless Labour do worse on the day although I do not believe that will be the case and then my figures are wrong. My vote goes the Lib Dems.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin.
Wycombe is a lab gain according to 4 mrps, Richmond is one of 42 Con holds they all agree on (NS, YG, Ipsos, EC)
Telegraph MRP is paywalled which has Rishi losing his.
Rishi's hold is ~ 3-4k whereas the Lab gain from Baker according to all the MRPs (Tele is worst for the Tories) looks to be a majority of around 10,000.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
However it would be extremely dangerous for the Tories to think they can just carry on with the same policies and hope Labour is hated more than them at the next, or subsequent elections.
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
I hold out precious little hope for the Tories in opposition.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
Whatever comes of the Conservatives after the election they need to employ someone like Cyclefree to tell them how to behave.
You shouldn't need an expert to tell you how to behave. Some common sense and a moral compass should do it.
Those two things have been obviously lacking among far too many Conservative politicians.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Tory MPs badger gassing Whats App Group
Angela Carter-Begbie, who is standing in Queen's Park and Maida Vale, has said 'Putin wants peace – it's the West that don't', that 'Ukraine was horrible to the Russians first' and that 'Putin put his people first'.
John Clark, standing in Bangor Aberconwy, described Putin as 'sane and reasonable'. He has also said supporting Ukraine was 'not in Britain's interests' and replied to Lord Cameron's support for Ukraine by saying: 'You are asset-stripping our country to pay for your globalist friends to expand their empire.'
Hamish Haddow, in Chipping Barnet, falsely claimed Boris Johnson 'stopped the Ukraine peace talks on request by [Joe] Biden' and said 'every Ukrainian death [is] firmly on Boris'.
Teresa DeSantis, in Chichester, said Boris was 'acting like Zelensky's rent boy, touting for war' while Jack Aaron in Welwyn Hatfield called Putin's use of force in Ukraine 'legitimate' and likened him to Churchill. Malcolm Cupis, in Melksham and Devizes, compared calls for Ukraine refugees in the UK to be exempt from car registration fees to 'ethnic cleansing'.
Peter Morris in Melton and Syston, claimed the war was about 'the US defence budget' while Jack Brookes, in Birmingham Erdington, claimed Boris 'kept the war going'.
All these Reform candidates should be interned and I am going to have nightmares about Boris Johnson being a rent boy.
Just aping the GOP basically.
Britain Trump is here and up and running.
Yup, do we really want the UK equivalents of Marjorie Taylor Greene in our parliament?
We.ve got Rayner and Cooper, isnt that the same ?
dearly departed Charles never had a crush on Rayner and Cooper
We could do with Charles returning, it would bring a bit of diversity to the site.
An overwhelmingly right wing message board site needs yet another Tory like a hole in the head. We should be encouraging Communists, Welsh Nationalists and Irish Republicans
Dont be silly PB veers left atm, the tone of the board tends to attract people who oppose the government of the day, The more the government fails the less likely it finds people prepared to spend time defending it so they drift off.
Assuming Starmer wins this time next year the board will be drifting rightwards as Starmer racks up failure after fialure.
PB Tories have already transitioned from blaming Starmer for the last half decade of government, to critiquing the blunders he hasn’t yet made.
If he actually succeeds at anything, I fear for their mental composure.
Take it from a serial political loser - no matter how much you think you are prepared for defeat it always hits so much harder when it actually happens.
If Johnny Mercer loses in Plymouth, his concession speech is going to be for the ages.
I really hadn’t realised quite what a narcissist he is until recent events. Agree it may be a good one,
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
DDayGate followed by BettingGate 10 days later - there's just enough time for another one to pop up.
I like DDayGate but maybe GambleGate has more of a ring?
Aren't we due a Downfall?
We need an MP to get caught sheepshagging, so that we can have a Ramsgate.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Tory MPs badger gassing Whats App Group
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
However it would be extremely dangerous for the Tories to think they can just carry on with the same policies and hope Labour is hated more than them at the next, or subsequent elections.
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
I hold out precious little hope for the Tories in opposition.
They just have far too many dumb candidates.
Not to mention the officials and advisors in the party. Jeez. The next leader needs to sack everyone.
The most valid point is what people will bet on this site. As I have said under 100 seats for the Tories is a bet that will be lost. 125 to 150 for them is a safe bet. Labour 425. Lib Dems 50. Roughly I feel this may be the spread plus the other parties.Unless Labour do worse on the day although I do not believe that will be the case and then my figures are wrong. My vote goes the Lib Dems.
Gove is going. He may well come back and step in to be the temporary leader. Why not? He has already done as much damage as possible. A little more perhaps? Or Boris and Farage as joint leaders.
Even to be in temporary charge you need to be an MP - so it's going to be the most senior minister left standing (dread to think who that could be).
