The money piles on the Tories after the PMQ row
November 13th, 2008
Projected CON majority: 34 (+8) seats
Whatever the rights and wrongs of yesterday’s fierce exchanges in the House of Commons the spread betting punters who risk shed-loads of cash on the commons seats markets have given their verdict by “buying” Conservative seats and “selling” Labour.
On Tuesday, as I reported here after the Populus poll, the commons seat spreads from PB’s co-sponsor, Sporting Index were: CON 336-342: LAB 240-246: LD 43-46 seats.
Taking the mid-point between the buy and the sell price that suggested a Tory majority of just 26 seats. Yesterday following the PMQ row there was a sharp move back to the Tories which at the end of the day had seen a big shift to a position that suggests a 34 seat majority. This is still some way down on mid-September when the prices pointed to a 54 seat majority.
Spread betters are “trading” the number of commons seats the parties will get at the election as though they were stocks and shares. There are big rewards if you get it right but big losses if you don’t.
Thus on the morning of Brown’s election U-turn announcement in September 2007 the Labour buy level reached 338 seats. Today the party’s spread is at 236-242 seats so if you wanted to get out of that contract it would cost you the difference between the level you bought at and the current sell price multiplied by your stake level. In this example that would be 102 seats - and at £50 a unit that would leave you £5,100 poorer.
A key element with this form of gambling is that you can close down a position today and take a profit even though we might be 21 18 months away from the event itself.
Mike Smithson
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good night
I dont think the betting prices suggest anything other than the amount of money bet on a particular outcome.
To be critical of opinion polls with less than rigorous methods, and then to place any predictive value on the highly biased betting population, especially after the recent byelection, shows dubious logic.
2. “to place any predictive value on the highly biased betting population…shows dubious logic.”
Hear, hear. How many times have we all seen someone look at some betting odds, smile knowingly and say “ah, the bookies don’t often get it wrong”. Er, yes they do, and on a fairly regular basis! Three by-elections in this parliament alone - how much more evidence is needed? Nobody disputes they know how to make a profit but they certainly don’t do it by being infallible.
Go against the grain rather than with it. Then take your money and run.
Fifth column? Fifth International? Fifth rate?
Gabble Check List for Thursday, 13 November 2008
With the DOW down over 400 points overnight and the Nikkei losing over 500 this morning (13:40 Tokyo time - down 535.32) today may not be very encouraging for FTSE watchers. We are getting uncomfortably close to Madasafish’s bottom.
FTSE 100 opens at 4182.02
Optimistic milestones to watch for:
4455.60 - up 273.58 (6.54%) to return to 2nd May 1997 level
5218.95 - up 1036.93 (24.79%) to match DOW performance since 2 May 97
5385.90 - up 1203.88 (28.79%) to come out of current bear market
5426.59 - up 1244.57 (29.76%) to match CAC performance since 2 May 97
5949.73 - up 1767.71 (42.27%) to match DAX performance since 2 May 97
6330.07 - up 2148.05 (51.36%) to match inflation (42.07%) since 2 May 97
6527.60 - up 2345.58 (56.09%) to return to Blair’s 27th June 2007 level
6930.20 - up 2748.18 (65.71%) to equal all-time high on 30 Dec 99
Pessimistic milestones to watch for:
3460.00 - down 722.02 (-17.26%) to reach Madasafish’s interim low
3287.00 - down 895.02 (-21.40%) to return to Blair’s low on 12 Mar 03
2780.00 - down 1402.02 (-33.52%) to reach Madasafish’s low low
2144.30 - down 2037.72 (-48.73%) to return to 28th Nov 90 (exit Maggie!)
John Major writes “the soon-to-retire face a double whammy: not only has the value of property fallen, but their pension funds - already weakened by tax levies - have also been cut in value by 30 per cent or more.” However, according to at least one Labour MP, the direction of the stock market is important for savers and pension funds over the long term, but not the main concern at the moment.
When the national ID scheme is rolled out, this sort of thing won’t happen, will it?
————
Incorrect records showing more than 12,200 innocent people to be paedophiles, violent thugs or other convicts were disclosed to schools, hospitals, nurseries and voluntary groups by the Criminal Records Bureau. The extent of the misreporting is four times worse than officials had suggested.
————-
Vote Labour and get a record.
Saw PMQs on teh interweb. Not a big fan of Cameron, mainly out of habit more than anything else, but the boy done well. Very well.
Martin did well too. He might be thick but he knows what’s right when it gets to the really basic stuff.
“If you watch PMQ’s again, check out Ed Ball’s reaction as he sat on the Labour benches. He knew that he had dropped the ball as it were.”
Funniest bit for me was a brief clip of Mrs Ball’s body language towards that Purnell bloke. Herman needs to be spending less time sucking up to McBean and more time with his missus imho. Lol.
“It is a story about a 17-year-old girl who had no idea how to bring up a child. It is about a boyfriend who could not read but could beat a child. It is about a social services department that gets £100m a year and cannot look after children.”
Excellent, Dave, stick it up ‘em.
its an amazing difference you see between Cameron and Brown, i saw it in his conference speech when he was speaking about his constituent who wrote to Cameron after his wife died of MRSA. Cameron has genuine compassion, he has a conscience. Brown doesn’t appear to have any compassion at all, its as if he sees the individual members of the public as blocs that make up the country, individual units with their own expenses and contributions, but not as people,not as conscious beings.
2. You are right. But I am near 100% certain that there’s now value to be had in Labour buying. Actually all my money has been won that way in the past 2 or 3 years.
10. Pass me a bucket. If you think Cameron’s genuine then you are a mug. I’ve met him. He’s a typical politican - aloof and out for power. I suspect that Brown, like Michael Howard, is a much more genuine person than the public will ever give him credit for. That’s politics, and people get taken in by it.
8. There’s also the fact that if Mike wanted to he could post a thread critical of, let’s say, Brown in PMQs then wait for the market adjustment and make some money.
Obviously I’m not suggesting he does do that …
12 - you really have had an astonishingly wide ranging reversal of opinion for somebody who was expecting to vote Tory only four short weeks ago.
If you’ve made money over the last few years backing Labour then you must have been brilliantly selective in your bets.
Perhaps it’s all coming full circle.
Gordon ‘Bankrupt’ Brown has failed in his ‘bailout plan’. Since it was introduced the economy has gone from bad to worse. Corrupt Brown lines the pockets of the bankers while the economy goes down the pan. Is Brown probably the greatest con-man that Britain has ever produced, Scotland’s worst export?
And then there is ‘reap what you sow’ in the fiasco of Mandelson’s elaborate sting operation against the hero of the Conservatives - George Osborne. Labour has been desperate to damage and remove Osborne, who triggered the Conservative 20% leads following the Conservative Conference budget proposals of October 2007, and in the year prior to Brown’s takeover had humiliated Brown at the Despatch Box - as quoted on this forum. Brown remains unelected to his post by either party or people, and is an illegitimate occupant of 10 Downing Street. That he is tolerated is astonishing, and tells us Britons that we are not yet a fully mature democratic country.
Mandelson began his sting operation against Osborne in December 2007, just two months after Brown’s final humiliation with the election that never was. Obviously Mandelson was looking for bargaining power with Brown to get back into the Cabinet and power. The Russian oligarch may allegedly have ’supported’ Mandelson in various ways in exchange for the removal of all EU tariffs against the oligarch’s aluminium imports. After three meetings with Osborne, Mandelson introduced his chum, the Russian oligarch, to Osborne, via an old Osborne friend Rothschild.
