Canadians are sooooooo due a change election, and the swap leader out at last moment gimmick was never going to work.
Nor will electing liberals be seen as necessary to combat Trump. As we see with UK, people who will never vote Starmer still rally to the flag when under attack from Trump, but rally to government and flag energy, expressing something positive about Starmer, doesn’t transfer to real votes for Starmer or his party.
The "change in government" has already happened with a new Prime Minister, who is actively getting rid of unpopular policies such as the Carbon Tax.
In Australia, it is very common, particularly at the State level, for old & unpopular governments to swap out leaders and get one more election victory. For example, in New South Wales, the Bob Carr Labor government had been in power for 10 years and was becoming unpopular by 2005. The Party swapped out the Premier to Morris Iemma, who then changed some of Carr's policies, such as eliminating a vendor tax on properties, and was then able to reverse a polling deficit & win the 2007 State Election.
Worked here for the Tories in 1992 (Thatcher to Major) and 2019 (May to Johnson). Didn't work Johnson to Sunak via Truss - or Wilson to Callaghan for Labour. Nor Blair to Brown.
The Liberals are ahead by double-digits in both Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadians live.
It would need to be one hell of a polling miss. But, it's possible the national polls are out by just enough for the Conservatives pip the popular vote. Bit like last time.
Canadians are sooooooo due a change election, and the swap leader out at last moment gimmick was never going to work.
Nor will electing liberals be seen as necessary to combat Trump. As we see with UK, people who will never vote Starmer still rally to the flag when under attack from Trump, but rally to government and flag energy, expressing something positive about Starmer, doesn’t transfer to real votes for Starmer or his party.
The "change in government" has already happened with a new Prime Minister, who is actively getting rid of unpopular policies such as the Carbon Tax.
In Australia, it is very common, particularly at the State level, for old & unpopular governments to swap out leaders and get one more election victory. For example, in New South Wales, the Bob Carr Labor government had been in power for 10 years and was becoming unpopular by 2005. The Party swapped out the Premier to Morris Iemma, who then changed some of Carr's policies, such as eliminating a vendor tax on properties, and was then able to reverse a polling deficit & win the 2007 State Election.
Worked here for the Tories in 1992 (Thatcher to Major) and 2019 (May to Johnson). Didn't work Johnson to Sunak via Truss - or Wilson to Callaghan for Labour. Nor Blair to Brown.
I would argue that Wilson to Callaghan would have worked pretty well... if only Callaghan had called an election in 1978.
As it was, he hung on, it was the Winter of Discontent, and the rest is history.
Callaghan hanging on in 1978 would be a fascinating counterfactual.
The UK economy is set to slow sharply for the next two years as Donald Trump’s global tariff war weighs on consumer spending and business investment, a study by a leading forecaster has predicted. The findings by EY Item Club, which is sponsored by the big four accountancy firm EY, come as a separate survey reported that confidence in Britain’s economy has fallen to the lowest level on record.
Reeves' assumptions on both growth and productivity looked seriously toppy at the time she made them but they are so far off the mark now. She urgently needs to cut spending (but not ideally capital spending) in the year. The most obvious way is to try hard to reduce the headcount by a meaningful amount. It is disappointing that a hiring freeze has not been announced already. She has not shown herself to be responsive to the various headwinds that she is facing.
The Liberals are ahead by double-digits in both Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadians live.
It would need to be one hell of a polling miss. But, it's possible the national polls are out by just enough for the Conservatives pip the popular vote. Bit like last time.
But Carney will still win.
Has anyone any idea when we might expect exit poll results from Canada? I am presuming that these may vary a bit given the several time zones involved.
The UK economy is set to slow sharply for the next two years as Donald Trump’s global tariff war weighs on consumer spending and business investment, a study by a leading forecaster has predicted. The findings by EY Item Club, which is sponsored by the big four accountancy firm EY, come as a separate survey reported that confidence in Britain’s economy has fallen to the lowest level on record.
Reeves' assumptions on both growth and productivity looked seriously toppy at the time she made them but they are so far off the mark now. She urgently needs to cut spending (but not ideally capital spending) in the year. The most obvious way is to try hard to reduce the headcount by a meaningful amount. It is disappointing that a hiring freeze has not been announced already. She has not shown herself to be responsive to the various headwinds that she is facing.
