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Why the Tories find themselves in a pickle – politicalbetting.com
Why the Tories find themselves in a pickle – politicalbetting.com
What's the story warring Tories? Let's look at some @IpsosUK polling today on what the public think about different leadership candidates & the reasons behind the Conservatives recent defeat.Cons in a difficult spot. No easy answers.Let's dive in?https://t.co/P3Ax6XXg60
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Good morning, everyone.
F1: McLaren now 42 points off Red Bull. 10 races left.
Last three races they've narrowed the gap by 9, 27, and 9 points.
Far from certain, but fairly content with the 4 on them to take that title. And glad I hedged my Norris 29 bet.
What they should’ve been angry about is the terrible direction and editing of the whole thing!
“They were seen as too left wing” is down at 6%. LOL, given how a few loud voices kept insisting this was the problem.
Priti: Rwanda
Tugendhat: Remain
Kemi: culture wars
Jenrick: Mickey Mouse
Anyway, we shall see this afternoon which MPs have 10 backers and are lining up in the Tory leadership stakes.
Should be easy.
Norfolk Constabulary has a charging rate six times higher than the Met
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/28/how-back-to-basics-police-chief-shoplifters-justice/ (£££)
Right at the bottom, the Chief Constable notes a distinct change in the types of goods stolen. Where five years ago, it was primarily cosmetics and alcohol, it was now food that was the most common amid the cost of living crisis. “There’s no doubt people are stealing food to put on their table,” he said.
No matter how had the Tories try to cosplay Farage they will only ever be a berk in a silly costume. The hard right want the Nigel and can have him - look he's in parliament leading a party and everything.
The Tories have spent a decade trying to edge out Farage by getting more and more mental - and look what good it did them. A record vote for the nutter party and a record desertion of the non-nutter vote from themselves.
Their route back to power is simple: Fuck Farage.
Tell the Brexit obsessives and jingoists that they should join Reform. Bring back the Conservative Party, oppose from a base of sensible economics, pro business and moderate social values. Recover. Win.
Yes, they will lose some of their vote to Farage. But *that has already happened*. But they can win back all their other lost voters. And their self-respect. And besides which the Faragists are genuinely dying off. Unless the Tories can rediscover policies which encourage 20-somethings to vote for them, they will also die off.
1) Perez has driven his last race for RB. Danny Ric steps back in, Lawson to Torro Tauri App
2) The Honey Badger does a much better job of supporting Verstappen and picks up a couple of podiums
3) This won't help RB as Max is an angry and increasingly demented driver with his dad angrily attacking the team from inside the garage
4) Max retains the driver's title - just. McLaren take the constructors. Verstappen leaves for Mercedes.
Red Bull won't release him for free and Mercedes will not pay a transfer fee.
It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion.
Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
I suspect not.
Russell appears entirely good enough to lead the team, and they don't need to replace Hamilton with someone who'll also cost tens of millions in salary, and who's likely to disrupt the team.
They've some very promising youngsters in the pipeline.
I've been telling you for fourteen years that austerity wasn't a choice, you owe David Cameron and George Osborne et al an apology.
Rachel Reeves will promise to sell off empty public buildings and slash government spending on consultants to balance the books, as she accuses the Conservatives of “running away” from difficult economic decisions and wrecking the nation’s finances.
In her first major speech as chancellor, Reeves will identify a £20 billion black hole in government spending on Monday as she seeks to pin the blame for future tax rises on Tory profligacy.
Echoing the arguments made by George Osborne for austerity after the Conservatives won power in 2010, Reeves will warn government departments and quangos of a cost-cutting drive across Whitehall after the Conservatives over-spent this year’s budgets by billions of pounds. The chancellor will launch the Office of Value for Money, a government agency to combat waste, as she warns of tighter spending.
As part of an immediate squeeze, she will accelerate the sell-off of empty public buildings and reduce the use of external consultants, a move expected to save £500 million.
The sale of surplus public property — a money-raising policy championed by Osborne — has generated £3 billion for the exchequer since 2010. Government reliance on consultants dramatically increased after Brexit and during the pandemic. Since the last election, Deloitte has won contracts worth £1.9 billion while its rivals, KPMG, EY and PwC, have earned £1.3 billion, £1.03 billion and £1 billion respectively.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-to-slash-spending-and-sell-off-empty-buildings-7hmqk5qlc
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/28/lib-dems-plan-to-finish-the-job-in-tory-heartlands-says-ed-davey
Reeves is a chess player, and by all accounts a very fine one. I think we should assume this is the curtain raiser to tax rises and spending cuts that will actually be noticeable next year.
As to Times sub-editing, that's a lot of contracts since the last election, just three and a half weeks ago.
Shame none of them work.
Not that I’m praising Reeves here. There’s an obvious mismatch: £20bn gap versus savings of a few billion.
Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
We saw during the coalition that there is large overlaps between Tory and LibDem, as there is LD and Labour. The challenge in politics usually isn't policy, it is ideology. For the sane Tories to join the LDs they would need to party the ideology. As I did when I joined from Labour.
