Something inexplicable is happening in the most seats market – politicalbetting.com
Something inexplicable is happening in the most seats market – politicalbetting.com
Unless punters think Sir Keir Starmer’s remaining leader is a major positive for Labour I am not sure why the most seats markets have moved quite so much.
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Then there are the rules surrounding ministerial responsibility. Prior to last week, Starmer was again clear.
During the Labour leadership election he piously demanded: ‘Hear me out! I had 8,000 staff for five years as the Director of Public Prosecutions… when they made mistakes, I carried the can. I never turn on my staff, and you should never turn on your staff.’
It was a theme he repeatedly pressed, to devastating effect, against Johnson and his Cabinet through the Covid crisis and beyond. ‘It’s no good the Prime Minister flailing around, trying to blame others. It’s time he took responsibility for his own failures,’ he railed repeatedly.
Yet, in the past week, this rule has also now been inverted.
He has turned on – and turfed out – every one of his most senior officials. His chief of staff. His director of communications. His Cabinet Secretary.
As another senior government official told me: ‘I struggle to think of a PM more willing to throw under the bus those who have been loyal to him.’
So this is the other new Starmer Rule. The buck should have stopped with Boris Johnson. But there is no need for it to even pause for breath when it’s in the vicinity of himself.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-15560039/DAN-HODGES-Ill-never-turn-staff-Starmer-said-Try-telling-trio-just-thrown-bus.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline#
Mr. kle4, actually, cancelling even one of the aircraft carriers would've been more expensive than building both. Brown signed deliberately awful contracts to force the new Coalition Government to keep making them (jobs in his area, I believe).
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Well, as Art Laffer says, if you pay people to be idle they’ll be idle.
We live in a nation of entitled people who expect others to pick up,the tab when they’ve finiancially contributed little. people say ‘but the state pension’ but that is a contribution based benefit unlike the majority of the other benefits.
Totally agree Taz, lazy barstewards are taken by the hand and showered with freebies whilst workers get robbed to pay for their largesse and Labour think it is great and always want to give more.
FPT
Taz said:
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Well, as Art Laffer says, if you pay people to be idle they’ll be idle.
We live in a nation of entitled people who expect others to pick up,the tab when they’ve finiancially contributed little. people say ‘but the state pension’ but that is a contribution based benefit unlike the majority of the other benefits.
Totally agree Taz, lazy barstewards are taken by the hand and showered with freebies whilst workers get robbed to pay for their largesse and Labour think it is great and always want to give more.
If you had the wrong party label, you were out on your ear.
Labour would be unwise to hang their hopes on bucking that trend.
It is also quite possible that Starmer's increasingly likely early end to his premiership, and a new broom in no 10 with a possible honeymoon period is seen as a positive in the betting
He's the best of the best, a working class Yorkshireman who went to Cambridge.
Labour rebels line up Healey to challenge Starmer
Defence Secretary could draw support from Right and Left as ‘unity candidate’ to take on PM
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/02/14/rebel-mps-healey-challenge-starmer/
All this money for Restore to get most seats, and Lowe to be PM makes me think he should be known as Rupert the Bull
He flat out said it. “Aliens. Exist.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/7BREwPR4cd
He then says he’s not personally seen them and he’s sure they’re not stored in Area 51
What makes this even better is that the journalist doesn’t even ask a follow up question. It’s the equivalent of this dialogue:
“Mr President. Was Jesus really the son of god”
“Yes. But there’s no Holy Spirit”
“Great. How do you feel about this new breakaway golf league?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-27056001
Healey has been an MP since 1997 - 29 years - and until he was appointed to Defence by Starmer nobody had ever heard of him. Although he's held a few junior posts previously, his rise is hardly meteoric, suggesting that his talents are fairly limited.
Apart from which, I'd be astonished if he's interested.
If over my working life half my NI contributions went into a low cost global tracker, as opposed to the govt, I’d be most pleased. It would be better than the state pension.
In 1993, in Canada, the Conservatives went from 169 seats (57% of the seats in Parliament) to 2. The new Reform party took a serious chunk of seats…
That would still require a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the Tories. Either way, I just can't see Labour getting less than 200 seats, nor Reform getting more.
The obvious reason, if you do want to justify this market movement, is it now feels difficult to conceive that Starmer will fight 2029. His ratings have been going very badly for a while, but with Labour's less friendly mechanisms for toppling leaders, there's always been that possibility that Starmer would ride out the dip and get to 2028 in some kind of competitive, but not competitive enough, position.
As time passes and as rivals do seem to be circling at a distance, it seems less likely. But there's no guarantee of Starmer going anytime soon, even after this May, which opens up the possibility of a quick honeymoon GE as a new leader rolls in later in this parliament. One possibility, as with Blair, is that Starmer is given some leeway to set the timetable for his own departure, say, in late 2027-early 2028.
