Betting on the Prime Minister after Andy Burnham – politicalbetting.com
Betting on the Prime Minister after Andy Burnham – politicalbetting.com
This is a market where it usually is profitable to lay than back at this time, Ed Miliband might be value if Andy Burnham proves to be rubbish and Labour MPs now used to ousting Prime Ministers could do a repeat.
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Edited extra bit: even the gleeful assassins of the Conservatives only axed two leaders in one Parliament because one of them was driving the economy off a cliff. Unless Burnham does the same, he should be safe until the General Election.
After Balfour (1911) and Austen Chamberlain (1922) it was not until 1965 that another Conservative leader was removed solely by his party. Admittedly, they then proceeded to start sacking them as though they were the Nuremberg executioners.
Burnham will, I would guess, not be very good, but he will be able to get away with quite a lot by simply blaming his predecessor.
Which is also one reason why we can be pretty sure Rachel Reeves will not be in his cabinet at all. Harder to make that case if you have the same chancellor as Starmer.
Possible value at the moment: 2028 as date of election, which has shortened. And Labour majority/Labour most seats.
Plus she's thick as mince, I mean what idiot cancels Net Zero in the middle of a heatwave?
The Salavat refinery hasn't been targeted since September last year. Afipsky was hit in June and March of this year.
Simply abolishing them would have a limited effect but isn't a solution either.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/new-greater-manchester-mayoral-election-34285277?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwdGRjcATCw7ljbGNrBMLDbWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHrOk6Ivk6xgaoezfSCRT2W5907MzaQ1W8DDGHLa3GuvjprrQyvJ4LN7bcNrM_aem_Lq8xbHHrQouJ8EDyF-NCjA#Echobox=1783967568
Should be of interest to everyone on this board.
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55149-big-yougov-voter-study-2026
Starmer went because he would have lost a leadership election had one been triggered, and he knew it was about to be triggered. He had in fact managed to forestall it with the Gorton by-election earlier, but had lost the support he needed for a repeat performance.
Brown would not have done so, if only because it would have been highly damaging to his image as a unifier which may have been mad but was important to him.
So it's 91 years.
RefUK 24(-1),
CON 19(-2),
LAB 19(-1),
GRN 15(+2)
LDEM 13(+1),
One side is hitting oil refineries and military convoys, the other just appears to be randomly targeting cities and objects of no military value.
https://x.com/zelenskyyua/status/2076930325968519266
Last night, the Russians launched 135 drones and 10 missiles of various types, most of them ballistic, against our cities and communities. Seven people were injured in the Kharkiv region, including a child. Ordinary residential buildings, a gas station, and railway infrastructure were damaged. Three people were injured in the Chernihiv region. The Russians damaged a residential building and power grid facilities, leaving thousands of families without electricity. Repair crews are now working to restore power to people as quickly as possible. An apartment building was also damaged in Zaporizhzhia.
The Russians struck Kyiv with ballistic missiles. Sixteen sites were damaged in the capital, including an ordinary school and a business. Critical infrastructure in the Dnipro, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, and Odesa regions was also targeted.
I suspect the answer is something like- the public wants the regulations but doesn't want to pay for boots-on-the-ground regulators.
So we have placebo regulation by paperwork instead. Because who is going to win an election on a platform of spending more on Trading Standards and Building Control?
3. There was no evidence that it was political and the victim was not a high profile serving politician so would not be considered an immediate target for such a political killing.
As such the police statements were neither couched nor pre-emptive. They were an accurate representation of the facts as understood at the time. When the facts changed so did the approach.
Not everything in this life has to be a conspiracy.
Anne Widdicombe might not have been an elected politician, but she was still very much in politics. The idea that not being elected meant she was any less likely to be a target is absurd.
The police have bungled badly. They have reinforced the view that they are there to manage the optics of a case like this which is not ideal for the Left.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/reform-uk-havering-council-climate-emergency-scrapped-b1289760.html
Though the weasels are thriving in far North East London, given how many of their words are in their statement:
Nigel Farage’s party running Havering Council declares it will ‘not pursue environmental or net zero-related policies in a way that places unnecessary cost, restriction, or pressure on residents’
Prediction: not much will actually change, and that word "unnecessary" is going to do a lot of work.