Steve Baker. Is he staying.
He wont hold Wycombe
Although Wycombe is a seat which has been Conservative since 1951, and which Steve Baker held with majorities of up to 14K since 2010, on paper his current 4,214 majority is too small to survive.
However the Labour Party in the seat has been historically very fractious, and the previous Labour candidate, Khalil Ahmad, is standing for the Workers Party and there is a large ethnic minority base which he can appeal to. There are also nine candidates so the ballot is very crowded,
Meanwhile the Lib Dem vote is not very squeezable and would not be enough to get Labour over the line anyway.
I think this is going to be much closer than similar marginals, and I could even see Baker surviving by a miniscule margin. As ever DYOR, but 1/7 Labour odds seem over done and although Baker at 7/2 is not massive value, it may not be unrealistic.
That would probably be a good thing for what is left of the Tory Party. Former self-styled "Brexit Hard Man Steve Baker" seems to have had a Damascene conversion to sanity in recent years.
The rump Tory party will need someone who is sane. Especially someone who used to be a headbanger but has seen the light.
Steve Baker is an odd fish, he sits slightly uncomfortably with the Tories, and his mostly right wing views are much more Libertarian than say Rees Moggs Cosplay Toryism. He is a genuine independent and that might just save him.
He’s also a lovely guy and a very hard worker. Despite being very far away from him politically he is one of my favourite MPs that I’ve worked with. Not sure if that counts for much in this current electoral climate though.
Yes, I quite like Steve Baker. I don't agree with him on everything, but who does?
I like him as well, although I disagree with him on a lot, however on most things it is a case of common sense, doing the work and analysis, etc regardless of which party you belong to. Most of us will agree on most things most of the time. It tends to be policy we disagree on rather than the nuts and bolts.
Sometime ago there was a documentary following a parliamentary committee that Archie Kirkwood chaired (that dates it). It was interesting comparing two members of that committee. Both being Tory. One was a right winger old duffer the other a sprightly one nation Tory. Naturally you would assume I would be biased against the old duffer and in favour of the one nation Tory. In fact the opposite was true, because the old duffer wasn't a duffer after all. He put the work in and looked at the evidence. The sprightly one nation Tory didn't and looked for the photo op. I still disagreed with the older guy on policy stuff, but appreciated that on the nitty gritty he did the work.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
However it would be extremely dangerous for the Tories to think they can just carry on with the same policies and hope Labour is hated more than them at the next, or subsequent elections.
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
I hold out precious little hope for the Tories in opposition.
They just have far too many dumb candidates.
Not to mention the officials and advisors in the party. Jeez. The next leader needs to sack everyone.
Jeremy Clarkson as the new Leader With Piers Morgan as is Vice PM.
Mr. HYUFD, the farm inheritance thing seems bonkers. Every generation just gets handed a huge bill in cash, but the land itself is essential for the business (and produces something essential for the country as well).
A reason for the farm inheritance exemption was that otherwise farming would, in a generation or two, be run entirely by agribusinesses owned by institutional shareholders.
Imposing a 40% charge on farms and businesses would be stupid, and lead to their just being sold.
Better to reduce the rate of IHT to c.25% across the board, but then to treat all assets equally. Turning farmland into an IHT shelter has driven up the price of land.
Labour are going to serve up some real shit sandwiches in their first budget.
I expect them to be polling in the 20s inside 18 months, and possibly sooner.
The YouGov opinion poll after the European elections in 2019 had shares of: CON 19% LAB 19% LDM 24% GRN 8% BXP 22% It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
If you swap the GRN share around with LDMs, then yes - possibly.
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
However it would be extremely dangerous for the Tories to think they can just carry on with the same policies and hope Labour is hated more than them at the next, or subsequent elections.
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
I hold out precious little hope for the Tories in opposition.
They just have far too many dumb candidates.
Not to mention the officials and advisors in the party. Jeez. The next leader needs to sack everyone.
Jeremy Clarkson as the new Leader With Piers Morgan as is Vice PM.
Clarkson as next leader means we’ll be rejoining the EU.
The last dozen polls average Labour 40%, Con 19.6%, Reform 17.5%, Lib Dem 11.2%, Green 6.3%. The Conservatives are now working very hard to drive their vote into the mid teens.
My sixth sense is that the betting scandal could be terminal for them.
Whatever comes of the Conservatives after the election they need to employ someone like Cyclefree to tell them how to behave.
You shouldn't need an expert to tell you how to behave. Some common sense and a moral compass should do it.
Those two things have been obviously lacking among far too many Conservative politicians.
So they do need an expert.
They don't need an expert, they need politicians with morals.
Telling someone who doesn't understand something is immoral doesn't tend to work. They either don't care or don't get it.
Comments
For the first 18 months I think we will hear a lot about how things were left in 2010, how they are now and that more money is required.
