The Great Reform Pact – politicalbetting.com
The Great Reform Pact – politicalbetting.com
Tory MP responds to colleagues who might be open to a deal:“Absolutely fucking not. Farage wants our voters, our candidates, and our party, and in return we’d get nothing but chaos and a mini-Trump totalitarian personality cult. No way.”
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Edit: sorry @malcolmg
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
You've published at the wrong time, Mr Eagles. Should have been at two minutes after half past six in the evening.
So, the downsides for the blues would be:
1) firm tactical voting against Reform would extend to them
2) necessarily giving up on some seats giving Reform a far greater chance
3) record of failure of Faragist political vehicles
4) surrendering leadership of the right to an incoming party
5) loss of the centre
Upsides:
1) slightly better chance in a small number of seats?
It's up there with: "Are you stupid?" or: "Would you like to attack Iran for no reason and with no plan for the Straits of Hormuz?" as an intelligence test.
Can I put my hand up to run the inquiry into the judge led inquiry into why this turned into a disaster?
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
It will be a cold day in Hell before I even consider voting for a party associated in any way whatsoever with Mr Toad. That includes electoral pacts.
The Big Opportunity for the Tories is to revert to being conservatives. Lean government, lower taxes, investing in industry. To do so means ditching their remaining culture war crap and stop pretending their policies in government didn't happen.
If they did, there is a whopping great block of voters to shop for, to recreate the voting coalitions won by Cameron, May and Johnson.
And what makes this truly attractive is that in doing so they become part of the anti-Reform pact. Many of the people viscerally opposed to voting Tory after last time can be persuaded back with the right policies. The new group run by Ruth Davison and Andy Street sets out to do exactly that.
How do the Tories recover? Regain their moral compass lost under Shagger. Leave the lunatics to Reform or worse, go back to the centre right, lead on growth from business innovation.
As it is, it is gratifying to see them splitting the right of centre vote. A problem we have long had to deal with on the left.
Reform has got their act together in Bradford, fielding full slates of candidates. Unlike the LibDems, who can only manage a single candidate rather than the requisite three per ward.
There could be some interesting analysis as to where the paper candidates live. I know one place where on a previous occasion a candidate lived in France, and we just had the one who lived at the other end of Cornwall.
Someone (not me) will need to be gearing up their resignations spreadsheet - I'm predicting 100-200 Ref UK Councillor resignations over the next 12 months. *
Or we could adopt one measure of the Welsh system, where candidates are required to be local - but that has downsides.
* This is supplementary to the ones who back out first. They have already lost 9 in the Senedd and Holyrood elections.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/26414229408247791
If there was a miracle and the Tories won I’d be disappointed but not fearful about what could happen to the country.
A Reform win would be a catastrophe for the country.
*As shock gathers, fades to Grey*
https://time.com/article/2026/04/09/iran-war-dubai-survive-abide/
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
As against this, becuase he's not done very much actual work for decades he's probably much fresher than -say - Michael Howard or even Keir Starmer. And he's nakedly ambitious so if he thinks he can win he may want to stay on.
White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets
Candidates need to have some link to the council area they are standing in. Either through residence, owning property, or a place of work.
There are some Conservative seats where Reform don't have an earthly, but they are ones in the Waitrose belt where a RefCon deal sees the Lib Dems romp home. Otherwise, Reform are targeting the sort of seats where Conservatives need to win- consider where all their gains in 2024 came from. Even Runcorn and Helsby had Conservatives in a solid second place before Nigel came along.
As TSE puns go that was almost subtle. Almost.
And now off to persuad kids to study pharmacy with me…
I’m hoping the Tories and Reform will split the vote allowing the Lib Dem’s to come through .
Is that doable ?
It works in theory, but not yet in practice.
"Well done to Ed Miliband for this one. OpenAI is halting its Stargate data centre project in Britain, citing high energy costs. The ChatGPT maker announced a partnership with Nvidia and Nscale last September, at the time of Donald Trump’s state visit. The investment was worth £31 billion in all and the Prime Minister hailed it as a ‘generational step change’. Sadly, OpenAI seems to have realised that Britain’s industrial electricity prices are the highest in the developed world.