Both Rothschild and the Russian oligarch where by the late summer of 2008, sitting on huge losses caused by a collapse in the financial markets, property and the commodities markets. Rothschild’s hedge fund may already be bankrupt - sitting on losses of approximately 35% of its capital. People do all sorts of strange things when their financial world collapses around them.
As part of the Mandelson sting these people at the third meeting became desperate to ‘donate’ money to the Conservative Party, but were eventually turned down. A damp squib. Yet Mandelson no doubt dressed it up for bumbling Brown. ‘I’ve got them. It’s a sting even better then the Guardian’s against Hamilton. It’s not just Labour that is full of sleaze.’ (The sole witness against Hamilton was Mohammad Al Fayed, who was this year confirmed by a courtroom as a ‘compulsive liar’.)
Gordon ‘Bankrupt’ Brown swallowed it whole. ‘Wow. Have you really got them? What do you want? Cabinet? Not enough? I’ll give you a position on every decision-making committee in government. Just dish the dirt. Even Nixon would have been proud of these dirty tricks, Mandelson. I always wondered how Blair kept on coming up with these sinister ploys. Well l done. We’ve got to get that Alistair Campbell back as well. We’ll spin it faster than a Bosch washing machine.’
Yet little did Brown know the con-man was conned. No sooner has Mandelson arrived, then Osborne condemned Mandelson. Mandelson says ‘Brown is a useless idiot’. The sting backfired when it became clear the ‘attempted donation’ had been refused. Surely the only winners in the long-run will have been Mandelson and the Conservatives. It’s Brown that has been humiliated. Since when has a PM given away so much for so little?
And yet again Brown has made a fool of the press. That will not be forgiven a second time.
re 12 & 13. Your claim to have switched to supporting Labour in the past month because of Brown’s handling of the economic crisis is a lie.
On January 24th 2008 you were posting here that you were “a member of the Labour party”. See here.
16 - he’s always been a Labour member on here. A Labour member who has tended to attack the Govt by taking mainstream Conservative positions (eg. opposing 50% university target, lack of immigration controls, anti-Europe etc) - basically the Frank Field line - but definitely a Labour member.
Good spot, Mike.
I was just about to ask if anyone actually believed Richard - and obviously the answer should be no.
Richard - on October 22nd 2008 you were saying -
“..Actually I have no political allegiance and am a floating voter. The sort, indeed, that you should woo not worrit. As it happens I have been telling friends until recently that I am extremely likely next time to vote Conservative. However, I am not overly inspired just now by them, and it doesn’t look as if I am entirely alone.”
A funny comment for a Labour member - this is typical astro-turfing
Richard, lying? Heaven forfend! Misremembering, perhaps, or - like his Leader - unable to avoid that kind of imprecision.
Smithson - well done that man! I wonder if Richard will show his face here again.
12 If that is your view then either you have not met him, or you are a Labour supporter who would support Brown even if he ran a concentration camp!!
I too have met Cameron on several occassions, and the one comment I and most others with an open mind say after such a meeting is that he does have genuine compassion, he is genuine.
You’d rather stick up for that evil, lying, theif Brown would you? Says a huge amount about you Richard.
12,14,16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and especially 22, i completely agree.
Have to be careful because after Labour bombs in the euro elections, Mandy (as the Blairite sleeper he is) might lead a move to force Brown out. Then there would be a bounce with a new leader elected in the autumn just months before an election. But if they stick with Brown until 2010 then Labour will be stuffed.
21 - expect him to be wearing dark glasses if he does. He is an artist’s impression: Rich8ard
One factor to bear in mind is how Brown and Cameron will perform in an election campaign. This could make a big difference in a close result. In 1992, for instance, I think Major performed much better than Kinnock and this was a crucial factor in his win.
PMQ raised all the old questions about Brown’s ability to show emotional sympathy, whether he can articulate public concerns and think quickly on his feet. Conversely, it confirmed that Cameron probably has these qualities. These might be superficial qualities and it may well be unfair on the worthy, plodding Brown. But it could be worth twenty seats to the Tories
Wikipedia:
“Victoria Adjo Climbié (2 November 1991 – 25 February 2000) was abused and murdered by her guardians in London, England, in 2000.
The public outrage at her death led to a public inquiry which produced major changes in child protection policies in the United Kingdom, including
the formation of the Every Child Matters programme;
the introduction of the Children Act 2004;
the creation of the ContactPoint project,
a planned government database that will hold information on all children in England and Wales;
the creation of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner chaired by the Children’s Commissioner.”
Almost NINE YEARS later:
“An urgent review is getting under way into child protection procedures in the London borough where a 17-month-old boy was killed after months of abuse. Children’s Secretary Ed Balls ordered an investigation to examine the role of all agencies involved in the case.”
“An inquiry into the Climbie case by Lord Laming made a raft of recommendations for children’s services across the country, and he has now been asked to review progress nationwide.”
That makes me angry. Sad, but angry.
IMO the main reason the money is piling on the Tories at present is because of the economic news and the Bank of England’s updated forecast of the depth and longevity of the recession/depression.
Bt announces 10000 job losses.
As Mike said yesterday, this has once again proved Brown’s two main weaknesses. 1) He cannot think on his feet, he must use a script. 2) When pushed off financial matters he loses all confidence and makes poor decisions. During a GE campaign Cameron would be doing the whole man of the people schtick, meeting the public, doing town hall style meetings, I bet he’d even do a special question time. Brown would be a massive failure at all of these, he’d revert to glad handing his supporters and doing big set piece speeches where questions aren’t allowed. This would give the tories a massive edge in an age where politics has become less and les popular, with Cameron connecting with his supporters and potential supporters, while Brown hides from his.
27 Yes, all these actions have cost an enormous amount in money emotion and community life. We we have got to the stage where anyone who wants to run a club or activity with children involved is treated as a criminal first. Men now cannot even pick up a child who has fallen over, without suspicion. And we cannot photograph our children’s sports days etc.
And yet none of this stops the same thing happens again, in the same Labour council!!!!!!!
And, its the same with Islamic terrorism; we all suffer because Labour will not tackle the root of the problem. Infact they will not even call it Islamic terrorism; which the latest security report says has led to confusion and poorer security. Luton, Birmingham and Bradford are now hotbeds for home grown terrorists.
Broken society, broken economy, and a growing terrorist threat. What a wonderful legacy Labour have left us.
12. Irrespective of whether Richard was astroturfing or not, he’s (inadvertently?) landed on a useful point: as far as the next election is concerned, Cameron is likely to appear genuine and human and Brown is likely to appear much less so. Whether or not that is genuinely the case (probably yes in Cameron’s case; less so in Brown’s), perception will matter more.
As Richard said: he’s met Cameron. Not many of the 30m voters will - they’ll get their impressions of him through the media and especially the TV (newspapers’ political reporting tends to be discounted a little due to known bias even when people agree). After four or five weeks of intensive campaigning, is it likely that the polls will move against Labour? I’d say so. They won’t necessarily move in the Tories’ favour - the Lib Dems usually put on a couple of percent or so over the campaign as people are reminded that they exist outside seats they’re working - but the gap will probably open.
Simon Hoggart Has PMQs about right, only Speaker martin comes out with any credit. Brown and Cameron were both poor.
Saw Ken Clarke on Bloomberg talking 100% sense about the £. Whatever hapened to him then? Shame he’s such a Europhile and fan of peddling fags to kids.
Ann Treneman also good.
32 - I have to say that I thought David Cameron revealed a hard edge yesterday that he has not shown publicly much before. It was a political masterstroke, given that Labour are relatively strong on economic matters at present, but it did not make me warm to him one little bit.