Don't know whether it will work but I suspect it will ensure the Tories and not Labour carry the blame.
When a downpour-drenched Rishi Sunak made his soggy start to this election, I suggested to you that the Tory campaign could simply unravel. So it has proved. Their bitterest enemies couldn’t have done a better job of painting the Tories as rotten and idiotic chancers.
The mood among staff at Tory headquarters, already bleak, has grown even more funereal. The only consolation they can cling to is that it can’t do too much damage to their ratings because they are already so dire. Catastrophic or apocalyptic? That is the question that now divides Tories with 10 campaign days to go before polling stations open.
I ought to report that there is a lot of wariness in both the blue and red camps about the most sensational of the poll projections. Note, though, that this is only a debate about whether the scale of the Tory defeat is going to be enormous or merely huge.
His fellow Tories will make Mr Sunak carry the can. Both because it is hypocritically convenient for the rest of the Conservative party to dump all the blame on him and because he’s given them the excuse to do so by presiding over such an atrocious campaign. He chose the timing, he picked the team and he has been the frontman. Despite the Tories’ historical reputation for running a mean campaign machine, this one has failed to deliver its messages. One iteration of the Tory attack on Labour is that Sir Keir has “no plan”. Another version is that he has a sinister scheme to impose a generation-long, one-party socialist state on Britain that will tax everyone into the grave. The Labour leader can’t be both an empty vessel and a cunning conspirator, so the Tories haven’t persuaded voters he is either.
The prime minister has a few remaining friends in his party and they will protest that the electorate was already lost to the Tories before the campaign started. Some say that, thanks to the recklessness of Liz Truss and the debaucheries of Boris Johnson, it was probably lost before Mr Sunak set foot in Number 10. Even if true, the most striking failure of his election is that it has been a vivid reminder of everything the voters had come to loathe about his party. Incompetent, shambolic, unbelievable and slicked with sleaze, the Tories have campaigned as badly as they have governed. It is an appropriate finale to their rule.
Completely separate, there's the second YouGov MRP, which does have a base of local panellists in the poll, putting the Tories on 29.2% and the LibDems on 24.7% with Labour back on 16.1%
Financial Times: Sunak bets on July 4 election #TomorrowsPapersToday
https://x.com/sgfmann/status/1793377681792512212
I mean, you could be correct. Or maybe there will be a wave of good will and enthusiasm and they will soar in popularity.
Goodbye To All That etc.
How poor must the Tory polling and focus grouping around Brexit be for them to ignore it? When you take a step back and think about that for a second the message it conveys is so powerful: they know - beyond the 20% or so of the country for whom Farage is still a plain-speaking common sense prophet of glorious Anglo-Saxon, anti-Muslim autarchy - that Brexit is as popular as a bucket of cold sick.
CON 19%
LAB 19%
LDM 24%
GRN 8%
BXP 22%
It's possible that we will see polls in that ballpark during the next Parliament.
If we think that FPTP is going to throw up a strange result this time, potentially giving Labour a massive landslide majority on just under 40% of the vote, then it could be just a prelude to an even more crazy result in 2029.
Polling is a different matter though. For Labour to go from 40 to 20 they need to lose those votes to another party. It seems unlikely that would be the Tories, and very unlikely it would be Reform, given the polled opinions of Labour voters on things like the EU and immigration. But I really can’t see LD and Green picking up all those votes.
Had a lovely chat with a Labour Party member who was very complimentary about our former MP/now candidate. Not enough to vote for him, but enough to hope he beats the LibDem.
Sorry to disappoint you, Beib, but I am not a swinger.
I'd think it would be very easy for both parties to pick up mid-term protest opinion poll scores.
This time the Tories need an actually Conservative leader, and Patel ain´t it.
I think where there is confusion is that you mentioned it as being an MRP but it is not an MRP. What you are referring to is Ben Walker’s prediction model Britain Predicts. That’s not a poll and it’s not a MRP. I don’t really know how accurate Britain Predicts is?
Whilst it was published in the New Statesman, their link to the actual MRP is by Best for Britain showing Labour, not LibDems, as the best placed to defeat the tory incumbent. This was also what Savanta’s MRP published yesterday suggested.
I’m not dissing you. It looks like a genuine toss-up. It’s just than anyone saying ‘it’s definitely LibDem’ etc. is being partisan not evidential.
Why do I feel more confident about the former than the latter?! Is it a hunch about an anti-Sunak personal take-down?
Meanwhile, I'm already planning my itinerary for July 4/5, being too old to stay up all night. I need to plan my time around the announcement that will give me most pleasure. Anybody know what time JRM's seat announces?
I suspect Reform infiltration of the Tories would make Maomentum blush.
Aren't we due a Downfall?
It will be no time for Prima Donna politics.
Interesting anecdata: someone sent me a link to Jacob Rees Mogg's latest instagram post this morning (what a lovely thing to wake up to!)