Also MAGA:
https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1817252274801954991/photo/1
I confess to severe disappointment that Labour are seemingly going to 'pause' infrastructure projects like the A303 Stonehenge and A27 Arundel bypasses; I can't see how that's going to help the economy grow.
Would much rather see higher taxes on the wealthy (myself included).
Still, a focus on balancing the books is to be applauded, and not quite in line with the "IMF bail-out by 2027" line being punted by Labour critics on here.
From what I can pick up, the Verstappen Snr / Horny relationship is so bad that it threatens the entire team. You don't fire the team boss in favour of your driver unless you are Ferrari, so Verstappen may need to actually leave. But to where?
He would be *brilliant* in an Indycar seat. Stick him in Penske alongside Will Power. What larks that would be!
So, for example, HS2 to Euston, Leeds and Manchester will pay for itself six times over. HS2 from Old Oak Common to Crewe will make a loss. But the latter is a headline spending cut so is GOOD!
A new road around Newport would create a huge amount of wealth in South Wales by unclogging that key artery from Newport to Cardiff and allowing people and goods to be transported quickly and reliably. Lots of lovely tax revenue. But - it needs money so BAAD!
I'm not sure whether to blame Thatcher/Major with their tight monetary policies and suspicion of government intervention, or Brown with his stupid decision to call all his spending 'investment' even though most of his non-PFI stuff was current account spending.
The Tory ideology of Cakeism- denouncing immigration whilst at the same time creating new immigration records- was a cognitive dissonance that clearly alienated the Leave right. It's hard to see how the Tories square that circle. Frankly, if Braverman did a hissy fit off to Farage, then at least the Tories might become Conservatives once more, and the populists would know to vote RefUK Ltd.
Perhaps it's time the "broad church" accepted a disruption of the kirk, so they can finally decide what they stand for.
That record tax take was and is being spent.
Ditto with all the borrowed money.
Of course "austerity" is a choice. We shouldn't borrow to spend on opex, but we should to spend on capex. Slashing overspends is sensible, and as the new ministers dig into departments they will find case after case after case where "austerity" is costing money. Stupid cuts necessitating crisis spending which cost more than the cut.
I anticipate that they will invest back into those "austerity" measures so that after a brief period costing more they cost less. Stop spending the education budget on consultants and emergency building repairs and the impact of not having enough teachers, and instead make the school building habitable and thus cheaper and have teachers to save on that emergency spending.
"Austerity" is gleefully cutting for ideological reasons.
Food? Do the deal with the EU on food standards to slash the cost burden on the industry.
Rent? Needs a longer term plan. In the short term, take all public sector property off the market and cut rents to viable levels. That will have a catastrophic effect on spiv landlords who get to sell their properties at a discount which can then be bought and added to social stock and rented for less.
Yes there is a cost to this. But a much greater benefit when so much of the cash needed to circulate is allowed to circulate instead of being skimmed off by the landlords.
The Red Bull team does indeed appear close to implosion behind the scenes, with Newey departed and Horny up against Marko and Vertappen Sr - not to mention an industrial tribunal in a few months’ time, from the former PA to Horny and Newey, over the team manager’s alleged inappropriate behaviour.
I reckon Magnussen goes to Indycar next year, as no-one in F1 particularly wants to give him a drive. Perez might end up there too, if as expected he gets replaced by Ricciardo at Red Bull.
But yes, the Faragists can't be won back-at least, not without shedding an equivalent number of votes to the left. So better not to try too hard, on the basis of not worrying about things you can't control.
Ironically, the best hope for a Conservative revival is Labour succeeding in reducing the salience of immigration as an issue.
I'm waiting to hear what the actual issues are - as the original ones seemed to be that there was a whole set of issues where money is needed and hasn't been budgeted for while this morning the issue was that money was being spent on the wrong things.
So I'm expecting to hear of more examples like Rwanda where £700m has been sent for a pointless exercise because the numbers didn't add up...
Sir Keir Starmer appears to have opened the door to returning the treasures to Athens amid a broader bid to “reset” relations with Europe, with Labour indicating that it could accept a long-term loan agreement between the British Museum and Greek ministers.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/labour-opens-door-to-loan-agreement-with-greece-for-elgin-marbles-cvwxqjhwv
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/june2024
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/quantitative-easing
Mr. Pioneers, I largely agree. McLaren for the Constructors' seems eminently possible. I think Verstappen may win by a healthier than expected margin, but we'll see.
Edited extra bit: not sure if Verstappen will leave, though.
Many of the things claimed to be of the second sort are actually of the first sort.
And what decides whether an investment ends in making or losing money is often outside your control and sometimes just luck.
Not very convincing.
