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Planning your election night fun – politicalbetting.com
Planning your election night fun – politicalbetting.com
Most of you who follow me are election nerds so bookmark this.Estimated declaration times of General Election results: Chronological listhttps://t.co/yu5i1XJDEz
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https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4734129-sorry-james-carville-biden-is-the-best-bet-to-beat-trump/
It’s interesting that Nigel Farage came here. The only one of the main leaders to do so.
I’m expecting a Cons HOLD but a case could be made for any of Con, Lab, LibDem, Reform. The MRPs are all equally confused, slightly favouring a CON hold but also dividing between Labour and LibDem, with Reform a very close 4th. Only 9% separated the 4 parties in the most recent Focaldata MRP.
I think Farage really has blown it.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
"Crudely, on almost every political dispute over our entire adult lives, Starmer has taken a position to the left of me, starting from the time when I regarded myself as on the centre-left.
Starmer rattled tins to raise money for Arthur Scargill’s miners’ strike, while I opposed it; he thought Neil Kinnock too right-wing and I thought Kinnock too left-wing; he boycotted The Times during the Wapping dispute and acted as legal observer for the pickets, while I wrote my first article for the paper during the same period.
He helped edit and produce a Marxist magazine, aided the defence in the McLibel trial, joined lawyers calling for a united Ireland and marched against the Iraq war. All very different to my own politics — which, as I say, doesn’t mean I was necessarily right and he wrong.
This difference persisted until pretty recently. He served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, which I thought unconscionable; pushed for a second referendum on Brexit, which I thought deeply unwise; and ran for the leadership praising Corbyn’s agenda as an inspiration and a sure base for the party, while I thought it both practically and electorally unrealistic.
Which leaves me with this, in many ways reassuring, view. Starmer has not lied about his politics. He is someone with a left-wing instinct; he’s not Tony Blair, he’s not even Gordon Brown."
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/heres-the-keir-starmer-ive-known-for-decades-m68sq5q2g
This will be the fourth general election in a row that I've pulled an all nighter so I can edit PB.
Really helpful thread
Putin's catamite is at it again.
Ukraine should agree to a peace deal with Russia or run the risk that every young Ukrainian man will be killed, Nigel Farage has said in an escalation of his views on the war.
The Reform UK leader said that in the interests of peace, President Zelensky should rethink his ambition to reclaim all territory lost to President Putin’s invasion. Farage also launched a fresh attack on Boris Johnson for rejecting the prospect of a peace deal, which had resulted in countless deaths.
Johnson has championed Britain’s support for Ukraine and remains close friends with Zelensky.
Farage said greater efforts were needed to broker negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and that Britain and other western allies were being unrealistic in their support of Zelensky’s goal to drive the invading forces back into Russia.
He said reclaiming Crimean territory was going to be “incredibly difficult”.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nigel-farage-zelensky-should-seek-peace-or-risk-losing-every-young-ukrainian-man-gg5bp93nt
"This is an important piece of journalism in that it adds to our understanding of the enigma that is Starmer. It affirms that the man has integrity and is prepared to modify his views when confronted by evidence.
If Labour wins, the electorate has to accept that the government will embrace aspects of socialism. The government will not be Tory lite. The Tory Party destroyed its traditional conservative core. The price of this is something more radical. However, something radical is needed. The Tories have wasted 14 years in government. Radical change is never painless, as we discovered under Thatcher.
Let us hope that Starmer has her mettle."
Japan's major broadcaster NHK is required to give airtime to candidates running for governor of Tokyo.
Including the local Joker cosplay candidate
https://x.com/PopulismUpdates/status/1805624924201271769
One bottle of Champagne on ice, ready to be opened and quickly consumed in response to the first Conservative hold.
This is Timcast’s video from the GOP debate a few months ago, as an example of how political commentators use this. He has five talking heads on screen, discussing what’s happening at the debate which is also on their screen. 350,000 views.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pggv7h7FQ6s (it’s two hours long, so randomly scan to the middle somewhere).
Note that their source is a stream on Rumble, rather than a stream directly from Fox News which was the broadcaster for this event.
Like you, I'd much rather have all those positives embodied in people with centre-right instincts. But that isn't on the menu right now, and that is the Conservatives' shame.
And he won't be voting for him.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
NEW Survation Telephone Tracker for
@GMB
- Poll 3/4
LAB 41% (-)
CON 18% (-2)
REF 14% (-1)
LD 12% (-)
GRE 5% (-1)
SNP 2% (nc)
OTH 7% (+2)
F/w 21st - 25th June. Changes vs. 19th June 2024.
https://x.com/Survation/status/1805856893602046259
Let’s see if the betting ‘Plague upon both your houses’ causes a dent to Labour
This is our Cup Final.
"Aarrnd they be a very good indicator"
All I would say anecdotally is that the LibDems who were campaigning hard have pulled out resources, whilst Labour who were piling everyone across to Plymouth Moor have been upping their campaigning in Newton Abbot.
Meanwhile Nigel Farage held a rally here.
I’m expecting a Con HOLD but it could be close across all of the 4. Certainly anything but obvious.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBM2gwJ4luE
Yes, someone should have put up 650 deposits for a Binface Party, and he could realistically ask for a seat at one of the debates.
Whereas the so-called 'Conservative' party have lurched rightwards and become unelectable.
He's a socialist and that will determine the policy decisions of his government.
'Starmer has been to the left of Danny the Fink for a long time.'
Lions and Tiger and Bears, Oh MY !!!
A bit similar to another charisma free London Lawyer who had a landslide victory.
(With apologies to Sunil)
Rishi is a small state capitalist, but can't do what he wants because of our demographics and finances.
Truss is a small state capitalist, tried and failed to do what she wants because of our demographics and finances.
