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Your regular reminder that betting markets are often laughably wrong – politicalbetting.com
Your regular reminder that betting markets are often laughably wrong – politicalbetting.com
Although as I noted at the time when the next Pope markets went up this was a market to avoid as it was the epitome of an insiders’ market.
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And another cloudless sunny day in the Highlands!
Essentially it’s an unknown, black box of a market.
It looks like another Trump effect. I just didn't know enough about the candidates to pick it up, and was too busy laughing at Cardinals funny names.
Net Zero is starting to now run into economic reality with electric cars and deindustrialisation in a way it wasn't in the 2010s.
To go further, we will have to accept real economic damage being done now, with the hope that our global leadership on it galvanises a faster transition to Net Zero worldwide.
Will we?
French MPs suspended for putting drugs and dating app on expenses
Andy Kerbrat allegedly spent €25,000 on drugs while Christine Engrand, who joined a dating site for the over-fifties, says her new assistant is ‘only a friend’
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/french-mps-suspended-putting-drugs-dating-app-expenses-720klgm5n
Revealed: Oliver Oakes resigned days after brother arrested with ‘large amount of cash’
Exclusive: William Oakes charged with ‘transferring criminal property’ and remanded in custody
Oliver Oakes, who resigned abruptly as Alpine Formula One team principal this week, did so just days after his brother William, a fellow director at Hitech Grand Prix, was arrested.
The Telegraph can reveal that William Oakes, 31, who is listed as a director of Hitech Grand Prix on Companies House, was arrested in the Silverstone Park area last Thursday, and charged with “transferring criminal property” last Friday. He was in possession of a large amount of cash, according to police. He has been remanded in custody.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “William Oakes, 31, of Rugby was charged with transferring criminal property on Friday, May 2 after he was stopped in the Silverstone Park area in Northamptonshire on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in possession of a large amount of cash. He appeared before Northampton Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, May 3, and remanded in custody.”
Oliver Oakes, who was at the Miami Grand Prix at the time, declined to comment when approached by The Telegraph. He handed in his resignation earlier this week. His whereabouts are currently unknown. He is understood to have flown to Dubai following Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2025/05/08/oliver-oakes-alpine-resigned-days-police-raid-silverstone/
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"
The only ones who knew were the Cardinals & presumably none of them were engaging in betting activity. And none of them were willing to speak publicly about their preferred choices.
With markets like choice of VP or choice of Supreme Court Justice, you have things like the Presidential candidate making public comments, or leaks from insiders. None of that was present here.
The entire market was just based on uninformed speculation by punters.
* Typo. Except on the Erewash Canal.
FPT: This from @Taz interests me: How has she been impressive, @Roger. I can see some good fairly gentle challenges to the leadership to get their backside in gear on things like Council Tax Reform and more progressive taxation, which are strategic things most of us here want addressed even if we disagree on exact answers
And a bit on her long term campaigns. And having a go at R4 for not being able to pronounce "Haigh" properly (like the WW1 General I think, not horse fodder).
What else do we have?
I'm all for celebrating victory in Europe over vile Nazi scum.
Laughable seeing the French pretend they had much to do with it though.
Good morning, everyone.
The best summary I've seen probably says "good, but with a touch of desperation". The potential benefits from the potential EU one are an order of magnitude greater, at least.
To me it feels very much like a dam against the incoming tide, in the hope that it is nearly at the full, to keep the picnic dry. That's defensive.
There seem to be - Canada style - several things in it being sold as benefits to and by Mr Trump that may have happened anyway. AFAIC they have counted Boeing orders for IAG, some of which may go to other airlines.
And is there also a question of running the Trump clock down by keeping talking, as per the current "principles" Ukraine agreement. A hostage to fortune?
Good for RR and Derby, though.
The middle-class nature of Skircoat ward - which increasingly extends to its Asian community - can be seen in its election results, which we can trace over an unusually long length of time because Calderdale's ward boundaries haven't changed since 2004. Skircoat was strongly Conservative in the 2004 election, but it then developed into a close fight between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats: the Lib Dems won the ward twice, in 2007 and 2010. The Lib Dem vote then faded away over the next decade and Labour moved into second place in 2014; Labour then gained all three seats in Skircoat ward from the Conservatives in 2018-21 and they have pulled away further since then. At the last Calderdale elections in 2024, Skircoat ward remained part of the Labour majority on Calderdale council with vote shares of 52% for Labour, 25% for the Conservatives and 15% for the Green Party. The ward gave 17% to UKIP back in 2014, which might give Reform UK - who are standing here for the first time - something to build on.