Personally, I'm not convinced Labour will "time it to perfection", and perhaps any increase in chances comes simply from "Starmer will be gone".
"Yes, but we all know him by a different name."
"Interesting. What's your take on Furbies?"
Which might be enough, if Labour are determined to ditch Starmer, but it's no more than that.
Yorkshireman or not.
https://youtu.be/5bYXb7iEDJ4?si=NQ7TfKKvFWyTc1Ib
Mr M I generally disagree with you on matters of policy, but I respect your assessment of current political trends, and on this occasion I think you're spot on. Again!
There are very likely bacteria on Mars.
Who turned out to be an exceedingly effective Prime Minister.
Think that was my first political bet - at 20/1
A much more interesting proposition - have you read 'There is No Antimemetics Division"? It gives a very plausible possible answer to 'where are the aliens?'
I'm still slightly baffled about why the Trump assassination attempt hasn't had more speculation around it. That seems like a much more obvious target to me.
It is the ultimate distraction.
"Now we go live to Area 52, Nevda - and our first interview with Mr Bybo Hong from Alpha Centauri."
"Mr Hong, what is your take on the footage from the Epstein files?"
D'OH!!
https://x.com/eoghanymurphy/status/2022927080309309820
Possibly related to one of the departures last week?
Which struck me as ludicrously overblown. The reaction to that news would mostly be Meh with a dash of “hmm interesting and encouraging. We’re not entirely alone even if it’s just some yeast that died two million years ago”
What WOULD shake humanity is the Disclosure that we are being visited by or we are aware of advanced non human intelligence. That would be a big cat meeting some very scared pigeons
Obama’s words were really strange. Skeptics are trying to dismiss it by saying “he meant the chances we are alone in the universe are low” which is probably true - probably - but is absolutely not what Obama said. He explicitly said aliens are real
Just that. Then he moved on to Area 51 and then the journalist - highly experienced NYT writer - asked no follow up. To the biggest bombshell revelation ever dropped by an ex POTUS
Which leads me to believe the exchange was pre arranged and Obama knew it was coming and knew what he wanted to say and he was not prepared to say any more
Make of it what you will, PB!
The question is- who is the John Major hiding amongst this lot? If Starmer survives long enough to do another reshuffle, we may find out.
This is Trumpian politics.
Is Charlie Kirk going to re emerge to give JDV a good hiding
Is Michelle Obama an Alien
With Trump anything could happen
But his original words are absolutely not meant as a joke
It’s truly bizarre. Obama is a serious man who doesn’t say explosive things for laughs. Unlike Trump
Moreover, Obama has no need to create diversions from “ongoing scandals” - unlike Trump
I really do wonder if we are being prepped for some form of Disclosure
New Leader will emerge with favourable data across all important policy streams and a ticket in no 10 no 11 and deputy leader to unify the bulk of the Party.
Darren Jones
Yvette Cooper
Angela Rayner
Ed Milliband
Will have yey roles
Jones / Cooper in 10 or 11
Rayner deputy Leader
Milliband deputy PM
Every 3 seconds, a girl is married somewhere in the world.
Child marriage is a human rights violation that denies girls the chance to reach their full potential.
This #ValentinesDay, join @UNFPA in speaking out against this form of gender-based violence: unfpa.org/child-marriage
https://x.com/un/status/2022536530003108326?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
It's just a tax on working people and a benefit for older people. Nothing wrong with that but we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Solely on the basis of the candidate I'd say Reform are on for third in Gorton & Denton.
Stuzi 🐝🐝
@stuzi_pants
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‘The Green Party want to legalise crack and heroin, and Starmer looks like a robot’ cries Matt Goodwin who sounds like he’s just smoked crack cocaine, and looks like Kryten out of Red Dwarf if he’d borrowed Dumbo’s ears and glued them to his head
Wally
https://x.com/stuzi_pants/status/2022981041720533235?s=20
So purely on a practical level it seems implausible on its face because it doesn't seem to advance the purported goal much.
We shall see if splits elsewhere see him through.
And the big question is how many more votes than the Tories will he get - 4x, 5x?
And yet, it’s been a big old shrug from everyone. Downright peculiar
It’s rather amazing how quickly the story disappeared, a serious failure of about six different types of police to control the situation.
I suspect it will be indoor rallies only for the 2028 nominees, so the area can be properly secured.
"It has been described as Germany's most "spectacular" bank heist in years.
