A 10/1 and a 6/1 tip to start your new year – politicalbetting.com
A 10/1 and a 6/1 tip to start your new year – politicalbetting.com
Latest YouGov Westminster voting intention (21-22 Dec 2025)Reform: 25% (-3)Lab: 20% (+2)Con: 19% (+2)Green: 15% (-2)Lib Dem: 15% (+1)SNP: 3% (-1)Results link in replies pic.twitter.com/F8Dxx62nYe
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8xdxvj2qjdt
"Dozens could have died."
More large scale protests in Iran. Important not to get ones hopes up too much but we'll just have to see.
I'm trying to think of ones that are potentially on their way for recalls, illnesses and the like and none spring to my mind. I'm not convinced the make way for Andy Burnham will manifest either.
We were one punch away from no by-elections last year.
The highest Green score in 2025 in a YouGov is 27%, while the lowest score to lead a YouGov poll last year was 23%. So the Greens would need the same growth in support to win this bet as Reform the other bet, convinced with a decline in Reform support so that they and the Tories evenly split the right-wing vote.
The thing that both bets have in common is that the three largest parties in the Commons continue to struggle. And that feels a lot more likely than the detail of each individual bet, so the bets are probably best considered as a double.
I've got a big slow-cooker chilli on the go to see me through the next few cold days. Lots of chorizo in it which is making the kitchen smell comforting already.
Slightly odd mixture, but hey, what the hell.
16/1 does appear value though, it’s like the “no safety car at Monaco” bet that comes off more often than the odds suggest.
The PM could of course screw up the bet by appointing an MP as an ambassador somewhere
important.
Also hit overnight was an oil terminal in Tartarstan that processes and stores crude oil from northern Russia oilfields. If the Ukrainians can damage that it might force some of the oil wells to shut down.
"The region's head of security says several different nationalities are involved in the incident, without giving further details."
The only way he goes is if a heavyweight challenger launches a leadership challenge. There are not many of them outside the cabinet,* and I don't see any current cabinet minister breaking ranks. Angela Rayner would be the only really plausible challenger and given the circumstances under which she resigned I can't see her winning a leadership election.
Personally I would be looking at autumn 2027 as a more likely exit year, if he decides he's had enough and wants to give his successor flexibility over the timing of the next election. But I won't be betting on earlier.
*It is arguable as to how many there are inside the cabinet as well.
Swiss ski resort explosion doesn’t look good, reports of of “several dozen” deaths.
Explosions in Russia, on the other hand, appear to be plenty, so not all bad news.
Or because we start schooling very early - earlier than comparably run systems in Scandinavia - which means that we are forcing children to learn before they are fully ready?
Or the dogmatic insistence on date of birth for start of school?
Or the size of classes?
Or the emphasis on academic subjects (some of which are very badly planned out in terms of content and assessment) in the curriculum?
But nobody seems to be asking those questions. Largely I think because it raises too many awkward revelations about decades of mismanagement (not all of it well-intentioned) by the centre.
Spoiler: John Torode, since sacked, declared it the best food in the history of Masterchef.
Festive Extravaganza: Champion of Champions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002p0s1/masterchef-festive-extravaganza-champion-of-champions
They'll need big gains in May to distract from their poor performance in the national polling.
Trump won't be impeached in 2026 as he controls Congress.
Burnham won't become an MP as he won't resign as mayor of Manchester to fight a by-election which he stands at best a 50/50 chance of winning in any seat.
I’m not saying it’s Minnesotan daycare levels of ‘mismanagement’, but it would be good to know who’s running the taxi companies that benefit and if the job of getting kids to school could be done more efficiently.
There’s almost certainly someone somewhere who has registered as a private hire company purely to take a couple of children known to him to school and back, and pocketing £100 a day for doing so.
As the lead says, Laddies produces the list of one-sided unlikelihoods in order to dupe the unwary; if I was forced to choose bets from that list, I'd be looking at the Reeves/Cooper/Mahmood to last out the year, three Tory MPs defect to Reform, and Jenrick to defect, ones. On the latter, the assumption would be that Kemi looks increasingly secure as the year goes by, yet the Tories have another bad set of elections.
This winter is going to be brutal for all concerned in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Ukrainians have endured 4 winters of it. Up to now, Russians in Moscow and St. Petersburg have endured 0. The shock for metropolitan Russians will be severe.
