62% of voters see Reform as extreme – politicalbetting.com
62% of voters see Reform as extreme – politicalbetting.com
if I were advising Labour or the Tories I would tell them to focus on linking Reform/Farage to Trump which will help amplify these findings and focus on Reform’s councillors and potential MPs.
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Given Reform's current polling there must be a very high overlap (90%+) between people who don't think Reform are extreme and are planning to vote for them.
Reform is similar.
Good morning, everyone.
It is an interesting moment; as of now:
Burnham and Jenrick are back in the cage, with no live challenge to Kemi or SKS.
Reform have foolishly saddled themselves with a policy that can be (and will be) read as deporting professional friends and neighbours of the entire middle class (my candidates include a consultant surgeon and my eye specialist.)
The Tories have had unexpectedly decent coverage of their ludicrous but middle class aimed tax cuts.
People feeling that they should be better off than they are was enough to explain the many many defeats of governments almost everywhere in 2024. You don't need the social stuff, or Biden-Harris's flaws as candidates.
It was (as it usually is) The Economy (Stupid).
Starmer-Reeves's inability to make us feel better off just like that is the main reason they're doing badly too, I reckon.
If Gibson wins the appeal, Hills are getting a stern letter from me seeking the immediate return of £13.47p
https://3vb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/LM-2021-000010-Lee-v.-TSE-Malta-LP-t.a-Betfair-FINAL.-docx.pdf
It would be nice to think they could join the dots to what a vote for RefUK will mean
Trump's economic failure won't help Reform's case.
Posters have quoted Reform fantasy savings in Kent, savings so magnificent that Council tax increases could be suspended, until they found out there were few savings to be made and Council taxes were raised by 5%.
A nice speech offering the Moon on a stick is one thing, shoehorning the contents of that speech into reality is quite another.
Your party and the cheerleaders on here are profoundly unserious.
That’s more difficult when there’s five or six parties to choose from in a Parliamentary system. Reform will almost certainly find themselves in trouble with candidate selection if it looks like they might actually win overall. There could be dozens of Jared O’Maras out there.
The thing about populism is it always has to be on the right side of opinion - to be popular.
Farage's sole misstep in the 2024 GE was when he advocated a view on the Ukraine which was well out of step with public opinion at the time and he suffered for it.
Simply running to where the focus groups tell you public opinion is on any subject will leave a party completely tied up in an incomprehensible platform of contradictory policies which will make Government either impossible or so riddled with compromises and broken promises as to be entirely discredited.
The other side of this is where a populist leadership tries to offer a more conciliatory or moderate line they are then in danger of losing support because their voter base is often more extreme - immigration being the classic example. Yet the populist leader will, if they have any sense, know that the more they chase their own supporters to the extreme, the more they will repel others.
The art of politics is or should be about arguing a case to the electorate and convincing them it's the right thing to do even when many of the voters will lose out as a result. That's not easy.
There is for example a case to be made for immigration but no one is making it.
I think quite a few people didn't expect Kemi to surprise on the upside yesterday ... it's a long way back from where the Tories are polling but we are also a long way out from the 2029 election. There's no doubt the Tories will loads busloads of Councillors, MSPs, Welsh Parliament Members next year, the key is keeping enough numbers over the next 3 years to make a comeback viable.
I think she needed a big ticket announcement, and stamp duty is a good base to build from. She can't outflank Reform on immigration, so attack them where they are weaker, the economy, health service etc. The triple lock clearly needs to go, there is time for politicians to come to their senses yet.
If she gets good advice and remains open minded to change (including to her previous actions as Cyclefree alluded) she may do enough to keep Jenrick at bay, get half a chance to turn things round. At least the background didn't fall down behind her and she didn't lose her voice
(Especially @HYUFD - good to have you around a bit more, though I somewhat vehemently disagree with the posts I have seen on the last thread !)
In other news, forget Destry - Pochinocchio Rides Again.
Summary
This one is fairly comprehensible - it's a normal Pochin faceplant. Sarah Pochin helped a charity that uses the Boxing Club premises avoid a funding reduction, then filmed a video without permission claiming that she had helped the Boxing Club itself - leading to the statement above. It's pure lack of attention to detail. Her response was "there has been some confusion" rather than "sorry - my bad"; that style of slopey-shoulders will cause more problems.
