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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why you should be backing Jeremy Hunt as next PM
Despite their very best efforts, Labour wasn’t able to weaponise the NHS to their advantage or damage the Tories on the NHS in the election campaign (nor in the run up to the election.) The NHS is an issue that has been traditionally perceived to be one of Labour’s strongest areas, Labour’s failure to make the NHS an election issue says a lot about Hunt’s abilities as a …
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(and first)
I always remember how to spell "separate" based on the fact that you should 'never separate a man from his parachute'
At the next election the Tories will want to keep the couple of million votes they got from the Lib Dems. He will be ideal for that. He would be less good, obviously, at winning back Kippers but he would consolidate the Tories centralising message which is an election winning strategy.
There have been a number of occasions when he has made AB look quite foolish which shows he has a bit of steel in him but I also get what Charles is talking about when he says he is not particularly inspirational. But he is arguably the continuity candidate (unless Osborne decides he wants it himself of course) and TSE is right to point out the prices are silly.
Not quite sure I agree with that TSE. The NHS will be getting slight funding increases, but it will also be getting huge cost rises. Therefore, to keep its books balanced it is going to have to cut.
My friends in the NHS suggest that there might be quite a lot of administration cut, especially in equalities, disabilities etc. That could cause a lot of outrage on the left because most of the people who work in them are themselves from minorities/disabled and there are going to be lots of 'hard cases' for them to parade.
I also have to say I find it difficult to believe an essentially uncharismatic and comparatively little-known ex-public-schoolboy could follow Cameron, especially given his associations with Murdoch and Brookes. It's Javid's background and clean skin that make him attractive and the prices reflect that. Also, Javid is a potential candidate for Osborne to put forward should he decide - as I expect him to - that he would not be able to do the top job himself (or at least, not do it and win an election) which could well be decisive.
If anything therefore 50/1 seems therefore very short to me - I'd put Hunt at around 100/1. Certainly I don't think he's a value bet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33307263
It also emphasises that the level of support this country has had from the other EZ members is truly stunning. They really have a cheek and are deeply deluded. Foreign Banks are at 1% which indicates why people are being sanguine about the systemic risks of default.
Will the Bank closures finally bring it home to the Greeks (their current leadership is past praying for) that they have chosen the wrong path? How on earth do they get back on track? I fear that it is going to be very difficult to reverse this. Like the start of WW1 referred to yesterday this now has its own momentum and options are few even if the Greeks wanted to cave in.
Javid is sensible, and smart, with a great backstory. I introduced him at an event a year ago and he gave a good, but fundamentally shallow, speech. It ticked all the right boxes, but somehow felt lacking in something. I think that 5 years of Cabinet level experience will be the making of him: if he can prove to me that he's not your archetypal glib banker-salesman, but actually has a vision that he believes in, then he could be a great candidate.
Well that's Osborne out of the running then :-)
I think he might. It is in fairness quite hard to be anything other than fluffy and shallow as Culture Secretary. Why we still have such a post is something of a mystery to me.
No doubt I would think this as a Tory supporter but the choices available to the Conservatives are generally as far ahead of the options available to Labour as I can ever remember between the two main parties.
And if Andy Burnham can't make anything of that, what is the point of him?
But it is pretty extraordinary that through the mechanisms of the European Financial Stability fund etc the other EU members have effectively bought up so much of Greece's debt and allowed a country which had no effective access to the market to operate relatively normally for so long. And their response was to elect Syriza. Truly no good deed goes unpunished.
As for the money being owed to EC countries, all that has changed in the past 5 years is the debt has moved from EC banks to the countries the banks are part of... That at least means that bank management isn't embarrassed about their stupid lending, and government's don't have to bail out their badly supervised banks..
The more I read about the original deal the more obvious the ECB stitch up becomes.
IMHO, it's Osborne's to lose. The biggest risk to him is the likely failure of Cameron's EU renegotiation strategy, because he'll be knee-deep in it.
Labour leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham has promised to appoint a woman as his deputy, even if the party elects a man.
The shadow health secretary plans to ditch a long-standing convention which has seen the deputy leader standing in on big occasions, including at Prime Minister's Questions.
