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Will any party win an overall majority at the next election? – politicalbetting.com
Will any party win an overall majority at the next election? – politicalbetting.com
This market from Ladbrokes is interesting but one that I am not playing, I think it will be easier to lay/back and trade out the individual parties on Betfair.
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Pretty damning when such an unpopular Lab government.
Might even be worth a nibble in case Reform implodes.
Current guesstimate (subject to change of course)
Ref, Lab, Con all 120 to 220 in some shuffled order
LD 50ish
SNP 40ish
Greens 2 or 3
Plaid 2 or 3
NI 18
Others- indies, Rupert Lowe new party, Jezza party, Galloway party etc 10 to 20
Shouldn't Trump be putting his hand in his pocket ?
Smash the.... oh never mind
At this moment, leaving aside overall majority and looking at history, contingency and the LD curve there is a serious arguable possibility for any one of four parties having most seats in 2029. This is novel.
Summary:
Labour: steady as she goes in four years time
Tory: Reform crash, Labour disappoints, genius leader appears
Reform: polls as now
LD: Their climb continues, Lab and Tory continue their downward trend, polls, media and voters eventually agree the election is LD v Reform for want of better.
What larks.
Joking aside it's a very useful and strategically vital base. Mauritius aren't after the islands for their palm trees
I think much like you Big G, as an ex Conservative, I'm not at all raging against Starmer. Rather the reverse - he seems to be the best PM since Cameron.
Unfortunately it seems unlikely such a thing will be challenged any time soon. The list of plausible future PMs is really rather shocking.
If Labour are re elected it will almost certainly be in a minority government propped up by the LDs and maybe the SNP and Greens too
I missed that discussion yesterday. What were the main points/conclusions?
This was about the EU e-gates agreement (and the weakness thereof). We got into the reality or otherwise of post-Brexit queues at passport control, and from there on to whether checked luggage is a thing these days or not.
Roughly half the group insisted they wouldn’t dream of checking in luggage to a flight, it was carry on all the way. The other half were like “wat?! We always check in our bags”.
It just so happens that all the cabin baggers were of a left-liberal bent, and all the checkers were right wing.
Either pure coincidence, or an interesting correlation. Something about rootedness, solidity, tradition vs globalism, treading lightly, citizens of nowhere?
Greens will get squeezed with 4 bigger parties in play - some of their Labour disillusioned votes will return to Labour due to cling to nurse/big bad farage effects. And in any Tory/Reform pact, Waveney and Herefordshire are onbvious Reform abandonments to Tory benefit .
That's current thinking
https://youtu.be/iMoSu6e1IZ0?t=197
I did put luggage in the hold for my SEA trip last year, but then I was given it free by the airlines.
UCEA conducts collective pay negotiations with the five HE trade unions - UCU, UNISON, Unite, EIS and GMB - on behalf of a significant number of UK HE institutions. This is done through the Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES). UCEA member institutions decide individually whether they will participate in each negotiating round to address the uplift to be applied to the national pay spine, covering their employees below Professor and equivalent.
The negotiations take place annually, between March and May. Details of the current or most recent 'pay round' can be found below, as can the pay outcomes for previous years, and general information on the JNCHES arrangements.
I've been trying to build my fitness back over the last several months, counting steps etc to maintain a bit of interest, and I'm about ready to get back on the cycle.
How do you calibrate your "steps" to your cycling. In energy terms effort to distance is about 5:1 cycling:walking. Do you have an app that self-adjusts? I'll get out later on to if my free app can tell the difference.
There was no tactical unwind in 2001 or 2005. Only in 2010 when a hung parliament looked probable did it start, slowly, to happen. It hit in full in 2015.
Best
My globetrotting friend who’s on something like his 110th country is still, and surprisingly, a very heavy packer. When quizzed on it he can’t explain.
He’s been a lifelong Labour voter and worked in diversity and inclusion. Does this disprove my theory? I’m not sure - he’s definitely conservative coded in many other ways. Not a rootless cosmopolitan. More Ramsey than Theroux.
I think 50 seats on 14% is about right, especially if the Tories repeat 24% but are losing heavy ground in the red wall whilst gaining in the blue which seems logical to me with Reforms rise etc
@SpencerHakimian
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15h
Insane stats on just how unpopular Elon Musk has become.