On a quiet weekend just after Christmas, a group of thieves broke into a High Street bank in the western town of Gelsenkirchen, by boring through a wall with an industrial drill. They looted more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes and made off with millions of euros. Over a month later, police have yet to make an arrest. For the bank's clients, some of whom say they have lost their life savings and precious family jewellery and valuables, this is a time of anger, confusion and shock. There is a strong sense that trust in institutions has been shaken.
The case has thrown up all sorts of difficult questions, and some of them have been spelled out by Herbert Reul, the interior minister in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Why did no-one notice what was going on? Was it an insider job?
Why did no-one hear the drill and how did the thieves know exactly where the vault was?
Were the bank's security systems too weak?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2y2538lz8o
Meanwhile the French guy leading has just missed the target twice and has to go ski twice round the naughty loop, while the Swede goes into the lead
That's the leading 7 in the market and I'm not gagging to back any of them. My book favours Streeting but I'm less happy with it now than I was a couple of weeks ago.
Course there's a timing factor. This summer vs 27/28 gives potentially quite different leadership contests.
I think the cause is not that "punters think Sir Keir Starmer’s remaining leader is a major positive for Labour". Rather the market is telling us that (a) they think that he is the opposite of a major positive and that (b) the past two weeks have convinced many of them that he will be gone in the not too distant future in favour of someone who stands a chance of turning things around at bit for Labour. If the past two weeks have shifted opinion on the likelihood of Starmer departing, then the market movement can be easily explained.
It's good we've had this and the Louvre heist recently for entertainment purposes, it's harder to make a good movie about some crypto bro scamming people for millions with a dog themed meme coin pump and dump, then getting away because they 'donate' to a politician etc.
Of course, they protest that some conspiracies do exist, which is true, but to be a true conspiracy theorist means nothing can ever shake your belief, even when all info really has been revealed.
Like most things surrounding Trump
Did Trump stage it??? Fuck knows. The world is now so weird I can believe almost anything
The way that lone kid (with no social media) was allowed to climb a roof in full view of thousands and lie there with a rifle for about 20 minutes, roughly 200 yards from The Donald
That near-miss got Musk’s instant surge of support, and quite possibly won Trump won the election
Hmm
I am aware this sounds a bit mad but then any honest discussion of the last five years of human history sounds totally fucking mad
“So there was this pathogenised bat coronavirus that came from the only city with a bat coronavirus pathogenising lab and everyone decided it came from a pangolin in a market instead of the actual virus making lab and then and then and then…”
And on, and on
But he did. Extensive use of all sorts of accounts. The general theory is it was staged by Team Trump... but what if...
I’m sure that will make the cosy consensus of the main three parties quite happy.
BTC: Are aliens real?
BO: They're real, but I haven't seen them; they're not being kept in what is it? Area 51. Area 51. There there's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they they hid it from the president of the United States.
BTC: What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?
BO: Where are the aliens?
So yes, it is a light-hearted exchange and even at face value, Obama says nothing more than many astronomers would, that there is likely intelligent life somewhere (else) in the universe.
As for the brittleness, the right are even bigger snowflakes than the left thesedays, they are incredibly fragile and perpetually outraged by mean words and trivial things that upset them, so they might not have that many non-brittle options.
To be followed by Revive, then Resurrect.
He does NOT make the fairly reasonable statement that “there is likely to be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe” (a fact which, by the way, is disputed by plenty of scientists - hence the Fermi paradox)
He flatly says, “Yes, aliens are real”
Seriously though, what could it mean? There has been very little focus on the man who did the shooting. In part that may be a fear of giving such people attention and therefore status. I know he's dead but others could be inspired.
So a leadership contest called in late May seems absolutely nailed on.
Starmer does not need nominations to throw his hat in the ring. At this point, I think those who will get the nominations to join Starmer in a contest will be:
Rayner (if she runs, she may not if HMRC have not come to a decision in her favour)
Healey
Streeting
or otherwise if Rayner does not run:
Miliband
Healey
Streeting
So potentially a four way contest if Starmer digs in, unless pacts are made after the nominations are secured for one to withdraw. I can see the potential for Healey and Miliband to do a deal in which one withdraws in favour of the other if one is lagging in polls of members.
Although not unique to them, I think some Reform councils have experienced this since May, as many have adapted to the mundane, constrained reality of running a local council, whilst others are still in online mode or ranting and pure ideology being all that you need. (That's not to say everyone has to jettison their ideals or personality to deal with the real world, but you do need to adapt somehow).
Ressurection, Revelation, Remembrance !!
So taken as a whole, Obama is not giving witness testimony but simply telling us his philosophical belief that they are out there somewhere. Well, we know that which is why we look for signs of life on Mars, Jupiter's or Saturn's moons and distant galaxies. Obama explicitly says there is no physical evidence unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they they hid it from the president of the United States.