BT announce 10,000 job losses, BT shares up 10% discuss
Mike, it is not a maximum 21 months to the General Election but more like 18½ months.
We are treated to detailed charts showing how the recession will be “V” shaped. This from organisations who less than 6 months ago thought the economy would grow by a couple of percent this year and even a bit more next.
A number of cliches come to mind. Jam tommorrow graphs. Every forecast is wrong unless you are very lucky. Forecasting the future is more difficult than forecasting the past. If they are so good at forecasting, why do they not win the lottery every week. History repeats itself, only in differing ways.
Look at the record of these people and judge whether they deserve any respect. I suspect that times are so grim that we are being treated to the authorities trying to “sing from the same hymn sheet” - unless you are in Salisbury. If only the real world moved in straight lines.
Its the economy.
Buy Tory. The top out target on the seats market for me has always been 70-75 seat majority territory again but I’d be happy to dip out at 50 and take some money.
FTSE opened down nearly 100 but recovering.
33/35, Icarus: your links seem to be broken?
38. Pretty much. The BoE were predicting something completely different a few months ago, this entire situation has caught them by surprise. So why will they know when it will end?
Sorry try http://tinyurl.com/5c9crz for Hogart
and http://tinyurl.com/6kkff7 for Teneman.
Not sure what I did wrong -trying to be clever!
Steve Bell sums up the nonsense of the BoE forecast
http://tinyurl.com/69523q
“Smithson - well done that man! I wonder if Richard will show his face here again.”
He owes me £10, don’t run him out of town just yet!
Icarus
Are you available later today to submit part of The Syndicate’s entry? If so, can you watch out for an email from me about 4pm
OK?
35 -no I’m sorry, Treneman’s just wrong. Camo asked a decent question, Brown didn’t have the grace to give an answer and then made a slur which he refused to withdraw. What, Icarus, should Camo have done for his 4th question? Ignored the slur and asked a question about the econmy?
42 Icarus - Hoggart & Treneman seem to me to be reflecting the Lobby view, as discussed afterwards. Quentin Letts has a very different view, possibly because, unlike the rest of the Lobby, he has in the past had the b*lls to demand the PM apologise for a slur cast during a press conference, so could understand Cameron’s fury.
Did you watch it live? I did and I felt real anger, as I think Speaker Martin did, at the behaviour of the Labour side of the House. John Cruddas expressed the view his party hadn’t shown themselves in the best light.
Well, I didn’t see the Commons exchanges, but I didn’t warm to Cameron for saying that officers should be sacked rather than reprimanded - that struck me as cheap playing to the gallery.
I was a Haringey councillor between 1978 and 1981 and was very gald I wasn’t one when the Climbié murder came to light. I should have felt compelled to resign, whether I had been on the Social Services committee or not. Victoria Climbié died because Haringey Council was not prepared to take disciplinary action against a middle manager they knew to be incompetent, because she was an African evangelical Christian.
If directors of private companies can be prosecuted for breaches of health and safety leading to the death of workers or members of the public, the only meaningful reform that the current review can offer is to apply the same logic to councillors in cases like this. It will be interesting to see if Cameron (or anyone else from any Party) is willing to suggest such a course of action. I very much doubt it - protecting the supply of local councillors will be seen as more important than children’s lives.
Yesterday’s PMQs reminded me of the last one by Blair on June 26th 2007. The Tories had just seen Quentin Davies defect to Labour and Blair, no doubt, was ready and prepared to make a vintage attack on the opposition leader.
Yet Cameron stormed in with so much praise for Tony that it would have been churlish for Blair to have responded in a hard-hitting manner.
I don’t understand the controversy over this. A child has been brutally murdered, in the same local authority area as a previous notorious case. The Leader of the Opposition has tried to bring the Government to account for (a) letting it happen and (b) the poor initial approach to investigating what happened. If this is “party politics” surely this is exactly what party politics are for?
Unfortunately for the Government this brings the unspeakable Ed Balls to the forefront. Although, to his credit, asked on BBC Breakfast this morning whether it was party politics he answered “no it is not” before going on with the rest of his answer.
Interesting comment from James Edward on Marketwatch here on what the US banks are doing with the Federal Reserve Board’s bail out loans:
http://community.marketwatch.com/JamesEdward
49 - A good comparison. But it’s a shame that this time the centrepiece was such an emotive case.
Gordon Brown was technically correct but politically inept when he suggested that David Cameron was playing politics with this case. It was entirely proper for David Cameron to raise the case, of course, but the calculation that underlay the choice chills me.
For some reason, I was put in mind of the Tracy Chapman song “Across the Lines”, which describes how a case gets out of hand once others get hold of it:
“Little black girl gets assaulted
Ain’t no reason why
Newspaper prints the story
And racist tempers fly
Next day it starts a riot
Knives and guns are drawn
Two black boys get killed
One white boy goes blind
Little black girl gets assaulted
Don’t no one know her name
Lots of people hurt and angry
She’s the one to blame”
50. Absolutely. Those in the Westminster Village will wring their hands and worry about how appropriate it was but out here, in the real world, people will think Cameron was right. There is widespread revulsion at this case and the government being spurred into action through opposition pressure does not reflect well on Labour.
32 But has Richard really met Cameron? He seems forgetful about his previous Labour convictions - I’d take anything he says with a pinch of salt.
Incidentally Unite NHS workers have voted for a strike by 76% to 23%.
“Haringey Council was not prepared to take disciplinary action against a middle manager they knew to be incompetent, because she was an African evangelical Christian.”
Which makes the council incompetent.
For those who think the BBC is totally biased, an introductory comment to a clip about PMQs yesterday on today’s Yesterday in Parliament
“At least one Labour MP had written her own question…”
56 - Sadly, there are very few organisations where entrenched incompetence will lead to dismissal in the short term and not a few where promotion is entirely possible.
Mike S “21 months away from the event itself”
Do you know something that we don’t? Legally the event is less than 19 months away.
52 “Gordon brown was technically correct” I think is wholly disingenuous. Had Brown given a measured, sensible response to Cameron’s initial question this whole episode would never have occurred.
Brown consistently acts in a very partisan way and forever without any grace or dignity. He has shown, especially over the last few weeks, that he only cares about a bipartisan approach when it suits him and conforms to his ideas for what is to be done. Any suggestion that others might offer constructive, sensible opinion or alternative courses of action seems to be a concept completely beyond his grasp.
That we have such a clearly dogmatic and authoritarian Prime Minister is really quite worrying.
[56] Of course Haringey Council was incompetent. Councils of all political colours and none are very leery of “taking on” such officers.
This case is a perfect example of how Labour spinners switch immediately from crowing about a totally ineffecctual opposition to claiming cynical political opportunism when a blow is landed.
56 My experience of the public sector is that they will not take disciplinary action against middle-to-senior managers, there is some sort of groupthink that even if action is taken, it results in the lowest level of sanction. If someone at the bottom of the food chain can be scapegoated, then they will be hung out to dry but that can’t be allowed to happen to more senior people.
What needs to happen is an investigation followed by disciplinary sanctions against the culpable. This may or may not end in dismissals depending on whether any one individual is sufficiently to blame. If the problem is in the departments systems and procedures - which looks likely - then senior managers should be disciplined. They should not be allowed to resign with a “package” as so often happens. If you earn £100K+, you are being paid to take the shit.
PtP…glad to see that Barbers Shop goes for PP on Saturday. good luck!