But definitely not happening. Too many legitimate sob stories and would turbo charge all opposition.
My prediction for ‘26 is that ordinary metropolitan Russians finally start to feel that their country is at war.
Anyhow, Davey has just this minute emailed to wish me a Happy New Year, so he gets my vote!
The Ukrainians seem to be taking a degree of care to avoid hurting the horses when possible. Perhaps they are aware of the sensitivities of the British public.
Ultimately, the issue with taxis is that successive governments have closed schools in the local area that could y'know, actually work with these children and therefore forced them to travel long distances where there were no school bus routes. I worked in two schools with specialist SEND units. In my very first school (Caldicot) we had one child who had to come by taxi from Abergavenny. In my last in Burton there were children coming over 20 miles from Stoke and Tamworth. That's just mad. Provide proper local provision and that issue disappears (and it's a lot better for the child).
But no - we must close these schools because SEND provision is divisive (Labour) or not required as it isn't a thing (rather too many Tories and the DfE) and push them into mainstream schools.
Where strangely, they don't do very well and spend a lot of time kicking off making things worse for everyone else too.
On topic, the LibDems poor opinion polling rather clashes with their decent council by-election performance. Perhaps it's because they rather like the little girl in the nursery rhyme; when they're good they're very very good, but when they're bad they're
terribly, terribly popularOr should that be 'horrid'?
Typical BBC though. They sacked Tony Blackburn in a similar style. For failing to remember a discussion from the early seventies.
All a cover for their failure to tackle real,wrong uns.
Thomas Frake’s pudding looked amazing.
I predicted and have delivered a 28% return in a month, Warren Buffet is envious of me,
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/11/26/a-28-return-in-just-over-a-month/
What do people think?
An impeachment (as opposed to a conviction, read the terms of your bet carefully!) of Trump this year requires a handful of House Republicans to cross the floor. Not impossible, if a few lose primary contests from the right, but 4/1 seems short.
A conviction in the Senate is going to be pretty much impossible unless there’s a clear act of treason in the minds of Republican Senators (rather than in the minds of CNN correspondents).
So for any one taxi, that is one or two hours in the morning, and the same in the afternoon, for most of the year, and it will need to be booked in advance. Four hours a day, an hour for lunch, it is almost a full-time job. It's a seller's market.
Councils might be able to save money by running specialist minibuses but because of parental choice, kids living in one place don't all go to the nearest school (one of my many recurring rants) so it will not be just the one minibus. Savings would be limited even if politics and belief in the preternatural efficiency of private sector solutions (viz taxis) were not factors.
Believe me, it is bloody difficult to get any support for a child. Even with wealthy parents who have high class barristers on tap. Councils just refuse.
There is a reason almost 98% of refusals are overturned on appeal. However, even then most councils won't implement the decision. In Staffordshire, for example, they refuse to provide 1:1 support even where they are ordered to. The only case I know of where that was reversed was where the child's father, who happened to be an equalities lead for a national organisation, took them to court and won.
We should not be asking about how to cut SEND costs. We should be asking instead how they are soaring so rapidly *even though councils are not actually doing what they should be* and therefore we *already* are failing to provide anything like adequate support.
Which means we come back to the system.
But yes, "taxis" is one of those words like "hotels". It sounds like a wasteful luxury, but it's probably the cheapest short-term answer to the question of how to get children from multiple A's to multiple B's.
Who says that BBC journalism standards are slipping?
Partly it's that the mental health of the nation does seem to be getting worse.
Is there any reason why parents cannot take their kids to school, or do they in most cases ?
Newcastle Council recently said they were not going to keep providing whatever SEND provision they are legally obliged to for 16 and 17 year olds as they have no money and no statutory duty.
Cue outraged entitled parents and a well supported campaign in the local media and on local TV.
They reversed the decision. Any changes to the schemes legal obligations that reduces them would face the same outpouring.
Of course they still have the massive financial problems, they’re just a little worse.
The pandemic probably also did play a part, as school refusal has been much more common since. Quite a lot of children with needs they could previously manage have decided, you know, actually we *don't* want to go back into school to be harassed and bullied and forced to work at subjects we don't like or understand with lots of noise that we find disturbing rather than working comfortably and securely at a computer desk at home? (I can sympathise, following the truly appalling behaviour of the DfE in the pandemic I made the same decision, and a very good one it was.)