On the eve of Burnham's coronation labour women have spoken out about the party’s failure to elect a woman leader in 120 years, despite every other major UK political party having done so
I would have thought for betting purposes a woman should be favourite to follow Burnham
However, do not ask me who
In a decade
No doubt David Davis will have a view on this. Maybe resign and force a byelection?
Is it possible that in each case they thought the best candidate in the interests of the country was a man?
You say that Blair had already said he was leaving but in fact he was forced out long before the timing of his choosing. That is, Blair had said in September 2004 that "he would serve a "full third term" but would not contest a fourth general election". But in September 2006 the mounting pressure from Brown and within the party forced him to announce that he would be gone within a year.
Even then he tried to cling on without setting a date and only went after the disasterous May 2007 election results in the face of what would otherwise have been an inevitable formal leadership challenge. Brown, like Burnham, waited for the PM to announce his departure before seeking nominations as leader.
Brown very clearly forced Blair out, to a timetable not of his choosing.
I expect Labour women will see a woman succeeds Burnham sometime from 2029 on
We can judge their initial communications which were poor. The police should simply have said that they did not yet know the motive behind the murder, would investigate and would update as and when appropriate.
Ruling anything out before they had investigated was foolish. Why the police keep making such silly mistakes is bizarre.
https://x.com/414magyarbirds/status/2076584731928318187
Blair could have hung on with a little more sense and a little more nerve. He chose not to.
Obviously I am not going to change your mind on this, but you are still wrong.
Using Widdecome's death to score points is distasteful
Is there a single regulator in that sense that actually does a good job? OFSTED might have come close ten years ago but its performance has always been uneven and now it's a shrivelled hulk fit only for a decent burial.
Maybe the HSE?
It was people like yourself demanding Starmer allow Burnham to stand that has found us where we are. I didn't want him! But now he is on the cusp of being Prime Minister I'll wish him the best of luck-he'll need it.
Anyway the two alternatives jockeying for position to replace him are absolutely appalling.
Labour were in a bit of trouble before this was made clear enough.
The PB right always want to know the ethnicity of the suspect so they told you the guy was white British, He was white British so they didn't racially profile him and immediately grab for the political terrorism klaxon. As far as procedure is concerned I don't see what more they could have done.
Jonathan Hall, KC. Independent terrorism reviewer for the government.
I think there was a period when the public image of PMs was male, but that's largely disappeared (to be fair, probably Maggie has some of the credit for that).
First- if there's a criminal trial involved, there absolutely is a restriction on what people can and can't talk about, and rightly so.
Second, and more importantly- yes, people have a right to say things, with some understandable legal exceptions. That also means that other people have the right to say back to them 'you're saying things that are dumb/nasty/distasteful etc.'
But since this event is turning into a 'this proves what I thought all along' fest, I'm going to resurrect my campagin for news to be delivered once a week, preferably on a Sunday after evensong, when everyone is calm. We would be saved a lot of bother.
And we do need our elected structures, and our police (for example) to look recognisably like our society.
This creates a constituency of regulators whose job is to believe in more and more paperwork.
This in turn provides both a budget pressure to reduce actual inspection and an institutional belief that more regulation is better, just by itself.
In addition, process is great for arse covering and having no responsibility or liability.
In the Mitrokhin Archive, the history of the KGB tells a story. Of how they went from a few hundred people in a lean, mean, agile organisation, to hundreds of thousands in the 1970s. In vast tower bocks, they had meetings to decide on the biscuits for the meeting to discuss what budget the operation) that never actually happened) would come out of.
I have a feeling that I may have worked there.
Labour women are the ones talking and restless
If I was betting it would be for a female to follow Burnham, whenever that is
Blair was forced out.
Perhaps the police could have been a bit more neutral and say something like, "we're still in the early stages of the investigation and haven't ruled anything out," but I would guess the media would have sexed that up as, "police investigating Widdecombe murder as political terrorism!"
I was only half joking about Bev Craig being the next PM.
Labour leader being PM after next election very possible.
Labout leader after next election introducing PR quite possible
Centre left parties form government following 2034 election possible
Andy Burnham being that leader in 2034, not impossible
Any next PM / Labour leader could well not even be close to being an MP yet
My archeologist friends would say "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" but we are so used to it being used as a non-denial denial (which journalists don't call people out on) that a firm statement of lack of evidence is taken as a denial.
