Reform are the favourites to win the most seats at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
Reform are the favourites to win the most seats at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
The chart above shows the Betfair most seats at the next general election market over the last 12 months and it shows how Reform have been in the ascendancy.
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https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/lifestyle/supporting-reform-uk-is-dating-ick-poll-finds-401771/
“According to a poll by Wisp, the dating app that prioritises getting singletons meeting face-to-face, Reform UK voters have officially been crowned the number one political ‘ick’ among British singles.
“Almost three-quarters (72%) of respondents said they’d be “put off” if they found out a match on a dating app was a Reform supporter.
“In a survey of 1,000 Wisp users aged 25-40, political affiliation (39%) ranked higher than smoking (22%), poor hygiene (17%), bad manners (12%), or even living with parents (10%) when it came to dating red flags.”
Good morning, everybody.
An old boy I used to work with at Bombardier many years ago used to say ‘whoever you vote for the government always gets back in’ !
Has anyone spotted Easter Eggs in the shops yet?
It’s too much to hope the Mullahs are on the way out.
Although not called Easter Eggs. We’re supposed to be a Christian nation. Game’s gone 😉
Team Sir Humphrey is likely to run rings around them. If it weren't my country, it would be hilarious to watch.
Meanwhile the voters Labour has lost to Reform don't seem to be showing any signs of coming back. While that flow seems to have dried up, we are losing support at the same rate but now to the assorted Leftists.
So as we start 2026, glimmers of hope for the Tories, staring into the abyss for Labour.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/01/gen-z-dating-terms-explained?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
The article linked to under "gooner" is one of the most disturbing things that I have read this year. A more plausible explanation for the drop in TFR than misandrist college professors.
Trump says he takes higher daily dose of aspirin than doctors recommend
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c701z7g0ppro
US President Donald Trump says he is in "perfect" health, takes more aspirin than doctors recommend, uses makeup to cover bruising on his hands, and does not get regular exercise because he finds it "boring".
I mean, how could taking a dose of aspirin every day four times the level of the permitted short term maximum possibly be in any way a health risk?
Advanced Signs: High fever, severe sweating (diaphoresis), extreme drowsiness, and agitation.
Chronic Overdose Symptoms: More subtle signs like confusion, fatigue, and persistent shortness of breath, particularly in older adults.
Hmmm…
NOC perhaps most likely, which would make the chaos of 2017-19 look like a model of stable government.
Where most younger female voters are trending Green...which may explain the data!
What the country needs is constructive change, rather than either Process Statism or lunatic slash and burn.
However, both Venezuela and Zimbabwe went through worse crises than this with recognised and well-organised opposition movements, which Iran doesn't really have. In the case of Zimbabwe, it lasted for over 25 years. Both those regimes are still standing, albeit with new figureheads.
I suspect Gavin Plumb would fit the description. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngp983q4xo
They are arguing that sports betting should be restricted or banned, for the sake of the health of sport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awo2OTrYKeA
Apparently the bazaar owners have been an important agent of change in Iran in the past - in the Islamic revolution itself - and an important bulwark of support for the regime since. They're part of the core of the protest movement now.
It also seems that the 12-day war involved significant damage to the forces Iran uses for internal repression, and there's some evidence of internal division as to how best to respond to the protests.
Often a regime falls because those in charge of it lose confidence in its ability to continue. It's less about whether it has the material ability to continue, but whether people believe it will continue. Predicting the ebbs and flows of confidence is more difficult that predicting the turbulence of of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves.
The future is always uncertain, but particularly so for Iran today. In a week or two I would expect that things will be clearer, one way or another, and then we will see the consequences begin to play out.
Though yes culturally young male Reform voters are a million miles from young female Green voters.
Though young male Reform voters tend to be more likely to live in provincial towns and rural areas than young female Green voters who are likely based in big cities anyway
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us.
Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
But then, Chamberlain did not write it, it was written by Winston Churchill.
https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2006727994232955176
(Good morning everyone.)
As for football (association, rugby league and union, American and Australian Rules), the extent to which each of those derives income from or is supported by betting isn't known to me but I suspect Premier League football is a big winner (so to speak).
Coral used to live in Barking - if you banned betting, Barking would become a ghost town so there are advantages....
This refinery has a capacity of 7.9 million tons, ~2.5% of total Russian capacity and is the 16th largest refinery in Russia. It was previously targeted in March, August, September, October and November of 2025.
If you can't help don't worry but I thought you might know.
On the substantive, parties can win seats without doing very much if a) they are popular and b) none of their opponents are doing very much to stop them. I don't know the situation regarding the local organisations of, for example, Labour in Amber Valley or the Conservatives in Hornchurch & Upminster but, and I can speak for the former, they aren't moribund and when the election comes, it will be interesting to see Reform have any "ground game" or whether it is a social media chimera.