Instead he has vowed to appoint a Shadow First Secretary of State who will go up against current title holder George Osborne, who is now David Cameron's deputy PM in all but name.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3142253/Andy-Burnham-choose-woman-Osborne-Deputy-PM-party-elects-man.html#ixzz3eQc0rxdq
It is this blind ambition, it's ability to constantly ignore the will of the people through referenda and its corrupt approach to financing the entire circus that will be their undoing. Greece has simply "slipped a stitch" within the pattern but it is enough for the whole charade to start to unravel and not before time
It's basically a ships captain bypassing the 1st lieutenant and giving control of the ship to the lookout instead when the Admiralty had already officially appointed the No1 as the next in command.
Hash Tag Dr Boom.
Quite.
I don't think Jeremy Hunt has much chance of being next PM, will be between Boris, Osborne and Javid.
FWIW if Burnham wins I would not be at all surprised to see Yvette Cooper appointed to the shadow chancellor/deputy PM role. She is lacking charisma but she is numerate and probably the smartest Labour have available. If that means she takes some of the responsibilities that would otherwise fall to Watson that can only be a good thing.
The only way this will fall apart is when the likes of Merkel gets voted out by her pissed off people, and the individual nation leaders realise they either have to go against the will of their people or finally draw a line under the whole grotesque project.
The Next PM market is full of value, as the favourite Boris has no chance. Nothing at all to do with my massive lay on him when he was almost at evens.
People ought to be judged on the content of their character, not the content of their trousers. Burnham's an imbecile. I agree Watson's a full-blown oaf, but disregarding him because he's a fallopian-deprived ape [even if elected] is both sexist and undemocratic.
I am unconvinced by Hunt and have never bought him as a contender to be leader next. Against Osborne, Javid, or (the two-frontrunners), Patel and Greening he doesn't stand up.
Tthere could be endless fudge about whether they are in or out - and they might use a dollarized Euro for a while.
YY = Year
MM = Month
DD = Day
(It sorts better on databases)
ergo, 15th September 2011 = "11/09/15"
Greece is already 'not a full member of the Euro' because of capital controls, says @Peston #r4today
Remarkable pictures on Sky of the local Tunisians chasing down the gunman.
As I say, you would think from reading the thread header that it was TSE's bet wouldn't you? But I don't think so
I am setting up an Excel database at the moment using the normal DD/MM/YY. I am more concerned that users will confuse the dates ( as on here this morning) when they come to use it?
Have to refresh every time I post
Can't delete backwards of place cursor in the text to change
Typing in and nothing appearing within comment box
Is it the site or is it my IPad. Could well be my IPad
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33306869
Could his action be classified as a sexual assault? Suarez's biting had a longer ban, but I do wonder if Jara's behaviour was premeditated, an attempt the forward sent off.
Databases are often populated the lazy way - which is to import some data from outside and to just call every field TEXT, instead of its proper type (NUMERIC, CURRENCY, DATE etc).
An example:
- you have three records which each contain date, amount and name (all defined as TEXT)
- the date format is dd/mm/yy,
- you sort by date then you will see this order.
11/09/15,100,J Bloggs
15/03/14,90,M Mouse
20/02/13,80,E Miliband
If you put them into an Excel table, and define the date field as DATE, then you would see the correct order.
20/02/13,80,E Miliband
15/03/14,90,M Mouse
11/09/15,100,J Bloggs
Moreover, you can define how the date is displayed on screen, so 20/02/13 could show as "20 Feb 2013" if that is what you want.
OPEN OFFER TO SITE MEMBERS
I used to do Excel work professionally (VBA macros, pivot tables, charts etc). If you need any help drop me a line and I will be happy to help free-of-charge, if I can.
I too used to get a 'consultant's tan' (white with a feint grey grid) for a living - every-now and again I still have nightmares that the models I have made and left in operation in various workplaces come back to haunt me...
"It's hard to imagine the author of this piece has not been reading PB..."
It's hard to imagine that the comments don't refer with greater accuracy to British nationalism, a nationalism which many do not recognise in themselves, even while they make political speeches against the backdrop of a Union flag.