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-calderdale-and-eastleigh
Pissed off middle class people with a bit of memory of voting Conservative is textbook Reform; it's not far off as a description of Farage.
Drug dealers!
As you say it's hard to see what concessions we've actually made..
https://www.markpack.org.uk/174677/reform-sheds-a-third-councillor-desmond-clarke/
And it supports the header's title that markets can be ‘laughably wrong’. Markets being wrong is a sign they are not driven by inside information.
They said “he doesn’t know any of the Cardinals… needs to introduce himself to the leading bishops”
This was the man who was head of the house of bishops… and has just been elected pope…
I haven’t remembered to ask anyone why..
Given Fox hires the same way perhaps there is a reason why so many of his appointees are ex Fox?
Locally, disapproval of Rachel Reeves from Halifax employees could be another factor.
And old boundaries is an interesting point for next year. It is possibly the biggest round of all up metro elections due to boundary changes in years - most of West Midlands, Tyneside and West Yorkshire are all up, along with Barnsley and Sefton - there are 16 all up metros next year that are usually by thirds. If Reform have kept cleanish where they are in charge now, they could get a very significant metro foothold in a single year.
Around here (Ashfield), this street had the most Reform decals of any I saw. These are late 1960s / 1970s type housing, quite modest 3 bed ~900-1000sqft with a through lounge typically lived in by people who have dogs they walk on the rec at the back, and perhaps allotments on the big plot across the road. People stay a long time, and may have local family. These will mainly your middle aged -> retired skilled workers, lowish end professionals (nurses, teachers, LA employees), small business. Comfortable but not wealthy - those will be eg in detached bungalows. Note the campervans / caravans.
Current prices for these are approx £220k or so, so modestly above the local average price for a semi.
I think it was the New Statesman podcast that noted that Red Wall type places which still have a functioning housing market and new builds on the outskirts where new people come in (around here often East European migrants buying their 1st or 2nd house), have had their comfort zone made tighter by £££ more on the mortgage payments. They are generally politically grumpy, and politically homeless for some time - swinging perhaps from Ashfield Independent to Reform.
https://x.com/mfa_russia/status/1920734619168616931?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
The people he hired don't actually look the part
Guyliner for Veep?
Alcoholic Defense secretary?
Brain Worm for HHS?
https://x.com/davidyelland/status/1920731010808926623?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
https://x.com/thetimes/status/1920728608919654867
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMfnk-j42Rs
Although the Mad King always looks shit on TV, so maybe that's the standard
Labour has blocked every single measure we’ve put forward to cut immigration and stop abuse of the system.
Now they’re pushing one half-arsed proposal — it’s weak, it won’t work. It’s time they stopped playing games and backed our Deportation bill.
https://x.com/kemibadenoch/status/1920739530862186504?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/09/three-ways-save-tories-reform-centrists-stop-rot
It might have been wrong and he was always a more likely candidate (maybe even pre-ordained), but it could also have been that if you ran the process again he would mostly have come nowhere.
Her problem is that when she and her party were in charge their own work was half-arsed.
I doubt Britain would have been significantly different (the absence of a strong communist movement would possibly have reduced resistance activity, along with out greater population density reducing the opportunity to hide out in the wilds). And far more of us, or our predecessors, would have collaborated than we like to imagine. In the Channel Islands, the small German garrison was overwhelmed with the number of denunciation letters they received from the local populace (the majority not about actual resistance activity but merely using the war as a chance to settle various unneighbourly grievances).
Compare this from JD Vance a couple days ago:
“ I think — I mean this from the heart and as a friend — that there is a trade-off between policing the bounds of democratic speech and debate and losing the trust of our people. And we’re all going to draw the lines a little bit differently,” Vance said. “I’m fine if one country is going to draw those lines a little bit differently than the United States.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/7/its-not-europe-bad-america-good-jd-vance-returns-to-munich-meeting
with his absurd and hostile speech he gave in Munich in February.
There's also been more criticism of Putin and less of Zelensky recently.
I wonder if the China hawks in the US administration have realised:
a) They can't really offer anything to Putin that will make him break with China.
b) They need allies (eg Europe), if they are to take on China.