Reform certainly have plenty of angry people to shrill for them on X or wherever but that's not the same as working in communties and the record of the Reform County Councils elected in May is likely to undermine some of their more grandiose claims around Council Tax cuts.
We know there's a tension between the Thatcherite aspirations of Farage and Tice for large scale spending cuts and tax cuts for the rich and the ex-Labour Reform voter base which wants money spent on local services in WWC areas (and not on migrants in hotels). I imagine Farage will try to keep both on side and end up losing both as the contradictions of his "policy" are laid bare.
Ask me on a cold January morning more than three years before the event (if you must), my view is Labour will be the largest party though possibly short of a majority and the intriguing question(s) are whether Labour plus LD will be a majority or whether Reform plus Conservative will be a majority (possibly neither will be the case).
The other side of this question is whether the next election will be Labour vs Not Labour or Reform vs Not Reform or both and sometimes both in the same constituencies.
It's a bit of a tightrope they need to walk.
A new regime in Iran would be a positive for the Iranian people, but also for the world, not least Ukraine.
This was after Munich.
'I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor.'
There exist grants for adapting homes, at various levels of funding, sometimes with legal duties attached.
And there are many ways to approach it.
Do you have a streetview link to the bank (ideally) or a piccie? If you do I can ask an officer on the Wheels for Wellbeing discord; if they can get a good understanding of the circumstances they would advise, and would do a letter of support.
Tories have definitely stemmed the flow away from them, and Kemi Badenoch will be happy to see her approval rating (relative to Starmers) in the yougov poll
I still think the Tories are a long way back from power, a lot will depend on Farage (and his health) for the next 3 and a half years
It will be a very split electoral map in 2029. FPTP is great for betting opportunities, but I dont think it can survive long once it fragments into a 5 or 6 way split
Interesting piece on flooding risks (in more than one sense) - which, inter alia, shows that there's not enough planning control in a critical area, that of flooding risk caused ny new development.
I suspect that the next election won't be until 2029; the government might not be doing 'well' but it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of collapse, and as Wilson remarked, a week is a long time in politics. It does look though, AToW, as though one of the most notable features of our system will be apparent; 650 individual contests with different parties vying for first and second place, sometimes in adjacent constituencies.
For example, in Witham, where I live, I suspect it'll be Con v Reform, with Labour snapping at both of their heels. Where that will leave me, assuming I'm still around, I don't know.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/high_protein_breakfasts
(frittata, Turkish Heggs, granola and Quark - ears not visible, silken tofu smoothie, classic beans on toast)
eg
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O685621/lysistrata-defending-the-acropolis-drawing-beardsley-aubrey-vincent/ (NSFW but mild compared to some of the others)
Nsfw probably, but just tell them you're an aesthete.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aubrey_Beardsley_-_Lysistrata
Always love a bit of 'my political view' gussied up as 'informed commentary' here.
One of the dysfunctions around dating apps is that it is too easy to swipe past people on trivial grounds, which would not have happened in older dating customs. In face to face dating you simply cannot be that rude.
It is all part of low investment dating. Previously people made psychological and physical effort to smarten up ready to go dating, now it is possible to idly swipe through dozens while waiting for the kettle to boil. Low investment leads to low commitment, hence ghosting etc.
Apps can work. Both of my boys met their girls on Hinge and are now coupled up and living together after 8 and 3 years respectively. I can see why others have lost interest.
I have been with Mrs Foxy for nearly 4 decades, so it is all a bit alien to me, but talking to Gen Z or watching dating TikTok is quite a different world, and not an enticing one.
Come across some social media discussion as to why the BBC is giving so little prominence to what is happening in Iran. John Simpson explained that it's all rather difficult as international media are banned from the country. A bit like Gaza.....
Of course that hasn't stopped the BBC reporting on Gaza.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
But also- there's a lot of time left, and a lot of trends still to bend.
The IDF and the Israeli Government went so far out of their way to deny access and put their own view across that one couldn't trust a word they said..
I suppose the loons have to find something new to be outraged about now that their deranged Sadiq removed the Star of David claims have proved to be predictably baseless.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Nothing that I can see on the front page with regard to the current disruption there. Whereas at the top there is a tab for Israel-Gaza war next to Home/In depth.
People like you and Bondegezou are obsessed. You probably think when someone gets accused of something in a front page spread and then a correction is printed on page 23 that's reasonable.
In terms of the dating question (although that is academic now) I would not date a smoker, someone with poor hygiene or bad manners. I didn't care if they were living at home. Regarding politics that does matter but there would be a broadish range that was acceptable. My wife is not a LD. She is a floating voter. I could not date someone who was religious.