It's a video message making an impassioned plea to his voters not to desert the Conservatives for Reform. The comments section is... interesting. Very pro-Reform, in a way that PB might not be picking up - https://www.instagram.com/jacob_rees_mogg/reel/C8hG4n1vNWg/?hl=en
If that's the mood of the average Conservative ultra, then maybe the merger with Putinist shill Farage is still on.
It may take some of you back to legendary ones like Bradshaw v Adrian Rogers (Exeter 1997), Mellor v Goldsmith (1997) and, of course, Hughes v Tatchell (1983).
The Classic FM headline on my older relative's transistor radio, blaring out the window into the summer sunshine, is that more Tory cabinet members have been forced to deny that they've also been betting on the results. There's some sort of mood afoot which is a cross between ebd of the Tory empire, and summer demob-happy.
If they do a shit job they should be kicked out after 5 years regardless of how many initial seats. Some of the tories on here reckon we should vote Tory anyway despite their dogshit record because of the Labour monster under the bed. Yeah but no.
We should run a book on it...
Ladbrokes haven't chosen the seat for a constituency market, and Betfair has next to no cash on it.
Mass unemployment, higher inflation, collapsing banks and the NHS with half a million fewer workers.
And yes, when I called the election this early, its on basis of no swans or health emergencies come along, just continue on it’s inevitable current narrative.
But the position Trump has in the college pickups, the Blue Wall, bell weather Ohio, is just too strong at this stage of any election, especially one where what can an incumbent still throw at it, that should actually already be working by now but isn’t?
Isn’t there enough evidence for you the Dem ticket polls stronger down ticket than at the top?
https://electoral-vote.com/
PB certainly needs to switch from its preoccupations with the Popular Vote polling to the college polling, as a narrow PV win for Biden really is curtains for him, is not an idiotic comment from me either, just merely being honest and helpful.
I’m not shrilling for Trump. I don’t like the idea. I think voters in UK and US have gone nuts, but we survived 4 years of Trump before, and will again. And no, none of this “but you will never get him out if he gets back in” nonsense - the security forces and military will remove MAGA from the White House in five years time if they need to.
There. I’ve called it. Both UK and US elections over in betting terms, we know the results. I’m going to play with my Wilbur.
One Englishman (we´ll have to assume British here, I think)
One Englishmen is a gentleman
Two Englishmen is a bet
Three Englishmen is a Parliament
By Contrast
One Russian is a drunk
Two Russians is a fight
Three Russians is a conspiracy
The predictions that Labour is poised for nearly two decades in government assume that essentially nothing happens, that Labour has the same benign economic and geopolitical conditions as in 1997-2001.
It also assumes that British politics remains a game played only by Labour and the Tories, and that the Tories are in deep rehab, as they were after 1997.
Neither of those things are true. The situation for the next government is exceptionally difficult, and the electorate have not been prepared for that difficulty.
In 1997 the two-party share of the vote was 73.9%, and the three-party share was 90.7%. The averages calculated by Sean F give a two-party share of 59.6% and a three-party share (i.e. including LDM) of 70.8%. The electorate will have other choices.
Plus every poll of real voters shows the opinion polling to be massively off - the Democrats just do W-A-Y better than the polling says they should.
The double Freudian slip there is I think because there's an obvious sense of the Tories banking and being aware of poor results for themselves, too. It all feels a bit of a formality.
Drugs scandal: Highgate
Betting scandal: wingate
Racism scandal: Moorgate
Anything featuring Andrew Marr: Margate
People forget the reason Labour won three terms last time is because (a) Blair was popular, especially in Middle England, and (b) the economy was doing well and consistently growin.
Those do not apply this time. And we have a nastier cultural edge to everything on top.
That alone would knock Labour down to 30% at best and swing voter defections, to a myriad of alternatives, would push them to the mid-20s.
Wanking admirals: frigate
They really need to have a long hard think about what they stand for, giving people the opportunity to succeed in their life with minimal state intervention. The constant pandering to pensioners just has to stop.
They just have far too many dumb candidates.
So they do need an expert.
Sometime ago there was a documentary following a parliamentary committee that Archie Kirkwood chaired (that dates it). It was interesting comparing two members of that committee. Both being Tory. One was a right winger old duffer the other a sprightly one nation Tory. Naturally you would assume I would be biased against the old duffer and in favour of the one nation Tory. In fact the opposite was true, because the old duffer wasn't a duffer after all. He put the work in and looked at the evidence. The sprightly one nation Tory didn't and looked for the photo op. I still disagreed with the older guy on policy stuff, but appreciated that on the nitty gritty he did the work.
But where are these seats ?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cqqqnp2q55eo
Telling someone who doesn't understand something is immoral doesn't tend to work. They either don't care or don't get it.