Why laying Nigel Farage is a risky business – politicalbetting.com
Why laying Nigel Farage is a risky business – politicalbetting.com
For most of 2024 I advocated laying Nigel Farage in the next Prime Minister market not because I am sure Reform will not win the next general election but I thought Labour might end up ousting Sir Keir Starmer if things looked bad for them but in light of yesterday morning’s thread that might be a courageous position.
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I would say autumn 2027/early 2028 might be a good bet.
We should also remember of course that Farage is getting on a bit and has an expensive lifestyle to maintain which is easier on the American lecture circuit. There is no certainty he will be around come the next election either.
Quite a lot of checks and balances are predicated on the assumption that honourable men and women will be PM, if that doesn't happen then as we see with the mango Mussolini those guardrails aren't very effective.
Things like an even split of Speakers/Deputy Speakers and opposition MPs chairing select committees going out of the window.
Although to be fair as he’s hardly ever around anyway except to quarrel with his own MPs that might not make much difference.
RefUK 26%(+1),
CON 19%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
LDEM 16%(+1),
GRN 15%(nc)
Note that Labour on 17% matches their lowest (previously reached in October), but this is the first time since the election we've had them behind the Tories (now that it necessarily means much when they are both well behind Reform).
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/2008420338640519413
I am proposing Monday 15 June as an extra bank holiday in Scotland, to mark our return to the World Cup after 28 years. 🏴
https://x.com/JohnSwinney/status/2008179254790410637
I will go back to my recurring statement 3p should have been put on income tax back in November 2024.
That would imply their vote share across London, falling from 40% in 2022, to 20%.
They are in the high 20s mid-term (which would undoubtedly be less following a GE campaign) and their support is strong on immigration/cultural issues, but they still haven't convinced on the economy. On top, Farage is better than he was but still very much marmite.
It sings to me of them getting c.150 seats, but not winning.
£50k extra tax bill could be an extra £2/main meal if you are open 250 days a year and have 100 meals served each day. Maybe my assumptions are way off but doesn't seem impossible to swallow...
About the only thing you can say with certainty is that - if they hold out- then the SNP will get 40-odd seats, and the LibDems will get around 100, given both those parties highly geographically concentrated vote share.
For Reform and the Conservatives, a lot depends on how efficient their vote is. If it is moderate efficient, they'll clean up. If it isn't, then I think 150-200 for Reform is probably about right.
If all restaurants increase prices by £2/meal (probably less than 5% of total cost), I can't see how it would have such a big change.
Hospitality and retail are dying on their arse, and business rates is a large part of the reason why.
Eesh.
Besides, I think we all agree that we want an economy where there are fewer jobs but the employment mix is tilted towards higher productivity. What else does "sucking in cheap labour is bad" mean? Hospitality jobs are pretty much defined as low productivity. It's not nice for owners, staff or customers, but that's how it is.
If people have a fixed budget for eating out, then a small increase in costs should correspond to a small decrease in eating out.
PBers you can thank Taz for the request.
Immigration and the depredations of woke are fading from the news (immigration partly due to numbers, partly time of year), the predatory USA is in everyone’s faces and will continue to be, and Labour is prevaricating - as governments tend to do. That will frustrate many. Those looking to support the “rules based international order” have an obvious candidate to vote for, and it’s not Zack’s Greens. Then we have local elections in May in which the Lib Dems will as always outperform national polling and get a small popularity bump as minds are focused in the polling booth.
Now, I would say that wouldn’t I? But no actually. There are plenty of times the party looks obviously ripe for a squeeze. Just not now.
Some of that is exchange rate since 2016, but not all.
The bowlers get the blame, and to be fair they haven’t been brilliant, but there’s a limit to what you can do when your batsmen don’t score runs and your fielders don’t hold simple catches.
If Rob Key survives this debacle I will want to know what those photos he has of Gould and Thompson show.
The named chefs with ‘destination’ restaurants will most likely survive, in the same way as Jeremy Clarkson’s farm and pub will likely survive. That doesn’t mean that thousands of others are not in serious trouble though, and they welcome the more famous among themselves highlighting the issues.
The general theory is that taxes should be simple, as close to the point of consumption as possible, and unavoidable. I.e. income tax and VAT. Business rates isn't the worst tax in the world because it's adjusted for property value and ticks two of those boxes. It also hits zombie firms hard in a way a profit tax does not.
But I agree with eek that it's the big, simple taxes like income tax that should dominate the tax burden as far as possible. Politically impossible to put personal taxes up to pay for business tax cuts though, even though it would all come out in the wash and probably boost the economy quite a bit.
I assume that whilst we can simply banish US personnel, extracting the involvement of the US military in much of our equipment would be much harder. But we must, however hard this is.
Best case scenario: Trump is frit, they lose the mid terms and go to jail. Sane American politicians will try and rebuild bridges, which we will but without just blindly buying American kit any more.