Yet again the Scots and the Welsh have interfered in the governance of Englands as the government only got its nonsense idea for regional select committees through by the votes of Welsh and Scottish MPs.
This case shows why I believe Labour will lose badly with Brown in charge, whatever happens with the economy.
The fact is that anything could happen with the economy between now and the election. We know it will turn bad, but we don’t know what the situation will be like by June 2010. However, we can say with almost total certainty that between now and the election Brown will make countless similar errors to yesterdays.
Each time he does so more people will have their doubts about him confirmed. Each one will chip away further at his support. Followed by an election campaign which, from everything we know about them, Cameron will come across well and Brown will come across badly.
Labour need something huge to happen to draw support away from Cameron. He’s apparently saved the world and this has only made a dent in the lead. I’ve not seen how the press are reporting yesterday, but all it needs is something like that to be picked up and run with by the popular press and he will blow any recovery he has made. It’s only a matter of time.
If I’m right then it makes buying Labour on the spreads a risky business. At any moment Brown could do something to lose you a lot of money. I’d rather have Cameron on my side.
re 7 you can bet that one thing the government will conclude as a result of this awful crime is that we need more surveillance and tracking of every item of a child’s life…
Apart from MPs’ children of course - they can claim exemption.
55 The NHS is the worst example of a Labour policy to look after their own. It is impossible to get a contracting job in the NHS unless you have previous NHS experience. In no other organisation does this discrimination exist.
As a professional Finance Project Manager, I am astounded at the fact that (1) all NHS system implementations go badly wrong and over budget (2) new people are not allowed to be brought in to improve processes, instead failures on one project move onto the next project.
Speaking to a recruitment consultant the other day, he said he couldn’t put me forward for a job at the NHS, even though I could have done the job standing on my head, because I had no NHS experience (although I do have Home Office, DWP and MoD experience).
I simply said “No I don’t have NHS experience. All my projects have been successful”.
re 59. I can’t count!!!
47
“…reflecting the Lobby view, as discussed afterwards.”
Thank you.
re 16 Blimey is Mike keeping a huge database on us all
69, makes your betting successes all the more impressive:D
60 - I suggest you look up the dictionary definition of disingenuous. If you meant what you said, I ask you to withdraw, with rather more justification than David Cameron had making the same demand yesterday.
Brown is worst PM for your pension fund - 20/20. Not bad for 18 months work..
http://www.order-order.com/2008/11/gordon-brown-worst-pm-of-all-time-for.html
16. Brilliant spot Mike - another fraudster outed. Not that his transparent postings hadn’t already aroused deep suspicion. I think we can safely assume his claims about meeting Cameron are false as well.
Once again the iron law of PB.com is proven true - anyone who describes themselves as a ‘floating voter’ is almost certainly a party hack.
48. Innocent - good post.
71 As long as you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
28.”IMO the main reason the money is piling on the Tories at present is because of the economic news and the Bank of England’s updated forecast of the depth and longevity of the recession/depression.”
I agree with that, but I think that the move on the seats market yesterday was on the back of the sharp reminder at PMQ’s of just how poor Brown’s PM skills are, and how that could really hurt Labour. The almost breathtaking arrogance of Brown and his PLP yesterday was very unedifying. Ed Balls dropped the ball in his department, Brown and his team *assumed* that Cameron would go on unemployment figures and the economy, an area that they felt was strong for them. Again, that was a mistake, but their behaviour towards Cameron was grotesque when you consider the issue he brought up.
Its the relish that the Brown and the Labour are showing as this recession starts to bite that I find bizarre. The blatant assumption that it must be good for them electorally was very much in evidence watching their behaviour again at PMQ’s, just like the week the Banks went into meltdown and Parliament returned.
Newsnight was very interesting last night, I missed the whole debate, but was struck by two important points raised by Stelzer and Lord Desai. The media narrative in the UK about Brown being some sort of global economic superman might be about to crash and burn.
Let me pose a question:
Yesterday was undoubtedly not good for Brown. Is this a one-off negative story amid the media love-in, or the beginning of an anti-Brown backlash?
Because this is about personality and not economics, media types who have been praising Brown’s bounce have an opportunity to perform an about turn without having to renege their previous positions (ie that Brown can do financial sums).
77. Yes - the fact that Labour seem to be genuinely excited about the flow of bad news is pretty unpleasant. And rather belies their claim to be the more ‘compassionate’ party…
73 Antifrank I did mean it but not directed at you personally - so for that I apologise and didn’t mean to offend you. I meant in the sense of Gordon browns judgement on the matter. Reading back the post I realise it was a poor choice of word in the context. So I am happy to withdraw it.
79, I read the Quentin Letts sketch today. He tries to be nice to Labour backbenchers (relatively) but concludes that Brown is basically slime who will ‘weigh or taste’ anything for partisan advantage. Not good for Brown, and Cameron gets a decent write up.
John Major sums it up well here on the economy
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5141436.ece
75 Maybe it’s time for others to come clean as well. There are plenty of “Lib Dems” on this side actively cheering for one side or the other.
You know who you are!
test
83. What on earth does that mean?
85, I don’t think Jonathan believes in the Lib Dems.
The idea that the exchanges in the Commons yesterday will have any affect on the GE result, (probably 18 months away) is simply absurd.
PMQ’s may be scrutinised by the sort of people who visit PB, but for the rest of the country it’ll be’ What are those silly s**s going on about now’
Morning all,
Finally had a chance to watch the extraordinary PMQs last night - I was surprised at how differently I saw it to many of you.
I was expecting to see Brown as a heartless, craven goblin, and actually he wasn’t - he doesn’t like being off script, and so repeats himself, but the dissembling was no worse that Blair used to do, just with less panache. I thought he came across much as any CEO under fire would do - he could have given better answers (like those suggested yesterday) but he was disappointing rather than disgraceful.
The ‘I regret making this a partisan issue’ line was not at all as I imagined from hearing you all talk about it - at first, I didn’t realise it was the attack on Cameron we were all talking about - it seemed to be general regret that the House was being so partisan, rather than an accusation at Cameron. That was my first impression - I can’t now decide what it was, because I’m too familiar with both interpretations.
My one thought was ‘If not an attack, why did he not clarify?’, to which there are perhaps two answers. One is that that would mean going off script, and he didn’t know how it would look apologising for something he didn’t say. The other is that you could read the situation (from the Gvt benches) as though Cameron was genuinely worried about being seen to be partisan, and he wasn’t going to stop that from being the story. He thought Cameron had tripped himself up.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Cameron. I kept switching between thinking his anger was righteous and uplifting, and then doubting it, and wondering if it was exaggerated and less dignified than Brown’s muted answers. I stand by the belief that when the issue itself was that horrific, caring whether the PM impugned your honour doesn’t really seem worth three questions.
Cameron came out better than Brown, but not by much, and both had negatives in their performances. The benches were a disgrace. Michael Martin came out as the shining example of decorum and decency.
Recognise this is out of step with how many people saw it, and that it was biassed by having formed loads of opinions before watching, but an interesting excercise for me nonetheless.
48 - great post.
[88] Thanks, Morus.
81
If your so keen to quote the Mail! why not try this.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085265/STEPHEN-GLOVER-The-timid-Tories-really-got-stop-making-Brown-look-good-.html
Brown looks like a tired old man against Cameron these days.
the site was down for a few minutes thought it might be all the Labour party members scoring the site to see what they had posted previously…
for those who placed a bet on the Alaska Seante race, the Democratic candidate has taken the lead.
http://www.adn.com/election/results/story/577002.html
79 The boot’s on the other foot now. A few weeks ago it was the Tories on here who lapped up every piece of bad news with undisguised glee.
