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Who will be Tory leader at the next general election? – politicalbetting.com
Who will be Tory leader at the next general election? – politicalbetting.com
Smarkets have some very low liquidity markets on who will be Tory leader at the next general election but it chimes in with markets where punters think Kemi Badenoch is doomed where it is believed that senior members of Hezbollah and the IRFC have longer career prospects that Kemi Badenoch.
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What is it about the modern Tory party that gives you Kemi, Truss and Boris. Does reading the Telegraph cause brain damage?
The traditional job of the Tories is to get things back on track after Labour seriously screws things up. 1979 and 2010 are classic examples of that. Labour are doing their part with real dedication by the likes of Reeves and Miliband. But I am not seeing an alternative worthy of the name.
I'm about to the do the annual charade of negotiating my car insurance down to a reasonable price. Last year I knocked £300 off by fabricating a quote from another provider - my 6 years of loyalty means nothing, apparently.
It's a tax on those without the time or wherewithal to challenge their renewal prices.
"Do you want America to be at war with Iran?"
No: 85%
Yes: 5%
YouGov / June 22, 2025
https://bsky.app/profile/usapolling.bsky.social/post/3lsaj2uj7hc2l
And add Starmer should also be wary of Trump. I don't expect an Iran war to be any more popular in the UK.
My instinct is that's a bit too broad a definition. But, like any football fan, what I'm really interested in is consistency of application of the law. If Palestine Action (and their wider supporters) are being prosecuted on this basis, why isn't everyone who took part in the Southport riots, and those online who supported them, being similarly banged up on terrorism charges?
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism
Is that lady not the studio cleavage on GB News?
Starmer has tried to be the friend of the wanker, easing him away from the truly stupid - he needs to be very mindful of not following Trump into insanity.
Iran is going to close the Straights of Hormuz. That by definition will lead to open warfare between Iran and the US. We should not get involved - other than working with the likes of Qatar to broker the inevitable climb down and peace deal.
If you are roughly where I think you are, it could be a Subaru
It presents an interesting alt-history actually. Imagine if we had none of Colin Powell and Blair’s UN shenanigans. And W had just sent in B2s to take out the most notable legacy WMD sites in a night or three - Desert Fox v2. That old b*stare Hussein would probably be sat on his golden toilet sending out viral tweets.
The issue for Tesla - though - is that the latest published data on time between disengagements is just 371 miles. Now, I'm sure it will be better for the service area, because they'll have mapped it extensively, and it will have been chosen for not having complex intersections, etc. But -still- 371 miles is around 1% of the Waymo number.
I paid £224 this year. God knows how, but I'll take it.
Has the UK ever seemed so irrelevant in an international crisis? Genuine question...
The government isn't even able to say publicly if it is for or against the US strikes on Iran Defence minister @LukePollard dodged the question despite being asked 4 times by @WilfredFrost
Q: Is our government pleased or disappointed that the US took this action (to attack Iran)?
A: It is not for me to comment on the particular US action
But yes, it's a hassle, for some a very disagreeable hassle. I'd much rather not bother, and would happily pay quite a bit more to not do so.
(See also, utility contracts and salaries. High pay is often more about willingness to demand it as any intrinsic worth of the job or brilliance at it.)
If they accidentally hit the power plant then it could cause a Chernobyl-level disaster:
In a worst-case scenario, a strike on Bushehr, which contains “thousands of kilogrammes of nuclear material”, would require evacuation orders to be issued for areas within several hundred kilometres of the plant, including population centres in other Gulf countries, he said.
Grossi said that a strike on the two lines that supply electricity to Bushehr could cause its reactor core to melt, with dire consequences.
Authorities would have to take protective actions, administering iodine to populations and potentially restricting food supplies, with subsequent radiation monitoring covering distances of several hundred kilometres.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/20/iaeas-grossi-warns-of-nuclear-disaster-if-israel-hits-irans-bushehr-plant
This affects the probabilities. Only one party, however flawed, can form or lead a government on behalf of moderates wanting maximally stable government. That one is Labour. The chances of either a Labour or Labour led government in 2029 are high.
In a rare example of karma in international affairs, Trump and Netanyahu are having to clean up their own mess at much higher cost than if they'd just stuck to the deal in the first place.
The question is: to what extent did the US disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment program?
And there are (broadly) three possible scenarios:
(1) They destroyed the centrifuges and buried the enriched uranium. Even getting their hands on the uranium is going to be difficult, and a nuclear device is now at least 5 years away, and possibly more like 10.
(2) They destroyed the enrichment facility and the centrifuges, but didn't manage to put the HEU beyond use. In this scenario, Iran will probably acquire new centrifuges over the next few years, and will begin enrichment again, at somewhere even more fortified than previously. In which case, they are probably 3 to 5 years away from a bomb, unless there is regime change,
(3) Any damage to the facilities is repairable, in which case, Iran is probably only 9 to 18 months away from nuclear capability.