Going back to the 2015GE, we heard quite a bit about the almost undetected (by many) of the Cons 40/40 seat strategy - 40 to attack and 40 to defend.
Also they had to 101 strategy of seats where the Cons candidates would receive little to no support - seats where they thought they would not win or win easily. Have now made a spreadsheet of these to look at how this strategy turned out and how the majorities changed.
These seats were:
London: 19: All Labour
Eastern: 10: 6 Cons; 2 LD, 2LAB
S East: 4: All Cons
S West: 4: 2 LAB; 1LD; 1 Con
E Mids: 8: 7 LAB; 1 Con
W Mids:17: 15 LAB; 2 Cons
N West: 7: 5 LAB; 1 Con; 1 LD
N East: 6: 5 LAB 1 LD
Yorks & H: 9: 7 LAB; 2 Cons
Wales: 7: 6 LAB; 1 PC
Scots: 10
Ignoring the Scottish seats altogether, all the LD seats except Norfolk N were lost to Labour.
The one and perhaps surprising Con gain from Labour is Plymouth Moor View. All the other seats were held by the incumbent parties.
However, depending on how the LDs split and if UK had an impact, the regions did vary for these 101 seats. In London majorities were often doubled or more except for Eltham. In the West Mids, Labour majorities increased except for Stoke on Trent where they declined.
I can pass on this spreadsheet to TSE if anyone would like a copy.
I've got a spreadsheet with 2015 results (Votes, percentages) and comparable 2010 results if anyone wants a copy. (Not what I would give to a client, but the data is there!). If anyone wants a copy please shout.
Although the Tories say they will increase funding (from where, who knows) the NHS will always be a blackhole that money will disappear faster than you can put it in. Add in immigration and birth rates bolstering our already aging population, there will be at some point a breaking point where either some services are no longer free / provided by the NHS or the waiting lists become extremely long.
It is ticking time bomb, like return of interest rates to historical norms. When that happens, nobody knows.
https://recombu.com/digital/article/bt-and-virgin-media-unable-to-rescue-sheffield-from-superfast-broadband-gap
Oops !
For those wanting a novel (or perhaps not novel) experience during the forecast heatwave:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33286120
Every man when accused of wrongdoing deserves their day in court.
This'll all be sub judice now so that'll be my last comment on the matter.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/26/labour-ahead-of-tories-nhs-poll-ed-miliband-health-service-policies
https://twitter.com/scottishlabour/status/615437081368592384
There is an excellent piece from Redburn today on Grexit and what we know and don't know, and how we proceed from here. (Like all the best research, it's not pushing a point of view, it's just telling you the facts.)
The basic points made are (1) Grexit needn't be a disaster for Greece, but it needs to be handled properly; (2) it is unclear what the priority of the ECB is - preventing contagion or keeping Greece in the Euro?; (3) the QE programme means that it is unlikely that there is any near-term impact on Spain, Portugal or Italy's ability to fund themselves.
I also thought Labour rules meant that if the leader was a man the Deputy had to be a woman, which is why Burnham-Creasy looks most likely
It would surely make more sense in any case to elect first a leader, then a deputy to serve under them?
https://twitter.com/michaelbirnbaum/status/615445128086470656
Above all, if you're betting on this market, you do need to understand the dynamics. What will matter in the end is not who the party members would like as leader, but which of the two candidates offered to them they will prefer. What's more, MPs know that, so the choice which will be offered will be as much informed by the candidates MPs don't want as those they do (that, incidentally, was why IDS became leader: he was the 'Not Ken Clarke' candidate).
So you really need to think about possible pairs of options in the final round. Just writing some possibilities down helps to clarify how unpredictable this could be:
Osborne vs Boris
May vs Boris
May vs Osborne
Javid vs Boris
Javid vs May
Javid vs Osborne
Hunt vs Boris
Hunt vs May
Hunt vs Osborne
Hunt vs Javid
(There are more possibilities, of course: Phil Hammond, Owen Paterson..)
In addition, the contest is at least two and probably more years away, and there's the small matter of the EU referendum to get through first. Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid have plenty of time to grow in stature and become better known.