A hiring freeze would make very little difference to the budget, but would substantially damage effectiveness. It's lazy management. If you want to reduce headcount, choose who you want to keep and retain the option to bring in replacements. Don't just make everything shit and lose your best performers.
The Liberals are ahead by double-digits in both Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadians live.
It would need to be one hell of a polling miss. But, it's possible the national polls are out by just enough for the Conservatives pip the popular vote. Bit like last time.
But Carney will still win.
Has anyone any idea when we might expect exit poll results from Canada? I am presuming that these may vary a bit given the several time zones involved.
Do they still have that weird rule where the Canadian media can't report anything until all polls have closed, but instead the information is just passed American journalists for them to report it.
Canadians are sooooooo due a change election, and the swap leader out at last moment gimmick was never going to work.
Nor will electing liberals be seen as necessary to combat Trump. As we see with UK, people who will never vote Starmer still rally to the flag when under attack from Trump, but rally to government and flag energy, expressing something positive about Starmer, doesn’t transfer to real votes for Starmer or his party.
The "change in government" has already happened with a new Prime Minister, who is actively getting rid of unpopular policies such as the Carbon Tax.
In Australia, it is very common, particularly at the State level, for old & unpopular governments to swap out leaders and get one more election victory. For example, in New South Wales, the Bob Carr Labor government had been in power for 10 years and was becoming unpopular by 2005. The Party swapped out the Premier to Morris Iemma, who then changed some of Carr's policies, such as eliminating a vendor tax on properties, and was then able to reverse a polling deficit & win the 2007 State Election.
Worked here for the Tories in 1992 (Thatcher to Major) and 2019 (May to Johnson). Didn't work Johnson to Sunak via Truss - or Wilson to Callaghan for Labour. Nor Blair to Brown.
I would argue that Wilson to Callaghan would have worked pretty well... if only Callaghan had called an election in 1978.
As it was, he hung on, it was the Winter of Discontent, and the rest is history.
Callaghan hanging on in 1978 would be a fascinating counterfactual.
I still think there was a level excitement around Thatcher as the first female PM that would have carried her over the line in 1978. Council house sales to the owner would still have been an offering Labour wouldn't match whenever the election. The move away from tired nationalised industries might have got a boost from winter 78, but again, was already an issue whenever the election.
I'm offering to wager £10 on Michael Czerny as next pope at a price of 150 at Smarkets. Down from 200. Perhaps some are frit at the possibility that the Jesuits will make it a double?
(Why I think this is a value if fun bet is just think of the strings that must have been yanked to get Ratzinger out. Talk about tearing up the rulebook.)
The theory goes that Ratzinger got himself out. He was distressed at the corruption in the Vatican and needed a change of Pope to deal with it. Clearly he couldn't do away with himself, so he did what he did.
Canadians are sooooooo due a change election, and the swap leader out at last moment gimmick was never going to work.
Nor will electing liberals be seen as necessary to combat Trump. As we see with UK, people who will never vote Starmer still rally to the flag when under attack from Trump, but rally to government and flag energy, expressing something positive about Starmer, doesn’t transfer to real votes for Starmer or his party.
The "change in government" has already happened with a new Prime Minister, who is actively getting rid of unpopular policies such as the Carbon Tax.
In Australia, it is very common, particularly at the State level, for old & unpopular governments to swap out leaders and get one more election victory. For example, in New South Wales, the Bob Carr Labor government had been in power for 10 years and was becoming unpopular by 2005. The Party swapped out the Premier to Morris Iemma, who then changed some of Carr's policies, such as eliminating a vendor tax on properties, and was then able to reverse a polling deficit & win the 2007 State Election.
Worked here for the Tories in 1992 (Thatcher to Major) and 2019 (May to Johnson). Didn't work Johnson to Sunak via Truss - or Wilson to Callaghan for Labour. Nor Blair to Brown.
I would argue that Wilson to Callaghan would have worked pretty well... if only Callaghan had called an election in 1978.