While inflation runs rampant, he appears on TV every day and says prices are down. Do voters believe him?
Some voters (dare I say voters who are inclined to vote for populists) seem unable or unwilling to connect events happening in their daily lives to the obvious bullshit these people peddle.
If Farage is serious about government, he’s going to need a lot more firm policies in place before the next election, and a fully costed manifesto capable of external scrutiny.
Oh, he might want to win an election, but actually doing the work? Hell no.
And giveover
Badenoch gave a totally unexpected and successful speech that galvanised her audience and has given her party lots of policies, and of scrapping stamp duty has been well received from think tanks and Paul Johnson formally of the IFS who said yesterday it is the worst of many bad taxes
Your mixture of cynicism and satire is par for the course but at least this conservative is pleased to see conservative policies and Jenrick put back in his box
For all the happiness on here about Badenoch's Conference speech yesterday, it really falls apart under even a modest level of scrutiny. The first and most obvious question is why, if Stamp Duty is such a terrible tax, didn't the Conservatives abolish it during their 14 years leading the Government?
Yes, we had Stamp Duty "holidays" and the threshold for first time buyers was raised to £300k but we all know this new idea is nothing to do with first time buyers and everything to do with trying to keep the asset bubble inflated. What will happen of course is prices will rise as demand rises until everyone tries to get on the bandwagon and supply chokes off demand.
The £23 billion welfare "saving" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting and that might not be fully realised from year one while the stamp duty abolition will have an instant effect leaving the Treasury short of receipts and facing presumably more borrowing to cover the gap and as more people reach pension age the welfare budget is going to rise anyway. Assuming there are £23 billion of cuts in going after "the scroungers" is old fashioned Tory demonising of social groups.
In any case, we are looking at much bigger numbers when it comes to borrowing and the deficit as well as the not insignificant amount of debt interest we have to pay thanks to Conservative economic mismanagement.
So, yes, the Conservatives do need to come up with a fully costed manifesto.
And as I said there is no substance to the £23bn in cost savings - if you want me to believe you tell me exactly what you are going to cut and I can check if the figures add up. If you don’t give me the detail I’m not going to believe you because I have 14 years of evidence that cuts don’t occur immediately
On the other hand, Badenoch has at least finally defined some significant policy which was hitherto lacking, and it's about a 100x more detail than Reform has set out. That at least ought to be welcomed, though heavily caveated as you set out.
And it's likely several years until the next election, so there's plenty of time to press her on those points (assuming she stays in post).
Badenoch has restricted it to primary residence only which the IFS has costed at 4.5 billion and not the 15 billion some were quoting
Labour bods here are worried because she doesn't need to up her game against Labour, so mired in the shit are they.
If Badenoch can get the Tories up to somewhere around 25% by the time of the May elections, she'll have bought herself another year - to see what further turnaround she can achieve.
That makes it a no-brainer for the positive effects it will have on both the housing market and the economy in general.
He doesn’t appear to have people dedicated to a particular brief.
For me there were a couple of red flags, one around Kemi thing that everything is instant and change happens like the appearance of a Genie from a Lamp. Abracadabra, she declares ! And it is done! It is too simplistic.
And her statement at the conclusion.
I stand for a society where free speech trumps hurt feelings.
Where everyone knows what a woman is.
Where people are judged by the content of their character not the colour of their skin.
After the speeches made by Jenrick and others precisely making judgements by skin colour, not content of character.
She's not on planet earth, yet.
Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
·
8h
BREAKING: The Senate rejects a measure to stop Trump from unilaterally striking Venezuelan boats, 48-51.
Fetterman voted No.
Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski voted Yes.
I can't help thinking there's a catch somewhere.
If you go out of the political bubble there is hardly a desenting voice against the abolition and many consider it will boost growth
Remember at the time a Labour MP wrote
'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
He won't want smart people hanging around him. His "Cabinet in waiting" is going to be tired ex-Tories who wouldn't have made the top of government as a Conservative.
That probably involves paying at least a dozen of them from party coffers for the next four years, getting them on top of their brief and all over the media - while also not making an arse of themselves by saying something obviously racist.
Farage is a master of this, knowing how to talk about immigration and integration without sounding like Nick Griffin or “Tommy Robinson”.
But it’s a Parliamentry system, and Farage can’t do everything on his own.