Every member of the Team GB men’s four and half the men’s eight at the Paris Olympics are Brookes alumni
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/07/28/oxford-brookes-is-gb-rowings-new-talent-factory/ (£££)
As General Melchett reminds us, in what was said to be an ad lib by Cambridge alumnus Stephen Fry (20-second video):-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKuHYO9TM5A
The slower pupils thought 2019 was the final Brexit election. 2028 will be fought over the stab in the back myth. Bet in the leadership election accordingly. This kills Turd, makes Nige a shoo in ignoring eligibility, the others all look the same to me, but it's whichever is brexitest.
If I look at Florence you see that High Speed there is a long term project
1) Create the high speed track to the city edge
2) bring trains in slowly to the existing station
3) Build new station and finish the high speed track with a tunnel through the City
For Euston its way more complex
There is no route from Oak common to Euston and it's at capacity anyway. Hence Euston has the following projects all required at the same time:
1) High speed track to the city edge
2) new station at Euston for HS2
3) high speed track to Euston...
4) improved underground station to cope with passengers on HS2*
You can see why it's so expensive - the biggest issue is that there any changes require a redesign (which adds time and money) so it's also cheaper to just f***ing build it.
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Reality is I think Max is staying at Red Bull for 2025/26 and when the new rules have determined which engine is the best then Max will decide what to do..
Edit - quick google, surprisingly Marko's extension is to 2026 (not a surprise given the sentence above)
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3179047,-1.1116897,3a,55.8y,159.13h,80.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sN-DVvz_lHAt0BKxql8DyHg!2e0!5s20230601T000000!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu
https://www.worksopguardian.co.uk/health/green-light-for-major-ae-expansion-at-worksops-bassetlaw-hospital-4052498
When government wants something its called investment. When it doesn't its saving money.
Absolute arses.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/05/hs2-keir-starmer-hypocrit-delay/
When he voted against the HS2 Bill in Parliament the following year, he insisted it was “my duty to stand with my constituents facing 20 years of devastation”.
Speaking in a debate held before the Bill passed through the Commons, he told MPs: “HS2 will come into Primrose Hill and crash through to Euston, destroying everything in its path.
“It is no wonder that at every meeting and everywhere I go in my constituency, anxiety is etched on the faces of everybody who talks to me about HS2. It is an appalling situation, one that is wholly unacceptable on any basis.”
Sir Keir also urged “compensation and mitigation” for affected residents. In November 2018, by which point he had been a member of the shadow cabinet for more than two years, he tweeted about “the devastating impact of HS2 in Camden”.
wasn't it environmental issues that nixed the Newport to Cardiff road?
What's obvious (and TBF was back then) is that the pre election plans don't stack up financially.
It's probably also true that she's found more unbudgeted stuff than she had assumed.
The A303 past Stonehenge has been a massive bottleneck for even longer, especially in the summer evenings. I remember being in the queue for what felt like hours as a kid in the ‘80s. Someone needs to decide to either start digging the tunnel or dual the existing road, then JFDI.
So much of the national infrastructure can be improved by eliminating a small number of these transport pinch points.
The analysis in the thread header is spot on and time for the conservatives to send Braverman and others to Reform
On the economy not sure how Labour can complain about a 20 billion deficit when they are about to commit to an inflationary settlement in the public sector costing 10 billion or more plus plans to raise the national living wage by £2 per hour
I expect the prospect of interest rate reduction are on a knife because of these announcements alone
So I'm expecting to hear of more examples like Rwanda where £700m has been sent for a pointless exercise because the numbers didn't add up...
There have already been
liesdistortionsexaggerations about Rwanda in the costing from Labour. Bundling all the staff costs into the bill would be fine if this was new staff, or if you wouldn't be employing them otherwise.liesdistortionsexaggerations about Rwanda in the costing from Labour. Bundling all the staff costs into the bill would be fine if this was new staff, or if you wouldn't be employing them otherwise.10,000 staff being employed doing X when they could be doing something more useful is still a waste of money if X was completely pointless.
It depends on if its future net income (itself dependent upon future demand, future income, future costs) would ever match its incurred costs.
Multiple uncertainties over a multi-generational time period.
On a net basis amongst all voters Tugendhat performs best followed by Jenrick and I could well see Tory MPs putting those as the final two to members. Cleverly has the joint highest favourable score with Tugendhat but a higher unfavorable score too
The Liberal Party believed in reforming the voting system when we were last in power, and indeed were introducing PR nationally, when the whole process was interrupted by the First World War.
I actually heard a valid argument for HS3 going to Wales a couple of weeks ago - the current rail tunnels are so old that the next set of maintenance will take years/ a decade to complete. So the plan would be:
1) build new tunnel to HS spec,
2) route trains into new tunnel
3) refurbish old tunnel
4) build new line
The reason for 3/4 is that the expensive bit is the new tunnel everything else is cheap compared to that tunnel..
My Dad is 85. He has been waiting for two epochal events in his life since the 1990's - the duelling of the A303 and Bath to actually build the new stadium that's been talked of since the 1990's. I used to think he would see both in his lifetime, but I am no longer sure of either.