As it was, he hung on, it was the Winter of Discontent, and the rest is history.
Callaghan hanging on in 1978 would be a fascinating counterfactual.
I think the Conservatives would have won the next election after handsomely.
The question is whether they'd have stuck with Thatcher after a loss.
The Liberals are ahead by double-digits in both Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadians live.
It would need to be one hell of a polling miss. But, it's possible the national polls are out by just enough for the Conservatives pip the popular vote. Bit like last time.
But Carney will still win.
Has anyone any idea when we might expect exit poll results from Canada? I am presuming that these may vary a bit given the several time zones involved.
I think the first results may be available after 7pm (EST). So about midnight here.
In theory, Newfoundland should be earlier but I don't know if it will be.
I'm offering to wager £10 on Michael Czerny as next pope at a price of 150 at Smarkets. Down from 200. Perhaps some are frit at the possibility that the Jesuits will make it a double?
(Why I think this is a value if fun bet is just think of the strings that must have been yanked to get Ratzinger out. Talk about tearing up the rulebook.)
The theory goes that Ratzinger got himself out. He was distressed at the corruption in the Vatican and needed a change of Pope to deal with it. Clearly he couldn't do away with himself, so he did what he did.
Or the scandals pointed more directly at him, so they got him out to help preserve the church's reputation. Which is another reason they went for a relative moderate reformed such as Francis.
I'm offering to wager £10 on Michael Czerny as next pope at a price of 150 at Smarkets. Down from 200. Perhaps some are frit at the possibility that the Jesuits will make it a double?
(Why I think this is a value if fun bet is just think of the strings that must have been yanked to get Ratzinger out. Talk about tearing up the rulebook.)
The theory goes that Ratzinger got himself out. He was distressed at the corruption in the Vatican and needed a change of Pope to deal with it. Clearly he couldn't do away with himself, so he did what he did.
Or the scandals pointed more directly at him, so they got him out to help preserve the church's reputation. Which is another reason they went for a relative moderate reformed such as Francis.
In terms of sexual abusers Ratzinger actually removed more than Francis
Another factor related to the Canadian election is that voters in Parliamentary systems (UK, Canada, Australia) behave differently to voters in the USA.
In general, voters in parliamentary systems are a lot less likely to take a chance on giving power to those opposition leaders who promise radical change for the country. This means that successful opposition leaders are the types of people who give off reassuring/centrist vibes and don't give off vibes of being radicals of either left or right.
For example, Tony Blair, David Cameron & Keir Starmer, all give off reassuring vibes of being the types of people who can be trusted to not do anything too extreme once they become Prime Minister.
In the Canadian context, Stephen Harper or Justin Trudeau would be type of person who gives off Blair/Cameron vibes.
Pierre Poilievre gives off very different vibes of being a MAGA radical, and he is not the type of opposition leader is generally successful in winning power from opposition.
I think all the points made were covered in the article or part of general discussion or expanded upon it, so unlike its predecessors no changes will be made.
Take an A4 piece of paper, fold it in two, that gives you four sheets of A5. I read the book two times, then read it again making notes on that piece of paper every lunchtime: a little each day mounts up. The article was based off those notes. The criticisms are true: it's a nice book to surf off, and the froth will carry you through, but when you dig down you notice structural problems. The section two "Artificial states of nature" can be summarised as "Woke is bad. Imperial Russia/Soviet Union is also bad. Here is a list of people who have suffered in Russia." which is very interesting, but is a fifty-plus page digression.
The article spent around two weeks in pre-read, so thanks to my pre-readers. My initial review reviewed the book as given, but it took rcs1000 to point out the problems with Gray's evolved liberalism theory: his recommendations were inserted into the article. He thinks it's the weakest of his books: I've only read this and "Black Mass" so I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Now freelance and devoid of an editor, Gray overwrites and discurses, to his detriment, which is a pity.
The video in the article was a nice coincidence. For a long time I intended to use this longer video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZbR7HE_ER8 (90 mins) instead, but the shorter one popped up recently so I used it instead. The longer one is more fun but less focussed.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you liked it.