The meeting between Carney and Trump was also somewhat conciliatory.
She has subsequently been on the radio several times because of the subject matter of this interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ1WFi6Wd98
Prevost was appointed by Francis and made head of Vatican HR:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicastery_for_Bishops
I didn't bet on this at all, but the guy effectively in charge of new appointments, hand picked by the last Pope, and something of a centrist, surely ought to have been shorter odds ?
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2025/05/08/ethanol-beef-big-ag-winners-us-uk
I'm interested in the extensive range of things listed as "agricultural products", which include (bio)ethanol and Scotch Whisky.
I think they are way too optimistic on hormone treated beef and chicken.
IMO our domestic attitudes and EU-deal-required redlines mean that the only beef coming in will be in the High Quality Beef, Non-Hormone-Treated, and Organic categories - both because of chemicals, but also because of welfare standards.
Eg. a council has 50 seats and the small party Dfa at best hope to win 5 seats. They submit a list with 6 people on it. They end up with 16.1% of the vote worth 8 councilors, so two posts are empty. There is no by election, those positions simply remain empty.
They all fucking love me. Not only have they all given me five stars, they've written lovely things about me, and highly recommended me to other hosts
I am always cheerful and polite (mostly just through messages, I've only met one of them on this trip), I leave the places spotless (they love this, and always thank me for it), and whenever I leave I send a message thanking them for letting me stay at their lovely apartment
They all got top marks from me as well
In other news, has Sadiq Khan been spotted at the races as a guest of the Jockey club? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/09/sadiq-khan-to-announce-plans-to-build-houses-on-london-green-belt
https://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/2020/02/smaller-scale-residential-development-option-for-kempton-park-that-retains-both-turf-and-all-weather-racing-put-forward/#:~:text=These unique set of circumstances,planning application has been made.
Essentially Donald is desperate for a deal - any deal - and we’ve taken advantage of that to avoid the worst of his so-called liberation tariffs.
Kemi just looks like an opportunistic idiot. She’s simply not up to it, as predicted by anyone conscious of her lack of achievements in Cabinet.
The Tories have nothing to offer. The only reason I can think of to vote for them might be that they are not Reforn. In a hypothetical Tory/Reform election, I would hold my nose and vote Tory.
One of the lesser known Agatha Christie works.
While Boris was merely lazy and venal, but not thick.
There are probably not enough 'next pope' markets to do any analysis, but it might be that you could show that 'laying the favourite' could be a successful strategy on this kind of market - if you think markets like next Democratic presidential nominee, next Conservative leader, next Pope, can be lumped together...
Not really something to crow about. The only bright spot is reducing the tariff increases in several key U.K. export areas.
Yet Farage considers this the "next Brexit". That feels like a fumble to me. They should stick to national identity and immigration.
https://www.ft.com/content/ecb81e0e-11f6-469b-86ef-8e29996b9019
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/2cyg5l1m/more-in-common-post-election-briefing-4.pdf
You can’t have fraudsters in high office, unfortunately Life is tough. There ought to be no second chances in this respect.
Each constituency will have 6 Senedd members elected. The allocation is done by the d'Hondt method I think.
There are 16 constituencies thus 96 members in all. Sadly the d'Hondt method has a de facto threshold of about 15%
She did a fair amount and had some good people in the policy side of here staff (source: Chris Boardman), so we'll see what emerges in the policy doc which is due soon. My perception of the new Transport Minister Heidi Wotsit is that she's more of a passenger than Louise Haigh had been.
I’m merely noting that the net effect is positive for the UK against what was in place a week ago, and the UK also gains modest diplomatic kudos for being first cab off the rank as it were.
Within the basket of 50/1 bets there will be good and bad value individual bets but if you back a random mix of 1,000 50/1 bets you get on average around 20 winners.
Neither Kemi nor the PM have any of that. She did much better before being leader, seeming to be herself. Being herself, IMO, doesn't include even mild scatological language.
If I'm lucky there might still be some of the highly recommended Lidl lobster tails in there.
The UK would and could have resisted very well. The French can fuck themselves - if everyone who claimed to have been in the resistance after the war had been in the resistance the Germans wouldn’t have stood a chance - would have been the biggest army in the world.
Them celebrating VE Day like they won is all a bit John Terry putting his kit on to celebrate winning a match he wasn’t even allowed to play in.