I’m not sure how the PMQs affair will play out. I don’t think it’ll have many consequences (outside the committed, people will just see it as another unseemly ding-dong), but we may see rather more bitter and personal exchanges as a result.
85,86 Well let’s just say there are no (very few) Lib Dems on this site that don’t show a very strong bias against one of the two major parties. Sometimes that bias is much, much stronger than their interest/affiliation to their own claimed “party”. There are Labour LibDems and Tory LibDems, but no actual LibDems.
One for seant! Tatchell calls for Cornish Independence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/cornwall
Devonians shout, ‘Hear Hear’
94. Perhaps, however if it does go a bit nasty Cameron will win. As many people have noticed, Brown is only good on economic matters. Ask him about anything else and he has to use a script, and even then he looks dodgy.
48. 89.
I think IA’s point about lack of accountability among councillors has wider currency too - the lack of accountability for failure is a problem that pervades all levels of government and large parts of the private sector, too. It’s essentially about careerism, cosy relationships at the top (even among political opponents) and an often supine media.
This problem isn’t entirely new of course, yet less than thirty years ago Lord Carrington insisted on resigning over the Falklands - perhaps the last time the conventions of ministerial responsibility that grew up in the 19th century were followed. Is there any way we can get back to that sort of standard of behaviour? If we don’t, I fear the kinds of systemic failures we see in Haringey and elsewhere will remain with us.
88 But Morus, surely the point is that there was no ‘dissembling’ required? All Brown needed to do was what almost any other politician would have done, namely express horror at the appalling treatment of this baby, say that clearly there had been major failures in the system, acknowlege the point the Right Hon. member was making about the independence of the inquiry, and say that the government would make a statement on the matter in the next couple of days. That, surely, was what Cameron expected, and he would then have moved on to his prepared questions on the economy. the first question was never meant to be an attack on the government - that was coming later.
The issue seems to have been that Brown views everything in a partisan way, and this clouds his judgement. It was for this reason that Cameron, quite reasonably, got so angry.
Whether Brown is a disgrace, or just foolish and clumsy, doesn’t really matter. This was NOT a difficult question - yet he completely messed it up, and scored a major own goal. It won’t be the last.
80 - Apology gladly accepted.
16. Excellent. lol. Very sharp shooting, Captain Smithson.
So there we have it, proof positive. Labour blowflies are depositing their glistening eggs of spin - like “Richard” - all over pb.com, posing as “floating” voters, or “probable Conservatives”. Before our eyes they will miraculously pupate - into sudden Labour converts.
Only trouble for them is that they are obviously Labour maggots in the first place.
Ugh. Go away.
88. fully agree. well done for rising above the somewhat persuasive dross that was written on here yesterday.
77. In a severe recession no government is immune unless they run a very tight ship indeed (think Singapore). I think Labour are reassured by Gordon’s manner and the fact that he got the UK through 2001-3 without a recession.
The reality is that the UK economy is pretty creaky - it always has been - and that unlike 2001-3, the global environment is much worse and the UK is in a far worse position. The collapse in the financial sector and asset prices falling mean that the UK is in a doozy of a bad position. We also enter the recession with a large budget deficit and no splurge on NHS and other public sector jobs (the 2001-3 trick) is going to be possible.
The likes of Nickc tend to the view that the public will support whichever government is in power, while I happen to believe that they will demand whichever party looks more economically competent. (This was why the Tories survived their own ineptness - Foot and Kinnock looked like useless plonkers.)
I see Gordon’s confidence as hubris and he has handed over far too many hostages to fortune (well placed, light touch regulation, etc). The Labour attacks on the Tory unemployment plan will probably also come back to haunt them - no stimulus plan is going to be particularly effective or efficient - and where does he get off attacking Tory unfunded spending when claiming he is going to borrow? As the economy worsens and the government efforts appear to be evaporating faster than water at noon on a hotplate in Death Valley, when the evil banks foreclose on businesses and households with nary a whimper of protest from the government, I predict that Gordon quickly returns to the role of “the moron who cannot get anything right, hated by both the left and right of his party.”
95. I’m no fan of the Lib Dems, but your claim is ridiculous. Is it just a sullen sideswipe at Mike for outing a Labour astroturfer?
101 you can see the same thing on any political blog or news comment site. its so pathetic and obvious. mind you, the fact that it is happening should give hope to the conservatives that these “black ops” are seen as necessary. waste of space though.
Good Morning Campers worldwide and in Alaska !!
Meanwhile …. talking of which ….
Begich has overtaken Stevens in the resumed count and overnight leads by 814 votes. With 38,000 votes still to be counted from mainly Begich friendly areas it would appear that Stevens will not be contemplating the sewing of mail bags from the Senate floor :
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/13/01822/666/844/660224
98 - I’m not sure whether standards were ever that high, even in the C19, although the way scandals broke were different. It was much easier to cover up things that had gone wrong under a veil of propriety (as when Salisbury’s government suppressed all evidence of Chamberlain’s prior knowledge of the Jameson Raid, including burning the relevant telegrams, and arranged a whitewashing Commons inquiry on which Chamberlain himself sat).
88: That was broadly my interpretation too. Brown’s “gaffe” was ovedone.
However, I was in no doubt at any point that Cameron’s feelings were genuine, nothing he said was scripted, and I shared his frustration at Brown not answering the damn question.
98. and others. isn’t this whole affair a little unfair on people involved in the Haringey case?
would you like it if you made a minor error or omission at work, the end result of this combined with other people’s mistakes and the system you work in was some disaster that made you feel terrible, and then people appeared on PMQs on the telly calling for you to be sacked?
i’m glad my job is unlikely to provide scope for this to happen
Still loving Kagro X on Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/12/8010/3154/326/659709
99 - Watch his first answer. He expresses horror at the situation (not in a formulaic way, either) says there will be an independent inquiry, says they’ve had an exec summary that indicates failings (doesn’t call them major). So all he failed to do, by your definition is say that David Cameron was right.
Watching it, I didn’t get the impression that of the two, it was Brown who was the agressive partisan. The answer wasn’t great, but that wasn’t because he was playing politics with it - it’s because he’s not good on subjects that aren’t the economy.
90 Dacre is desperate for a knighthood from Brown, isn’t he?
109. “minor error” ?
You need to read up about the case ..
98. I agree. It was appalling to see the Shoesmith woman on the news repeating ‘best practice was followed’. No-one cares about ‘best practice’. It’s nothing more than an attempt to put the responsibility onto the rules, not people. This is managerialist nonsense which people don’t appreciate and instinctively reject. Another example was Balls refusing to take responsibility for the exam screw-up. He was in charge, it was his responsibility, he should have resigned.
109 public service should demand the highest standards. at the moment we get blame shifting, and no one takes responsibility. as long as the boxes are all ticked that’s ok. but it’s not good enough. the public sector needs a reality check.
103
Would you agree that cutting interest rates is going to lead to tighter lending, the opposite of what is intended?
If I were running a bank (with a new-found eye on the risk of lending) I would be lending less right now, and if forced to make less margin by govt and clueless tabloids, less still.
ZIRP leads to deflation surely? Are we turning Japanese (but without savings or enough manufacturing?). It all just looks grim.
105. rather pious to take the view that this practice is isolated on one side of the debate?!
most of the conservatives you speak of don’t have time for the hope you speak of as they are too busy building a profile as lifelong labour voters…
Thanks Mike and everyone for the very amusing Richardgate episode earlier.
Thanks for the advice Richard, but I’m sticking with my Tory buy.