This is the latest in a series of articles by me. They fall into three broad camps: the Measurement Series, about how we measure political concepts, the Ideas series, about current political concepts, and the Chronicle of a Bet Foretold series, about the logistics of betting wrt specific election. Some were lost after the reorganisation, but those that are recoverable include the following (the numbers are the number of comments)
Comments
Revealed: online campaign urged far right to attack China’s opponents in UK
Social media incitement following last summer’s riots appears to be new tactic against Hong Kong exiles
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/revealed-online-campaign-urged-far-right-to-attack-chinas-opponents-in-uk
It would need to be one hell of a polling miss. But, it's possible the national polls are out by just enough for the Conservatives pip the popular vote. Bit like last time.
But Carney will still win.
As it was, he hung on, it was the Winter of Discontent, and the rest is history.
Callaghan hanging on in 1978 would be a fascinating counterfactual.
The question is whether they'd have stuck with Thatcher after a loss.
In theory, Newfoundland should be earlier but I don't know if it will be.
NEW THREAD
@Andy_JS, @AnneJGP, @BatteryCorrectHorse, @bondegezou, @Casino_Royale, @College, @EPG, @Foxy, @HYUFD, @isam, @kinabalu, @kinabalu, @Luckyguy1983, @MarqueeMark, @MoonRabbit, @MustaphaMondeo, @Nigelb, @occasionalranter, @RochdalePioneers, @rottenborough, @Scott_xP, @Smart51, @Stark_Dawning, @williamglenn
I think all the points made were covered in the article or part of general discussion or expanded upon it, so unlike its predecessors no changes will be made.
Take an A4 piece of paper, fold it in two, that gives you four sheets of A5. I read the book two times, then read it again making notes on that piece of paper every lunchtime: a little each day mounts up. The article was based off those notes. The criticisms are true: it's a nice book to surf off, and the froth will carry you through, but when you dig down you notice structural problems. The section two "Artificial states of nature" can be summarised as "Woke is bad. Imperial Russia/Soviet Union is also bad. Here is a list of people who have suffered in Russia." which is very interesting, but is a fifty-plus page digression.
The article spent around two weeks in pre-read, so thanks to my pre-readers. My initial review reviewed the book as given, but it took rcs1000 to point out the problems with Gray's evolved liberalism theory: his recommendations were inserted into the article. He thinks it's the weakest of his books: I've only read this and "Black Mass" so I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Now freelance and devoid of an editor, Gray overwrites and discurses, to his detriment, which is a pity.
The video in the article was a nice coincidence. For a long time I intended to use this longer video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZbR7HE_ER8 (90 mins) instead, but the shorter one popped up recently so I used it instead. The longer one is more fun but less focussed.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you liked it.
Chronicle of a Bet Foretold
CBF1_EUDEPARTURE https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/03/24/viewcode-on-the-chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold/ 539
CBF2_ALTERNATES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/09/22/chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold-part-2/ 490
CBF3_FINLAND https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/21/finland/ 383
CBF4_THINGRUEL https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/07/02/chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold-thin-gruel/ 726
The Ideas series
IDE1_UKRAINE https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/05/02/why-ukraine-was-particularly-vulnerable/ 555
IDE2_INTERMARIUM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/01/29/the-intermarium/ 372
IDE3_CEREMONIES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/06/ceremonies/ 811
IDE4_TRANSHUMANISM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/07/transhumanism/ 501
IDE5_HISTORY https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/21/the-history-of-gambling/ 359
IDE5_SOLARPUNK https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/05/12/solarpunk/ 271
IDE6_BLOB https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/ 346
IDE7_HELL https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/11/29/hell/ 559
IDE8_BRITAIN https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/03/30/the-matter-of-britain/ 512
IDE9_HYPERLIBERALISM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/04/27/hyperliberalism/ 317
The Measurement series
MEA1_CLASSIFICATION https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/07/classification/ 369
MEA2_ELITES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/13/elites/ 511
MEA3_PARTIES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/06/05/parties/ 2078
Other
REV1_BADBOYS https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/09/15/the-bad-boys-of-brexit-a-review/ 500
REV2_NATIONALPOPULISM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/10/06/national-populism-the-revolt-against-liberal-democracy-a-review/ 264