Worst case: we’re combating coordinated Axis cyber warfare coming at us from the US and Russia. The moment when the globe starts dumping US treasuries will be something 🫣
No doubt this is hitting hospitality hard.
Which perhaps makes your point, actually.
Coincidentally the Fast Food Nation chap has published a 25-years-on piece in the Graun.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/jan/06/we-still-live-in-fast-food-nation-eric-schlosser
That will tend to ameliorate against Reform vote efficiency. They effectively need apathy/resignation to clean up, and I don't think they have it.
Annexing Greenland would probably
➖Destroy NATO
➖Create a EU-US trade war
➖Compel the US to militarily rule a reluctant Greenlandic population
➖Encourage a Russian attack on the Baltics
➖Destroy a range of US commercial interests: from the lock-out of (all/some) US defence, energy and tech companies as well as investors from EU markets
➖Create a political backlash in the US probably affecting the midterms
Fees like a long list of bad things. Are the supposed benefits really so great that they outweigh all those downsides?
https://x.com/DanielKorski/status/2007925133537653196?s=20
"Everything is so bad that Nigel can't be any worse" is tosh in many ways, but horribly effective.
My current favourite gastropub is 7 days a week and probably does 350-400 per day. They have a completely ludicrous amount of tables including 30 outside, and do 10:00am to 8:30pm except Sundays when it is 12-7. They have the slight advantage of being in a 15-18C building, on the only exit from the one way system on a 300k visitor/year National Trust estate. It is dog walking and gentle hiking central, since park and walk on the 2500 acre estate is common.
But the sort of setup where someone cooks from scratch for a table for two and there's attentive service ought to be expensive, if the staff are being paid properly and the business is paying its way in society.
Not hard to see the world adopting a "Buy American Last" approach.
Bit harder to implement a "Buy Danish First" movement. There's only so much bacon you can eat before we all get cancer, which is a tad counter-productive. Although, buying Danish wind turbines would have the added benefit of reaally pissing off Trump...
That does surprise me. I knew she was amoral, clever and ruthless but I did think one thing she was above all and all the time was anti-American.
If Trump thinks she will do as he tells her however I suspect he has a surprise in his future.
We give all sorts of incentives, subsidies, tax reliefs, for various industries. Why not hospitality which disproportionately employs a larger number of younger people.
I'm thinking your questions put a false dichotomy.
Although I assume it uses some American bits that it doesn't know about until they go downl
(Not absolutely sure I am correct)
- Closing all US bases on European soil. This would lose the US more in terms of military projection than it would gain from getting Greenland where they have large bases.
- The end of NATO and it's replacement with a ETO. Turkey is welcome to remain a part of the new organisation.
- Nuclear umbrella covers all of ETO. Or at least the UK and EU.
As the US has says, it's obvious the defending Greenland militarily is likely a non starter. So focus on other consequences that are in our control.
It is very like (don't I know it) when at the turn of the year Arsenal are 6 or 8 points ahead and it is all theirs to lose. (Just like now, but it's groundhog day stuff).
And the picture which emerges is this: I am not sure who will be top in May, probably Man City or Liverpool but it won't be Villa or Forest or Newcastle. But if you are sure it will be Arsenal you are delusional.
Translation: If you look at those figures from planet Mars, any of the five can win the GE. But actually Greens and LDs won't. And probably Reform won't either. Man City or Liverpool (Tory and Labour) probably will.
I still don’t think it will happen though, and if it does it will be a purchase with consent of the population rather than a hostile military takeover.
With Badenoch l've heard nothing and neither do I expect to.
At a certain point you need to recognise that having US troops in Europe is a bigger threat than it is a benefit. The point at which the US takes European territory by force is a good time to enforce that.
In any case, we don't need to close every base to hurt the US.
If you don’t like them, I have others.
One of Trump co-conspirators in trying to corrupt the 2021 Election, Tina Peters, is in prison for 9 years on State Charges - not pardonable by the President. Trump has been threatening Colorado with cancelling funding, as he does, and was told to p*ss off.
He cancelled funding for various projects, including a supply of non polluted water to a particular city, and now Congress will overrule his veto, which requires support form both sides.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/01/05/congress/house-will-vote-thursday-to-override-trump-veto-of-two-gop-backed-bills-00711322
The Poles know all about the consequences of appeasement and a foreign power occupying countries.
It's hard, because he's the President of the United States, and so we implicitly make certain assumptions, but we need to let go of the Rational Trump Delusion. He will say things because they sound nice to him in the moment, not because they're part of a strategy or a plan, let alone a rational one to advance American interests.
Insofar as he exhibits any degree of rational behaviour it will be in pursuit of his three greatest priorities: self-enrichment, self-aggrandisement and self-preservation.
He wants money. He wants people to kowtow to him. He wants people to forget about the Epstein Files.
We can of course try to infer the private from what is public in respect of actions and words.
https://x.com/tendar/status/2008466350197420324
Likely to be tens of millions of dollars of mostly newly-produced munitions awaiting distribution.
You could be first then !!!!