A spokesman for the company said it would ‘move forward when the right conditions – such as regulation and the cost of energy – enable long-term infrastructure investment’. It’s all pretty bleak for Starmer’s repeatedly stated ambition that we should be an ‘AI superpower’. "
Probably an accident as it’s happened a few times before.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2042416755453157669?s=61
We’re going to see a clearout of AI competition over the next couple of years, just as we did during dot-com.
Ref-Con - I'm not sure.
The situation may not arise, if Reform don't need the Conservatives, the Conservatives manage to displace Reform or centre/left parties form the next government. But if Reform can form a government only with the Tories, I am pretty sure they will say, Yes.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
LD and Labour will do what they always do, coerce quietly and possibly hand each other 10-15 net seats each in the process.
Particularly in the SW where Labour did very well in 2024 and will likely lose a number of seats that were not really Labour seats you can certainly anticipate a lot of Labour to LD switchers to keep Tories out. I don't detect ANY real Green surge in Devon and Cornwall at the moment , May will be interesting to see where the "anti Government protest vote goes" in places like Plymouth and Exeter .The Tories will never be forgiven for "Tree night" in Plymouth so Reform may do very well there in the military seats.
The green surge may well turn decidedly brown and autumunal between 2026 and 2028 as Polanski is exposed for what he is, a Member of Your Party who has taken over the Greens with a cunning and quite brilliantly executed coup d'etat.
The Tories will have to decide if losing more than 500 Councillors in May and definitely is losing north of 750 seasts whether they want to be a nasty argumentative Twitter Party or a serious and credible Opposition under a serious and credible Leader like Hunt or Cleverley.
I cannot see any scenario south of 2000 seat losses where Starmer is challenged now, his danger period will be early 2027 IF the global situation has eased and mellowed.
In the meantime he is the only credible war time Leader in any Party in the UK and doing as good a job as anyone could do or have imagined in both keeping us OUT of war , in what is left of NATO and edging to closer ties to the EU and non US/Israeli Global influences.
It's interesting to be back in a vibrant and contented Labour Lichfield, very promising signs in the Shopping Centre and around the Town and neighbouring areas of improvements, early regeneration and new Green field Housing . Just a bloody shame that HS2 track to no where has decimated part of the east side of the City Boundaries.
May be bump in to the "mop" today, dear Michael is stll aroun, affable but eccentric as ever!
* They drive on the wrong side of the road
* They don't play football with a round ball
* They don't play cricket
* They're a republic
* They mispronounce basic words like "water"
* They can't spell basic words like "colour"
* They're a bunch of gun nuts.
Reduced tourism, USA businesses refocussing domestically, and the Billionaire with a local Bridge Monopoly who tried to use Trump-links to undermine a new bridge built by the Canadian Government to Detroit is about to come a slow cropper. And an annoyed Canadian.
Bridge tolls are quite something - $7 to $27 per axle for a lorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3idhTKQams
(And the most persistent background cat in Youtube history.)
They’re also facing a lawsuit from former partners led by Elon Musk, after they moved from a non-profit to a commercial business model.
None of the other large players wants to acquire them, they’re all happy to wait for the bankruptcy and bid for the pieces of what’s left.
That all said, it’s a massive loss to the UK that this contract was cancelled. UK should be in a great place to benefit from being outside EU regulations on AI. Expect more and similar stories if the government can’t get to grips with the price of energy.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
Be the guy selling shovels and sieves in the gold rush.
There’s no passion or creativity in it.
Steve Jobs said once that Apple only goes into businesses they feel they can play a productive role in. AI is not one of those.
My view inclines to the latter.
If Badenoch is what is needed to stop Farage then she has my support. But unfortunately I think the country is going to vote Reform anyway.
They build a site - some short term construction
Not many long term employees
Sucks up a bunch of electricity generation capacity
Data is owned by a US company and we are just the repository for the servers
Is there real value that comes from co-location benefits? I can’t see much other upside
Farage for his many faults has never been able to enact anything. All the defectors have and did.
Like Robert Jenrick, who literally boasted about opening migrant hotels.
I think there's something on the nomination that states whether you live in the Council area but location even within very small Wards in rural areas can matter - "the only candidate from the village" syndrome if you like.
I've discussed this before, not that the Conservatives on here want to in all honesty any more than the LDs would want to talk about propping up a minority Labour Government but I call it "the Amber Valley Question".