And I, too, am a floating voter.
Rob
109. As usual Labour spin. Cameron asked for an independent inquiry - he didnt demand heads. And your own government has now acknowledged that Cameron was right and that a proper independent inquiry is required.
109
Wrong. In these cases accountability is critical. The Climbie case ended up with most of the blame being put on one social worker, which was unfair, and no-one senior carried the can AT ALL. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
104 No sideswipe, but I cannot deny that Mike’s anti-Brown/Labour leanings didn’t influence my opinion. From my point of view, reading article after article, they have developed to a point where it would appear Mike would sit more easily in the Tories.
Equally there are other LibDems here who are more supportive of the Labour than most Labour party members I know.
’twas merely just a reflection. I honestly can’t recall when a LibDem mentioned let alone said anything positive about their own party! And when you look at the polls it looks like ex Lib Dems are at the heart of Camerons lead.
88. If he had wanted to make a point about both sides of the house, he could have told Cameron that when he took offense. He didn’t, so he wasn’t.
113 - Was Balls really responsible for the SATs cock-up? Apart from being the person appointed to head the department after the handover to ETS had begun, did he actually do anything wrong?
I know the guy who was actually in charge of it, and suffice to say he’s no longer around. Heads did roll, even if they weren’t political ones.
107. Yes there was probably more room for dissembling & cover-ups then, I would agree. And I don’t mean to sanitise the age. But governments were expected to - and did - resign after defeats in the commons on any point of principle. Ministers resigned more frequently and often without external impulse.
In today’s world, with less control of the channels of information by government and much faster communications, we ought to be able to hold politicians to even higher standards of responsibility than before. Yet in fact, the reverse has happened.
112. i have no doubt that some people involved made no more than minor errors, or incorrect 50-50 calls.
social work isn’t easy.
114. in which case it should pay the highest sal… oh, i see.
87 Think that yesterday reminded punters that the news will not forever be all “Government action in an economic crisis” , in fact probably not beyond another week or so and other political issues will arise. Brown is a poor Prime Minister and though he might be comfortable in his current role as Super-Chancellor (Super in terms of above the Chancellor) he is pretty hopeless outside of his comfort zone.
88 Think there is a difference between making a political point and making a party political point. Any reading of the reports on baby P yesterday morning indicates across the media concern that yet another national inquiry would not address the specific problems in Haringey and that the “independent” report produced by Haringey was insufficient. It was right that the Leader of the Opposition raised these concerns (politics) and Cameron did it in a non-partisan fashion.
Brown’s initial response may have been the result of poor briefing but his inept handling and his comment about the issue becoming “party politics” displayed his worst faults. His automatic rejection of any suggestion or questioning from the Opposition as partisan while trying to appeal for a common approach based on his design is a weakness - he can’t see the opposition as anything but enemies out to denigrate him, cannot argue on his feet, he cannot move away from a script.
I think Cameron was really angered, we didn’t hear the comments from the Labour front bench that Martin condemned (what did Harman say that caused her to be told off?) but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t, as a politician, decide he should show that anger and use the opportunity. He does think on his feet.
88 Michael Martin came out as the shining example of decorum and decency.
It’s not often you can say that, but I agree
Ingenious bit of campaigning in the states.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7725973.stm
109. Ed, I agree. Horrifying though this case is, I really find the media feeding-frenzy very unedifying. Personally, I can think of few jobs I would like to do less than social work for Haringay - coal miner possibly, but that’s about it.
121 - That puzzled me, which is why I gave two explanations at [88]
a) he doesn’t go off script if he could help it
b) he thought Cameron taking offence was perception-anxiety on the part of the Conservative leader, and didn’t want to go out of his way to rescue him from that. He misdiagnosed the situation and thought Cameron was coming out of it badly, so didn’t issue a correction.
98 Runnymede. Sadly, life is too difficult now for resignations without a thought. No doubt, Carrington had no concerns for his own family’s future if he resigned, whereas now , almost any politician would probably be financially ruined by resignation - integrity is unlikely to survive a threat like that.
115. Lower interest rates means more loans. It means the hurdle rate is lowered. ZIRP doesnt lead to deflation, deflation leads to ZIRP in some cases.
But, lower interest rates in a slowing economy doesnt necessarily mean more loans. Firstly, the banks have very little capital and are thus not all that happy about lending stuff. Secondly, they want to increase their capital, so they are increasing their spreads, so the interest rate they lend at is not falling as much as the base rate. Thirdly the economic slowdown means that there are fewer profitable investments. Mortgages will be a popular loan instrument but they will only be available to people with a large deposit and a secure income.
re 88 Morus I tend to agree. I didn’t even realise that Brown had accused Cameron of making a party political point until he apologised for doing it. Nevertheless, Brown did not come across well and at times looked close to panic. It’s not looking good for the daily press conferences he’ll have to endure at election time.
All of Browns political and psychological flaws were on display yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. No wonder money is piling back on the Tories.
122. Political heads should have rolled, they were the ones with the responsibility. At the very least we should have heard ‘I have offered my resignation to the Prime Minister, which he rejected’. Remember that? That’s what people do when they take responsiility, which is a politician’s job. Part of the reason Brown so enrages his opponents is that he never, ever takes responsibility for his mistakes.
122. ‘Heads did roll, even if they weren’t political ones’
Ach but that’s part of the problem Morus! A faceless person quietly gets the boot, the minister remains smugly in office, confident he can brush off the next failure as well.
The whole point about the concept of ministerial responsibility is that such things should NOT happen because they undermine the accountability of government.
Ministers are the public face of their departments and are supposed to carry the can for what goes on beneath them - good or bad. Now it seems that only applies in the case of ‘good’.
129. a) isn’t an explanation: he had more than enough time (four opportunities) to respond in such a manner.
b) is political point-scoring, which is the charge!
Hefferlump is on QT tonight along with Davros Beckett and Dotty Dame Williams.
That trio will be like a coven round the cauldron with Cameron being coddled.
Brian Moore on - hopefully he will upset a few PC and Scotch types.
88, 102. Completely disagree.
I missed PMQs yesterday, and only saw the edited, three-minute clip on the BBC. From that short extract, I was somewhat perplexed by the reaction on here. If anything, Cameron’s rage seemed fabricated, and Brown just his normal pompous self - hence my first post on the matter yesterday, where I said precisely this.
But last night I read the background to the case of Baby P, which I have hitherto avoided (finding these stories unbearable now I have small kids of my own). And then I watched the whole of PMQs.
And then I got it. Brown refuses to give a direct answer for two questions on Baby P, and frankly, in the circumstances, his response is just pathetic - horribly wooden, robotically stiff, chillingly evasive.
FFS, a baby was murdered, why can’t Brown just accept the need for a proper inquiry, not some fake inhouse job by Haringey.
And then the Labour MPs start barracking Cameron, during this exchange, and then Cameron justifiably loses his rag: there are disgusting lefty cries of “shame”, while Cameron is trying to elict a simple and direct answer, on the most sombre subject, from our apology of a premier.
And then, finally, there is that sneaky little aside from Brown, half-accusing Cameron of making “party politics”. Repulsive.
The exchange revealed all of Brown’s faults, and a number of Cameron’s virtues - as this female Guardian journalist says, it showed the Tory has “emotional intelligence”, unlike Brown:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2008/nov/12/davidcameron-gordonbrown1
I think women will react to this much more than men. IF the exchange was noted by the public (admittedly very doubtful), I think Brown could have lost a half a million female votes.