Why police just say they don't know, I don't know. It's not their job to ascribe motive, that's for the prosecutor (to decide if terrorism charges are justified) and the court to decide.
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2076798878595342620
On July 13, 2026, at approximately 7:00 AM ET, ICE was conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal. An illegal alien departed the residence in a vehicle. ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop. The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.
The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries.
The Biddeford Police Department and FBI responded to the scene. DHS OIG has been notified and like all discharge of firearms this will be investigated. This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information is available.
26 year old, with work permit and social security number, and his three year old kid in the car...
Darline Graham Nordone was formally chosen by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on Monday, who introduced her as Graham's "darling little sister" who would "finish his work for him now".
"It is such an honour. Lindsey has always been there for me and now I will be there for him," Nordone said.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05y3rlvp20o
When it comes to material it’s harder because you need to know the composition of the material and that is going to be we are installing these show label and go online to check the composition - because destructive tests are very expensive
As November elections approach it will be interesting to see if this changes.
I think it probable McMaster goes for the nomination himself though.
That is at head height for someone using a mobility aid, and a danger for any long cane vision impaired person. He pavement parking is endemic so they go more along walls. It can swing about 1/3 of the way across the pavement.
I'm surprised it got past anyone, unless it was left off the plans, since eg a garage in that position would be required to have a roller shutter door, not something that swings out. It's also a surprise that the person doing the conversion (from a shop unit to a bungalow) did not notice - any purchaser with half a brain cell to rub together will challenge them on on it. A solution would have been sash or tilt-and-turn windows, or fixed lower panes. The cause could be inattention to detail or lazy assumption.
When i spoke to building control, they looked at it and said if I send in my photo by email they will "have a word". I have done that, and we shall see.
For me there are two problems with building control. One is that it was part-privatised by Maggie in the 1984 Building Control Act, which allows private BCOs to be appointed, which removes independence and hides the reports etc (which should be published as per Planning docs). This was partly rolled back for tall buildings after Grenfell.
The other is a now 45-year ingrained theology that "private sector is good", "public sector is bad", and that the way to fix the public sector is to CUT CUT CUT, pay the staff poorly, employ few, then CUT some more, That is exact opposite of the values applied to the private sector by the same people, and is crazy on its face.
That to me is an indicator that the Tories need a philosophy of public service, which at the moment they do not have, and a more sustainable political position. I'd suggest it would be a beneficial contrast to the cavemen of Ref UK.
Looking at the header, Burnham is even in post yet and it's suggested we discuss his successor.
Surely there's something else we could argue over. When is it going to rain again, for example. Wilson appointed Denis Howell as Mnister for Drought and the heavens opened. IIRC it rained for the proverbial forty days and forty nights!
https://x.com/ProtectTheWild_/status/2076728474308431970
It's a subject for Sherlock's great dictum (true of course only if slightly amended, but the point is clear):
when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
As it can only be the leader of Lab/Con/Ref it is simple.
It can't be Reform because they can't win. It can't be Kemi because she isn't PM material and she can't win and there is no-one decent to replace her. So it's Labour, or Labour led, which means almost 100% certainly Burnham. DYOR.
There's no case for "reasonable self defence" in a situation instigated by the shooter, and where on his own evidence he shot someone simply for driving away.
It's not being a "pussy" to question giving government thugs effectively unlimited immunity to kill people.
And Vance confirmed last time around that it what is intended.
https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/2076378305285005553
"He is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. ” (2026)
- U.S. Vice President JD Vance on the ICE member who killed U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good.
That is also, of course, completely outside of the actual law.
Yes it may be bullshit but is a possible defence.
Collins is Chair of the Appropriations Committee, and voted to give ICE another $70bn.
She has expressed concern.
Over the weekend, the assistant chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, Matt Longman, told reporters: “At this point there is still no information to suggest that this is a terrorism-related incident and at this point we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this murder. At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that it was politically motivated.”
Note the "at this point" and "at this stage".
"RIP Goldie u r in heven now with da angles and princess Di sleep well little man xxx"
The guy had his three year old kid in the car and wasn't even the immigrant they were targeting.
You're effectively saying immigration officers should have license to shoot anyone, on the flimsiest of pretexts.