Amber Valley was Conservative in the Thatcher years then went Labour but in 2019 the Conservatives won it back. In 2024, their candidate ended up third behind Labour and Reform but close enough so you could argue they'd have a chance. The Conservatives have been more or less expunged from the County Council and have lost ground locally to Reform.
For the Conservative voter, therefore, it's a conundrum - tactically vote Labour to keep Reform out, tactically vote Reform to get Labour out or vote Conservative and hope for the best.
A choice for the deep blue C between two Devils you might argue?
Badenoch will, if she has any sense, (which she does) say nothing about any possible support for a minority Reform Government before an election but she will be asked about it repeatedly if it appears the Conservatives will lose half their seats but be in a position to provide Confidence & Supply to a minority Reform Government. As others have said, the slightest hint a Conservative Party led by her would enable Prime Minister Farage and the support will collapse.
Even if she could enable a non-Labour Government, should she? Who are the real opponents for the Conservatives - the Reform threat is existential, Labour will always be there in some form? The Party has been quite happy with the latter for a century or more, the former is the challenge.
A second Labour term, a single chaotic Farage administration - both might open the door wide for a Conservative return in 2034?
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Tories can then stand aside for Reform in a bunch of seats where Reform will lose to the Left.
I suspect that Farage doesn't want a pact, but he wants the Tories to be responsible for refusing one.
Sir Tony Blair has accused Ed Miliband of taking an “ideological” approach to net zero and called on him to approve new oil and gasfields in the North Sea to protect households and businesses from energy price shocks
The Tony Blair Institute, the former prime minister’s think tank, said the government should approve new licences for the drilling of the Jackdaw gasfield and the Rosebank oilfield to help address Britain’s “systematic energy crisis”
The report, which was endorsed by Blair, argues that Britain needs to pursue a two-track approach by producing more clean energy while accelerating domestic oil and gas production to reduce Britain’s exposure to global markets
Tone Langengen, a policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) and author of the paper, also said the UK risked falling behind global competitors by solely focusing on clean power
“If the government doubles down on the wrong parts of the system, the UK will remain exposed to the same vulnerabilities,” he said
“But this is also an opportunity to reset — including by accelerating domestic supply to reduce reliance on volatile imports and support UK jobs and tax revenues.”
Tony Blair is correct.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
However I feel that in the country this is a lot more unlikely, sadly.
At one point he was this sort of “AI tech bro”. Empty substance.
Farage is toxic and he has 3 years ahead of him of deep dislike in a very changed environment
I expect the shine to come off both Farage and Polanski by GE29
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CWYR0wedSJk
However there is also some conviction in their words. They think the damage to Dubai’s reputation for safety is long term and considerable (and could of course get a lot worse)
For Dubai to prosper as it did, it needs a pacified Iran that won’t ever kick off again. That seems distant
The AI companies are struggling to build even all of the ones they have planned in the US.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Google have clearly played the best game for AI, they have been in it longest and have their own hardware which eliminates their reliance on Nvidia and they've managed to sidestep the soaring costs for RAM because Tensor has a much lower usage of RAM than H100s or AMD/Intel CPUs.
OpenAI is, IMO, going to be gone this time next year. ChatGPT is a shite, Sora is dead, their enterprise offering is 2-3 steps behind Anthropic and sucking up to the US government has probably only bought them a year of runway. My understanding is that their $150bn funding round only unlocks $40bn in immediate cash, which they will burn through in about 8-9 months even if energy prices start to fall that will only buy them an extra few months. ChatGPT is the default consumer LLM but consumers don't want to pay $100 per month for it and companies would rather pay Anthropic $150 per licence or get Gemini with a Google workspace subscription.
Also, OpenAI still have the looming threat of Elon Musk, his lawsuit against them hasn't been thrown out despite numerous attempts to do so and he has got a real case. He gave them billions in startup funding to be a non-profit, they converted to a profit making business but gave him zero equity despite the initial seed funding. I wouldn't be surprised if the courts rule in his favour and force OpenAI to hand him a very big chunk of equity or pay him out tens of billions in recompense.
Has anyone else not been able to see comments for a few days ?
Feel remarkably lucky that what she wants to do on her birthday is get up before dawn to go for a walk with her old dad.