As and when (if?) the Economic Overlord of the Known Universe media narrative turns against Brown, I can see the whole Labour edifice coming crashing back down to where it was pre-Conference. Yesterday was a master class in what happens when things don’t go according to Brown’s script, and it was gruesome to watch.
I am beginning to agree with posters who have suggested that the Tories are biding their time, waiting for the narrative to move, before piling in. Why waste their shots now when the tide of the press is against them, meaning they don’t get the maximum possible hearing?
I’m assuming those big bold numbers at the head of this post should actually read CON 340-346:LAB 236-242:LD 43-46?
Or is Labour’s secret plan to create a 100 life MP’s?
123 - Yes. But that’s because MPs could, and did, throw governments out; their voices were the judgement. At ministerial level, that still applies in a slightly different way; it’s the backbenchers who make the final decision. Below that, in public service in general, you’ve got systems and procedures of complaints and investigation that have to be carried out, and resigning could actually prevent these systems from doing their job properly; everything is blamed on “bad appples”.
135 The argument used is that the SoS or Minister is best placed to corect the fault (I take full responsibility and as such will ensure that…). Didn’t work for Charles Clarke but has for others.
Ed Balls, much as I hate to admit it, shows fleetness of foot in these things. On SATS he fired the firm and cancelled tests at 14. Yesterday he didn’t try to defend the indefensible but within hours was all over the media promising an independent outside investigation and saying if necessary his Department would take over the running of the service. Much better politician than Brown or Miliband - though I still support Morris Dancers rocket gun proposal.
88/132. Morus you must see thing through different glasses than the majority who saw PMQ’s in real time, as it dawned on the Labour backbenchers that the Baby P wasn’t the question they, and all the pundit’s were expecting.
The shouts of dissapointment from the Labour side was so stroing that even Martin - the Speaker - was annoyed with them.
Chris, the whole point is that Brown did NOT apologise, and thast’s what made Cameron even more angry than he was over the case
131. Quite right Ken. Yet lower rates have another function at present as well - to ease the cash flow constraints on households and firms. In particular, the latest cut in rates will go some way to offsetting the refinancing shock from people coming off cheap fixed rate mortgages, some of whom faced rises of up to 2%.
This, steepening the yield curve to help banks rebuild capital, and improving the profit margins of exporters and import-competing firms via depreciation are the main points of big rate cuts at present. It’s emergency surgery to stop the patient bleeding to death.
re 140. We were having problems with image feeds which has now been solved.
103 “The likes of Nickc tend to the view that the public will support whichever government is in power, while I happen to believe that they will demand whichever party looks more economically competent. (This was why the Tories survived their own ineptness - Foot and Kinnock looked like useless plonkers.)”
Yes I do think that there is a “keep hold of nurse” factor - big political swings tend to heppen at times when the economy has come through bad times and is on the mend - 1997, 1970, 1966, 1959 - at bad times swings are often surprisingly small - 1992, 1974 (although 1979 is an exception).
The Tories need to do more than show competence - they need a coherent ecomonic policy alternative and at the moment it is not at all clear that they have one.
144. Of course. Emergency surgery - with Mike S’s money (lifeblood) a transfusion from the careful saver to everyone else.
87-The idea that the exchanges in the Commons yesterday will have any affect on the GE result, (probably 18 months away) is simply absurd.
Coldstone I disagree strongly- Brown’s only way to save his Govt is to present as a father of the nation- someone who transcends politics, and whom people see is governing in the collective interest. His initial media honeymoon was based on that premise, and his intervention in the global credit crisis was beginning to restore this impression.
Then came yesterday- naked, shambolic, partisan, ineffectual. Brown in one short exchange drove a coach and horses through his 2nd media honeymoon.
And they say PMQ’s doesn’t count. It blinking well does because it sets the scene for how our leaders are reported. And today’s reports on Brown are terrible, and deservedly so.
146. No it’s a matter of when (if, if you are nickc) Labour show their incompetence. The burden of proof is on them, not the Conservatives. The Tories already look competent, just not sufficiently more so than Labour. I expect ample proof in the next few months.
148. Also a GE doesn’t drop out of thin air. There will be 6 weeks of non stop campaining with heavy news coverage and press scrutiny - Brown will be hopeless at this.
Also any chance of a leaders debate went from 500-1 to 50,000-1 after yesterdays PMQs which is a shame.
146. The Tories need to do more than show competence - they need a coherent ecomonic policy alternative and at the moment it is not at all clear that they have one.
I AGREE WITH YOU Nickc. I’ve been saying and writing this for ages. Untill the Conservatives cease to be afraid of stating their core values, they will flounder in this Economic Morass in which we find ourselves.
118,119. we all know that an independent inquiry is being asked for purely so that higher profile heads will roll. probably not a bad thing - but a bit unedifying.
the same thing certainly wouldn’t be happening on my local council (near Haringey) if a major cockup was made that affected one of their top priorities - recycling, feverish clipping of grass verges in the posher neighbourhoods, and road building on every available scrap of land.
142- Ted- guess who said in a Q&A interview;
Q- “What was your most embarrassing moment in your life?”
A- “Being mistaken for the head waiter when I was invited as guest speaker to a merchant banker conference!”
Now I cannot begin to say what this betrays about the person who answered this question.
148. And if Coldstone and ed want proof of this -
The Sun
SHAMEFUL, disgusting, cowardly and disgraceful.
There are no words strong enough to express Sun readers’ anger at the buck-passing and blame-dodging over the horrific death of Baby P.
The scandal is down to Haringey council, the same one that let little Victoria Climbie be tortured to death eight years ago.
This time, platitudes and inquiries simply will not do. We’ve heard all that before.
Sun readers demand SACKINGS for all who share responsibility for allowing Baby P’s appalling death.
The Government needs to wake up to the extent of public outrage at Haringey’s criminally incompetent child care department.
Yesterday was a low moment for Gordon Brown.
He is a loving father himself, yet he seemed to be the only parent in Britain whose blood was not boiling at those who should have saved Baby P from the merciless savages who killed him.
Time and again in the Commons the Prime Minister refused to join David Cameron in condemning Haringey’s social services.
*************
As I said yesterday, I dont happen to share the viewpoint of the Sun, but this is the mood of the nation (or its tabloids at least). Gordon showed himself in an immensely bad light yesterday and for the Labour spinners to pretend not isnt helping. Blair would have aced this one.
154. Most political leaders would have aced it, easy question, easy answer. However Brown cannot accept criticism, especially from Cameron.
123. politicians are held to far higher standards now. all it is doing is showing just how low their standards have always been.
those pointing back to a golden age of ministerial resignations should remember that those guys came under absolutely no scrutiny compared to today. “yachtgate”, to take one recent example, would probably have been the regular summer occupation of most of them - of course, we don’t know because no records exist.
155. Brown probably thought Mea Culpa was a Hollywood actress.
155. Most human beings would have aced it.
64 Graham - re The Paddy Power
Thanks. Yes, it seems Barber Shop des after all definitely run. He’s now 7/1 which is an OK price, although if you want to back him you may as well wait until Saturday.
When I put up suggestions here on Site, it is only because I have good reason to think there is particularly good value available. In this case I had it from a reliable source that the horse would definitely run and was in good nick. The 12/1 then available was therefore very good value. I was really annoyed when I heard he might not. Henderson is a straight forward and reliable trainer and generally keeps the public well informed. I suspect he was messed about by connections this time but it was nevertheless annoying.
Anyway, if he runs, I’ll be happy. If he’s placed, I’ll be delighted!
Possibly slightly off-topic, but…
Has anyone seen a market for what breed of dog the wee lasses get?