2017: +24
2025: -19
Amongst Democrats:
2017: +35
2025: -91
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1925340215666766085
Reform did pretty poorly in Buckinghamshire, pretty well in Hertfordshire (but not spectacularly), very well in Kent with the rest of the HC uncontested this time and you'd expect Tories to ve more motivated here in a GE whilst Reform are already out and 'voting for change'.
One thing I can confirm is that the Eurostar customs, both at STP and also GdN but especially GdN is not fit for purpose.
I appreciate that both are shoehorning in customs processes to 19th century buildings but still. GdN is like someone has jemmied in a bunch of e-gates into their hallway.
Obviously IF the right coalesces around either Con or Ref then the LDs and Greens will get squeezed out to Labour, but I don't yet see the coalescing happening - the Tories with their 5000 councillors etc will be very hard to squeeze under 20% and Reform don't appear to be going anywhere.
As facts change I'll adjust my expectations!
On packing, yes if it’s a couple of T-shirts, no if it’s an entire month’s worth of clothes for a fortnight’s holiday.
A longer trip, particularly in winter? Checked bags, particularly if staying in one place.
Lol, he's losing the party. We know what happens next
Lamb is the MP for Crawley iirc so will be closer to the Chagos issue than most Labour MPs I think.
To 95% the story is simply he's given away our territory and is paying to lease it back. Any further nuance pro or anti is lost
It's not bad.
You don’t need compassion. You don’t need understanding. You don’t need morality. You just need The Law.
Hence Starmer didn’t change his mind over Trans. The law was interpreted - and his position was always “whatever the law says”
"France is establishing a high-security prison in its overseas territory in South America. Would you support Britain using its overseas territory in the same way?"
Many people are not invested, but those that are pissed off are REALLY pissed off - its one of 'those' issues (one of the few things my Dad has been properly exercised about lately for example instead of just grumpy about). And the news channels are already running interviews with furious Chagossians which will bring fresh perspective to some.
It has potential to vastly outweigh it's actual importance. It also has strong 'Albatross' potential for SKS
Exc: Labour MP Peter Lamb goes studs up in a WhatsApp group after Keir Starmer's Chagos deal announcement: "Getting real tired of this 'the courts have settled it' line of argument being wheeled out by the PM. They interpret current law, MPs make the law. You can't hide behind a judgement and claim it gives you cover from questions over what is right or proper."..."
4:17 pm · 22 May 2025
It's a personality flaw. He's a lawyer and has great respect for the law. He sees his role as playing the game as best he can within the rules. He misses the point that the PM can, and in certain cases must, change the rules or throw over the entire board if it's in the best interest of the UK. It never occurred to him to tell the Court to eff off.
Changing the law is one of the primary jobs of the PM.
That *is* the system.
(For example of minor bets - opposing Farage as next PM, LDs to get most seats, opposing DMill, Burnham, Khan, and a few others to be next Labour leader.)
Or after more money to keep quiet?
It's individual seats like that I have most fun backing
Starmer's old legal firm is representing Mauritius, and stands to earn a packet. It would of course be entirely right, proper and above board that in the course of time, they may make a sizable charitable donation to the 'Keir Starmer foundation' which will fund Sir Keir's vital humanitarian work (and vital swimming pool) in the future.
If Starmer gave it a try he might be surprised how many people rather liked it.
The one which looks like a longer trend is the slow LD rise. If this continues then by 2029 it could affect the big picture as dramatically as Reform is affecting it now. The LDs, like Reform, are relatively untainted by recent office so the rules are different.
Interesting about the luggage thing. I just do it based on how much luggage I've got, as Foxy also said.
Hence the UN & the Falklands. Despite the fact that the actual Falkland Islanders want the status quo, the UN bangs on about it - why? Well, under the doctrine of decolonisation meaning giving all the bits of land to the local players, consulting the Falkland islanders is wrong and irrelevant.
In the case of Chagos, this means that consulting the Chagos Islanders is wrong. In fact that would be a colonialist mentality.
Whether there’s a Con/Ref merger or some sort of pact or all-out war will obviously make a big difference.