But again - should we not be asking why that is the case? Would it not be better to make schools places where children actually want to go, and feel happy to learn even if it's not something that interests them particularly?
Happy Treason Day you bunch of ungrateful colonials.
https://x.com/tim_odoherty/status/1971975797310476600?s=61
‘ So, the results:
In 2018 the Welsh rate of SEN was 22.6%. Upon the start of implementation cases immediately dropped 19.0%: from 19.5% in 2020/1 to 15.8% in 2021/2.
2025: the Welsh rate of ALN is just 9.5%.
(for context, the equivalent English figure in 19.6%; Scottish 40.5%)’
As the pub landlord has it, America is a "good idea that has got out of hand".
Total expenditure on SEN/ALN provision in schools by local authorities is budgeted to be £668 million, an increase of £75.8 million or 12.8% compared with the previous year.
29% of the total budgeted SEN/ALN expenditure is delegated to special schools. Notional allocations within nursery, primary, middle and secondary schools account for a further 40% of the total. The remaining 31% is non-delegated money held centrally by local authorities.
Denbighshire delegate the largest proportion of their SEN/ALN budget to their schools at 84%, whilst Merthyr Tydfil delegate the smallest proportion at 49%.
Total SEN/ALN expenditure per pupil for Wales is budgeted to be £1,486. This consists of £1,028 delegated expenditure per pupil and £458 non-delegated expenditure per pupil.
Merthyr Tydfil has the largest SEN/ALN budget per pupil at £2,258, whilst Rhondda Cynon Taf has the smallest SEN/ALN budget per pupil at £1,086.
https://www.gov.wales/budgeted-expenditure-special-educational-needs-sen-and-additional-learning-needs-aln-provision-april-2025-to-march-2026-html
The charts for expenditure over time are also available. Since the date this new approach you highlight was brought in, the costs have just about doubled.
This may be due to legacy issues, of course, but you would not expect such a dramatic rise if the policy you outline was having a significant financial effect.
Children of compulsory school age qualify for free school transport if they go to their nearest suitable school and any of the following apply:
the school is more than 2 miles away and the child is under 8
the school is more than 3 miles away and the child is 8 or over
there’s no safe walking route between their home and school
they cannot walk there because of their special educational needs or disabilities or a mobility problem
https://www.gov.uk/free-school-transport
The 16-18 thing is a mess; in theory, school isn't compulsory but in practice education is. The transport law just didn't keep up.
Mainstream colleges often provide subsidised transport, either out of hardship funds or as marketing. (The marginal cost of teaching an extra student is tiny, so providing a bus season ticket is a win-win.) That probably doesn't work for institutions catering for lots of SEND students.
I remember working with one individual with severe palsy. He couldn't get any funding at all even though he could barely walk to a classroom and when he got there he worked so slowly he was always behind. In desperation his parents scraped together just enough money for private tutors to get him through A-levels. And we did, but it was damned hard. The county still didn't want to bloody know.
We've become a commemorative nation served by a commemorative broadcaster. Franklin Mint UK (or GB if preferred).
Wealth warning: I cannot get on with Ladbrokes so have not used too many brain cells on this.
In Wales Plaid will hope for gains as much as Reform and in Scotland Reform and the Greens are likely to be the biggest gainers as in England. Whether Starmer or Badenoch survive 2026 may well depend on whether it is Labour or the Conservatives second to Reform on NEV in May. Starmer could well face a leadership challenge if Labour end up third while Jenrick backing Tory MPs would be putting in letters to Bob Blackman for a VONC in Kemi faster than Usain Bolt if the Tories are third in May
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bicentennial#:~:text=While in Philadelphia on July,July 1976 LET FREEDOM RING."
That appears to be the hole in those rules as written.
Badenoch and Starmer still in place on 31st December.
Reform do not have a clear polling lead by the end of the year.
And for the next GE:
Reform to come either second or third in respect of both votes and seats.
So far Trump is one of only 3 US Presidents to be impeached, the others being Johnson and Bill Clinton (Nixon resigned before he could be impeached). The odds are he will be the first President to be impeached twice before he leaves office
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5qp8LfF5DbE
That is 30 seconds clipped from
The First U.S. Harrier Combat Mission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk9u04xfnBw