I don't believe I was being remotely cynical or satirical. If you want satire I can write all day about letter boxes and an offensive description of a smile.
You would be the first to criticise ( and justifiably so) an unfunded Reeves pledge. And make no mistake there is nothing in the credit column to match the tax cut in the debit column, except for a nebulous notion of cutting wastage.
If she has done enough to put Jenrick back in his box and take some points from Reform I'll drink to that, but my point stands, her welcome tax cut debit does not demonstrate a corresponding credit.
*If you don't like me posting on here you could always ask TSE politely to transfer me from "member" to " applicant" status, that way I can still access and read your posts but no longer post myself. There, that seems like a neat compromise.
4.5 billion cost as quoted by the IFS is eminently doable
Isn’t the theory that wars are supposed to be authorised by Congress, but that it’s not actually happened that way since WWII?
So he attended a Council Training Council from his bathtub via his Ipad.
Churchill, however, did not have the problem that he had a tablet that could broadcast to the Treasury Management training course a live feed of his willy descending into the soap suds .
(Deep link to remarks in the full Council meeting - about a minute)
https://youtu.be/g_NGepwlKZ8?t=14762
Chap obviously needs to be on Only Fans not TikTok.
Do many Councillors do this? We had claims in Ashfield during Covid of our Deputy Council Leader Tom Hollis, the one with a long list of criminal offences, holding Council meetings in his hot tub.
It is triggered on all property sales in England from £150,001
Wales has LTT which is different and has different rates
projects for decades?
2) why not a British DARPA?
3) a partially reusable space launch vehicle was developed for $400 million dollars. Why not have one of our own? This would give the U.K. a national security advantage and mean that we could cheaply launch all kinds of things - such as a massively expanded OneWeb.
4) why not merge employee NI and IT? Genuine savings, tax levelling (fairness)
5) make employees genuinely liable for illegal employment - undocumented workers, paying below minimum wage, unsafe condition etc.
6) rebalance corporate tax to make finacialisation of companies expensive. And investing in long term productivity improvements, cheap.
Because “we don’t do things like that, here”
The underlying issue is the shift in not only the Overton window (what policies are perceived to be moderate/mainstream?) but the decline in people feeling that any government must pursue moderate/mainstream policies (since these are perceived to have failed).
Often forgotten the Senate came very close to not authorising the first Gulf War, it only passed 52/47.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States
Presumably future presidents didn’t like the idea of the Senate voting the other way, the World would look quite different now if Saddam had prevailed against Kuwait three decades ago.
Anyway, in @Leon's spirit of eye-catching policies, here are mine:-
1. Taser people blasting music out of their phones in public. Also anyone doing their toilette in public or eating with their mouth open. And men spreading their legs unnecessarily when sitting down. Also people leaving their filled dog poo bags hanging on trees or fences.
2. Compulsory pedicures for everyone wearing sandals in summer.
3. 50% VAT on all hot drinks with chocolate sprinkled on top (other than hot chocolate).
4. Anyone with a plastic lawn will have their property confiscated unless said grotesquerie is removed and replaced by a lawn and/or plants.
5. Shoe designers and manufacturers to be reminded that it is both possible and desirable to make shoes which are stylish AND comfortable.
6. Women's dresses to have pockets.
7. A 100% tax rate to be applied to people wearing black coats in winter. It's dark enough already. Use some colour, for God's sake! That's what it's there for.
8. Politicians commenting on TV programmes in an attempt to appear "cool", "relevant" or "in touch" to be barred from office. We have Dad dancing if we want a cringe-making spectacle.
9. Fine everyone using the word "inappropriate" when they mean "wrong" but are too scared to say so.
There: policies for a happier Britain. Or a happier Cyclefree at any rate. And I need a bit of cheerful triviality for today is the day I learn whether the cancer has spread to my pancreas. Which is why I've spent the last week buying new clothes and shoes (purple suede boots!) obviously.
If I don't, my 10th policy is : run public appointments past the Cyclefree/Common-Sense-o-Monitor and when cock-ups happen, well, you know who to call.
As part of this Trump achieved the political nirvana of becoming untouchable by any actual policy contradiction or scandal. He tapped into something fundamental in the human psyche - something that other politicians struggled to reach. Perhaps being a raging narcissists craving the crowd’s approval & cunning enough to work out what to say to attain it is a prerequisite to becoming a Trump-style politician? But you’d think there would have been enough of those out there in the past to do the same thing: Why now?