My guess is that (2) is the most likely scenario,
Compared to what the other parties have put out over the last several years it's on a different level entirely. People are seriously underestimating Reform. I no longer think that 40% at the general election is out of reach.
But Tesla bet wrong on LIDAR. The cost of LIDAR sensors has absolutely collapsed. Chinese cars are coming with them fitted as standard - and we're not talking about $100,000 cars - we're talking about some cars that cost less than a Model Y having them.
Sky reports NATO ambassadors have agreed members must increase defence spending to 5% by 2035
This is to be affirmed by NATO leaders including Trump and Starmer at NATO's meeting this week
As we are only at 2.6% by 2027, Starmer and Reeves are going to have to explain where the money is coming from
Everybody is going to have to explain where they would get the money from.
We're much more accepting of human beings making mistakes than we are of machines. If Joe Smith has a lapse of concentration and runs someone over, it's very sad, but we understand it. We're all human after all.
We hold technology to a much higher standard. If a machine makes a mistake and runs someone over, we will be very unhappy indeed, and we'll demand something is done about it.
Musk is a utilitarian: he sees his FSD with cameras alone as being safer than a human driver, and I'm sure he's right. But we will hold robotaxis to a higher standard. The first time that a child is run over (and a child wll be run over), then those Robotaxis will be off the streets, and people will be demanding they don't start up again until Tesla can guarantee no child deaths.
LIDAR takes vehicles from better than human, to much better than human. It enables the vehicle to "see" things, even when humans or cameras cannot see them.
See also May's ridiculous "I want a legacy" legal commitment to Net Zero by... 2050, I think.
Next question.
And the lack of LIDAR is why I think Tesla's self driving is a dead end - it will get close but never actually be good enough for it to achieve what was promised.
Don't you?
If your congregation are engaging in violence, then yes they're terrorists, if they're not then what point are you trying to make?
Notwithstanding the couple of million cars Tesla churns out each year, it’s realistic to think they can migrate a $15k 5 year old model 3 to the network with a relatively trivial hardware upgrade (compared with a $150k waymo). The economic issue might soon be the opposite of what you say is waymo’s problem: Tesla will have saturated the market to such an extent the margins from joining the network tend to zero in many places.
Any other explanations?
I would have thought that, even if the market thought there was only a 20% chance of closure, that would command a hefty risk premium on the current price. So, is this just market complacency, or am I missing something big?
They can load the post 2029 years for Nigel to sweat over. Although as he is quite comfortable with Putin, maybe it won't be needed for us anyway.
But there's not boots on the ground.
So what's your problem?
If they try to close the Strait then America will come down on them like a tonne of bricks, and they have no air defences.
They're unable to cope with Israel who are flying unimpeded in their air space, how do you think they are they going to cope with an irate America who wants the Strait reopened?
And nuclear weapons mostly operate on the principle of deterrence, the promise that you will inflict annihilation on the enemy, even if that invites annihilation on return, as deterrence against attack, right?
But if Iran are unwilling to close the Strait in response to the destruction of their nuclear facilities, then they've shown themselves unwilling to follow through on a deterrence threat. It makes a nuclear weapon much less useful for them, because one would doubt that they'd use it.
The mullahs would approve.
And in the meantime, they continue hurting us.
Otherwise Jenrick would fancy his chances if it went to the membership
450 killed by Israeli forces in food queues in the last 12 days. Whether he manages the sole bonus of getting rid of the Mullahs, there's absolutely no question that Netanyahu, and several of his ministers, should face justice at some point for Gaza.
I've just done mine. Got done up the wrong 'un to the tune of 4 grand and that's with SORNing two cars.
Not sure that LIDAR makes a difference - you're waiting until the system can see the danger. But even LIDAR can't see through solid objects, and we had some dickhead on Twitter staging a stunt where they chuck mannequins in front of a Tesla so close that a human driver would also hit them - as "proof" that the thing is dangerous.
Javier Blas
@JavierBlas
Multiple oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz this morning, both in and outbound. No even a hint of disruption.
Oil loading across multiple ports in the Persian Gulf appears normal.
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/1937040222803624398
Allianz have actually quoted us realistic prices the last couple of renewals (last time I did find one online that beat by £5, so didn't bother).
My (least) favourite example of the genre was when I was 20 and had an 8 year old Corsa broken into - the car had deadlocks so smashing the window didn't let them open the door, so they levered it open with a crowbar or similar. Cost about £600 on insurance to get it fixed, new door and some paintwork. Insurer (Nationwide) duly put the next year's premium up by about £700 (I think it was £500 or so year before, renewal quote was north of £1000; I was quite a new driver, but three years' insurance with no claims until then) thereby neatly recovering their loss - they'd tried to persuade me not to claim as well. I switched to Churchill for ~£550 or so. Occasional theft damage to low value cars is not the bulk of a premium, much a they tried to persuade me otherwise.