Boris, didn't care, and let the government be run according to our demographics and finances.
Starmer is wise enough to realise what he can't change, and will let the governmnet be run according to our demographics and finances. But he does also care and will give it more thought and attention.
There will be an improvement, how significant, sustainable or sufficient I don't know, but after the last few years I will be happy enough with going in the right direction.
They’ve gone from defending the indefensible to telling themselves everything will be alright in 2029, to jumping up and down about what a Socialist nasty Mr Starmer will prove to be.
They have only themselves to blame for their mess and the sooner they stop pointing the finger elsewhere and sort themselves out, the better.
I fear that after the election the Conservatives will double-down on what they're doing at the moment, and further damage a brand that is currently lower than dogmuck.
They need a Cameron-like figure to start the process of fixing the damage.
Sunak has really messed up with his choice of election date - clashes with a long-planned theatre trip to London. I will be on the train in the cell-phone black hole west of Salisbury for the exit poll.
Should be home by 11:00pm though. No chance for an afternoon siesta apart from a doze on the train maybe. Will aim to stay up until 4:00 or 5:00am to see the fun (hopefully).
Change is coming.
The country will be in a better place by the end of this parliament. And better again by the end of a second term.
As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction.
And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion.
The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Yes, he's left wing- more than Brown, much more than Blair. But a decisive slice of the electorate seems to have decided that that is preferable to right wingers, when those right wingers are a parade of crooks, nutters and nobodies. And the electorate are right, even when they're wrong.
How many cabinet members will lose their seats, I wonder?
It's not do bad.
Fair enough. But at the end it says “comments are not enabled for this article”. So we’re not actually allowed to have an honest debate about immigration; presumably the FT is scared someone - everyone - will say “er we don’t want so much immigration”. Great. Thanks for the honest debate
https://www.ft.com/content/b445db9a-0583-452b-bb90-3d8ca1ebf3ba
The process should be:
centre-right government gets elected > centre-right government governs competently in centre-right fashion > centre-right things happen > if voters approve, centre-right government gets re-elected
Instead, we've had:
2019 Cons get elected > 2019 Cons govern incompetently > state drifts leftwards > in reaction to which, various Conservatives both within and without government call for increasingly rightward things > but nothing actually happens > neither centrists not right wingers are happy > 2024 Cons get obliterated at polls
We don't need the Cons to tack to the left nor to the right. We just need them to be more competent.
In defence of the current government, a handful of low-key competent things have indeed happened, including the first thing Sunak achieved when coming into office (something to do with Northern Ireland?). But the shambolic has tended to outweigh the good.
It's only 1:19, so I hope it's a teaser for a longer interview.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1805495751495066087
But they'll pick the odious Jenrick, the vile Braverman or the entitled Badenoch. Priti Patel might end up as the sensible compromise candidate. You could probably do much worse.
The problem is that Starmer is still the least worst option.
Yes he might be to the left of Gordon Brown, but the Tories have so lost their way they are too.
Under Rishi Sunak the Tories have objectively put up taxes and increased redistribution (welfare) to higher rates than under Gordon Brown.
The only difference is that while Labour believe in redistributing from rich to poor, the Tories have been taken over by a cult of redistribution from workers to pensioners.
I don't particularly want higher taxes. But if I'm going to be taxed either way, I'd rather my taxes go to those who need it more, than those who live rent free and asset rich and don't need the extra income.
Plus with Starmer in office it gives the Tories space to figure out why they've lost so badly and how to win back voters in the future.
This time around they're taking advantage of the free poster display candidates get all over Tokyo. They've registered 22 candidates at a cost of 3 million yen each, and they're selling the poster spaces to the highest bidder. They've variously being used to advertise brothels, ponzi schemes or just somebody who was really proud of the picture his kid drew and wanted everyone to see it.
Every Labour Government leaves office with unemployment higher than it inherited.
Not mixed with Red Bull obviously.
Anyway, I’m rambling and I’m off out.
xx
At the moment, the Conservative Party simply isn't ready to be led in a way that the electorate will respond to positively.
That's likely to change, eventually. It could happen immediately after the coming tonking, but that's pretty unlikely. In recent cycles, it has taken several defeats. The more interesting question this time is how little Conservative Party will be left when it comes to its senses.
And there was much rejoicing...
But we should get a good handful at the very least.
I think this will be the lowest Con+Lab share in modern history.
https://x.com/VWGroup/status/1805845370649432499
1) Almost anything was better than Corbyn, and
2) While Levelling Up was, er, a challenging aim, it was a worthwhile one and one I believed in and still do. But a challenging aim was rendered pretty much impossible by Covid and Ukraine, which have impoverished us in a way utterly unanticipated.
Still, at least the 2019 Cons purported to believe in Levelling Up. That pretty much died with the cancellation of HS2 (actually probably with the election of Rishi Sunak - ironically the first Northern MP we've had since Tony Blair).
Or is it the Tories increasing redistribution (welfare) to a higher rate than Gordon Browm you consider lurching rightwards?
The problem is the Tories have neither lurched rightwards not leftwards, doing either would probably be less bad than what's happened.
They've simply lurched.
They've totally lost control and lurched from one scandal to the next, one event to the next, with no grip, no control and no clear long term economic plan.
Partially that's out of their control to be fair, the events of the last few years have been manic, but still they're tired, lost, dazed and no longer fit for office.
As you may know, I am of the view that the far right always flatter to deceive in France. I lived for a time in the south-west where the Le Pen dynasty have long had vocal support. Maybe they will have more of a profile this time but there’s a ceiling to their support.
A little like that fairly pointless piece by Danny the Fink, journalists strive to earn their keep.
Similarly Employers NI as a tax on jobs is a good thing