Yesterday she gave the best speech of any of this year's conferences to wide acclaim, and has set a very different course with real policies that will be discussed widely but she has got herself on the front pages, galvanised her audience, and started the long journey back and sidelined Jenrick
The fact he didn’t tells me the IFS figure isn’t correct
I am not changing my betting strategy.
And I only half agree with him - it is a fairly rural trunk road with a Special School one side and a Training College the other side plus a bit of housing set in small estates off the road, and the petition wants 30moh on the trunk road (used to be 60, now 40), and 20 in the Estates. I'm with the second, not necessarily the first, and it's an area I know well as I used to volunteer at the Special School.
Taxes always have a negative effect on your economy because they alter the prices of goods away from their natural level. But stamp duty has more pernicious effects than any other tax - it is by far the worst tax economically. If you ask economists which tax they would most like to get rid of then stamp duty is at the top of the list. We would be far better off if we eliminated stamp duty & replaced it with almost any other tax.
The population has written them off though & it looks like the Conservatives are doomed to a sub Liberal Democrat MP count at the next GE.
Imo, this header underestimates the extent that people feel these are extreme times that require extreme measures.
Kemi (and Jenrick) were good enough this week but they are now playing as the Reform Second xi and the selectors are likely to prefer the First team to face the bowling this country has in store.
If they’re right, then it’s yet another arbitrary self-inflicted wound that we have imposed on ourselves for no reason whatsoever.
https://news.stv.tv/east-central/gang-attempt-to-steal-bike-using-angle-grinder-while-riding-hire-scheme-cycles
Concerning rise in balaclava clad thugs
John Kerry being perhaps the most noticeable of the mind changers.
https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/TWP2015-01.pdf
Of all major taxes, stamp duty has the biggest drag on the economy, while regular property taxes have the lowest.
SD/SDRT on shares is definitely a bad tax and should be abolished, but it doesn't have to be done in coordination with abolishing SDLT on land.
Edit *temporary respite
1) The Tories won't be in power to enact the policy
2) If it is so popular why didn't they do it in the last fourteen years
3) It won't help with the cost of living issues
The ones who have heard anything the conference mostly heard about the chocolate bar.
Ordinary people do not follow politics in the way we do.
Fecking social media.
Potentially.
Somebody has messaged me this scenario given Jenrick doesn't want Badenoch ousted until after next year's elections.
1) Allies of James Cleverly get Badenoch ousted in November
2) They stand aside and let Jenrick become leader in November
3) The Tories are mullered in May 2026
4) Jenrick takes the blame and is ousted
5) Clearing the way for Cleverly to be coronated in late 2026.
Cleverly might be setting up the greatest ambush since Midway.
NEW: The Deputy Chair of the Reform group on Cornwall Council, Rowland O’Connor, has quit the party
He will now sit as an independent, and says his views on how to help local people ‘increasingly diverged from those of the party’
Meanwhile in latest dog in Italy news:
Although right now we are on the beach looking at the French Riviera and Monaco, across the bay
The entire media ecosystem, largely owned by people who want the malignant narcissist to win, sanewashes all the crazy and amplifies the bullshit
People have long memories as now ex Lib Dem MPs found out in 2015.
The Tories need more policies to help young people, those who want to start families, grow their businesses and ditch the triple lock. Stop pandering to Farage and the agenda he wants to set. It's likely too late for May 26, the long term aim should be survival rather than governing in 2029
There is surely no corner of the globe politicalbetting.com does not touch.
Replacing one tax with another is hard enough, because the losers are louder than the winners. But introducing a new tax altogether is much harder, as you then only have losers.
The Left is on notice now that the Right will abolish stamp duty - they had better get on with replacing it before the Right do so.
A similar argument applies to reforming inheritance tax. If the Left don't reform it, the Right will abolish it, and that will make it structurally more difficult for a future government of the Left to raise enough tax to fund public services.
William Webb Ellis and William Butler Yeats both died there
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton
IIRC some historians have put that down to effectively exploiting radio as a means of reaching a mass audience. Perhaps every new mass media spawns its own version of fascism?
Like the 5% of Reform voters in the poll last week who agreed that Reform and its voters were racist. A small group, but those for whom it's a feature not a bug.