(Question for Shadsy, maybe?!)
Rob
[120] The reason Our Genial host can’t support the Tories is because he’s a strong Europhile. I’m not aware of any other particular beefs he has with them. But I think that’s enough, don’t you?
138 - But there is going to be an independent inquiry headed by Lord something, isn’t there? If Brown had said the HSS inquiry was enough, I’d be calling for him to resign, but he said there would be an inquiry. That’s why I didn’t care for Cameron’s question - I don’t care if that awful woman investigates her own department, as long as someone else does too - and they are. Unless I’m wrong about this?
135 - I don’t know. The idea that Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their Dept, and must resign as soon as it goes wrong seems a bit drastic. Too much happens, and too much that they cannot control. I reckon people should resign when, by negligence or fault, a problem occurred for which they were (or feel responsible).
Also, as much as I admire Lord Carrington for the nobility of his resignation, to compare the invasion of the Falklands by Argentina (leading to a war) to a few thousand narked 14 year olds getting unimportant exam results a couple of weeks late is (IMHO) pushing it a bit.
158. Pretty much.
162. Morus, No. Lord Laming is heading a national inquiry into child services, not one specific to Haringey. This was the point that Cameron was making.
re 137 what no Tory?
164. And this is why the Ed Balls climbdown in the afternoon is important. They rushed to put in an independent inquiry to deflect the news cycle.
154-Ken- the key to winning modern elections is to present as someone who is able to transcend narrow party interest. Cue Obama- perfect example.
Brown when he plays politics alienates the potential swing voters in other parties.
Cameron showed yesterday that he can effortlessly move into the other parties terrain.
This is the key to modern elections when the core vote- once probably as high as 45% in the late 40’s and parties fought elections over the 5% of potential switchers, now the core vote is 20%, falling fast, with a 3rd party to boot.
FPTP under such a fragmented core vote will bring even bigger and bigger landslides. Labour are lumbered with someone who only appeals to his diminishing core vote. The Tories have a leader who transcends. The outcome of the next election is a no brainer.
155. unfortunately the easy answer is “something must be done”. if that is the answer to every question, the result will be disastrous bureaucracy.
167. You assume Brown will lead Labour into the next GE ? Is that a given. 18 months is a long time..
156 Correct. Few of the great political names from the past would have survived the kind of scrutiny politicians get today - Lloyd George - serial adulterer; Churchill - bordering on alcoholism, possibly clinically depressed; Macmillan - abandoned by his wife; Heath - loner, no close relationships. Even Thatcher would have struggled - just how did her son become so wealthy?
160 - Metro reckons it will be a Peruvian hairless - needs to be hypoallergenic apparently, which should narrow the field somewhat.
156. Talk about missing the point entirely.
Looks like Boris is on his own re-Boris Island.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23586270-details/Tories+disown+%27Boris+Island%27+plan+for+Kent+airport/article.do
What odds on Boris standing as an, ‘independent’ come the next Mayoral election: something Ken should have remained.
164 - Ah, I see. Thanks Ken.
169- you are right, I think the spring elections will see Brown going of his own accord, and quickly.
Although I can see why the Westminster Village think no one came off “well” yesterday, I think Cameron’s display of emotion will make the public think better of him - especially when compared to Brown’s formality and apparent lack of understanding. I think the punters are picking up on this by selling Labour/buying Tory.
I met Cameron some years ago (after becoming Tory leader) and he seemed quite genuine. I’m not normally impressed by politicians, but he was just nice. No sense of trying to project a false persona or anything. Thus I doubt very much that Richard did meet him, or if he did given he is Labour hated Cameron for being Tory.
Mike, well done at noting Richard’s lies. I take it you will be monitoring his IP to make sure he doesn’t try to sneak back in under another ID?
173. What’s so wrong about commisioning a feasibility study into a Thames estuary airport ?
161. He sounds like a Tory MEP.
170. not to mention Major!
168. I agree that is the Labour answer to everything - ID cards, ever more bureaucrats and form filling. BUT, it doesnt have to be - a proper robust system would have fewer forms, better practices, more individual responsibility and managers willing to back their subordinates. Mistakes happen, but when we get to “the forms were filled out, but the child died”, we need to reform the system. Most of these difficult cases are judgement calls. To pretend that every problem requires lots of bureaucracy is indeed an easy answer and one symptomatic of this government.
162 Morus, sorry, but I just don’t get this. Let’s give Brown all the benefit of the doubt, and blame Cameron as much as possible. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Cameron totally misunderstood what Brown was saying, and was totally unjustified in getting angry. In that case, when Cameron pressed the point again, why did Brown not simply say: “Mr Speaker, it is possible that the Rt. Hon Gentleman may have misunderstood me. I was of course not accusing him of playing party politics on this grave matter. He asked a perfectly proper question about the independence of the inquiry, and I answered that there will indeed be an independent inquiry. I think everyone in this House will agree with me, Mr Speaker, that this is not a party political issue.”
How hard is this?
177. his party are now against an extra runway at heathrow, so an extra airport could be seen as a confusing message?
146 Nickc, I’d suggest they do have a policy it’s just that it doesn’t jibe with the perception that only massive Government spending increases and tax cuts are the answer. The Government, or Gordon Brown (Darling seems aware of the dangers), is concerned about the next 18 months, and more probably the next 6 months. So its all about trying to kick start the economy, to an extent irrespective of medium/long term consequences. Brown does seem to believe its possible to return to August 2007, without threat of financial collapse in background.
The BoE said yesterday that, yes, fiscal stimulus had a part to play but most importantly that these should be of limited duration and then actions had to be taken to return finances to a healthy position - so tax rises and spending cuts after 2010. Darling makes admission that such actions will be needed. The public aren’t yet aware that any actions taken in the budget won’t be long term but merely a one year or 18 month delay (if Labour won I think there would be an Autumn budget) in putting up taxes, introducing higher fuel duty, introducing higher VED, cutting planned increases in public spending. Splurge now, pay later.
Conservatives are more concerned about what they expect to inherit in 2010. They don’t want a growing national debt, high annual deficit and increased interest rate repayments. They don’t want the inherent inflation attached to loose fiscal policies once recovery commences. Cameron and Osborne do not want to be forced into the position Thatcher and Howe were in their first term.
So their policy is about containing debt, about targeted actions at company & business costs to help businesses to survive the recession, obviating the worst of unemployment, about interventions on council tax to help particularly those on fixed incomes (inflation might be 0% but council tax rises will not be). Short term band-aids to reduce the bleeding while interest rate cuts stimulate growth.
Isn’t as grand an all encompassing a policy as Gordon, bestriding global finance, is proposing but arguably is the better one in the longer term. If of course it turns into as deep a recession as the worst forecasts then major fiscal stimulus will be necessary and we’ll have to take the pain later.
177
Why bother wasting the money, its never gonna be built! Heathrow will get its 3rd and Gatwick its 2nd!
Much bigger story in the Standard - Jowell admits that London would not have bid if they had know about Brown’s recession.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23586255-details/Jowell%3A+we+wouldn%27t+have+bid+if+we%27d+known+about+slump/article.do
In a clear hint that Gordon Brown may have blocked the project, the Olympics minister told leisure industry bosses that ministers would have been deterred by the huge cost of funding the 2012 event in a downturn. Ms Jowell, right, said at a dinner: “Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost certainly not.”
180. That’s how bureaucracies work - by blaming all problems on there being insufficient bureaucracy. You can see this at every level, from the petty stuff at district council level right up to the EU, perhaps the finest exponent of this approach. And so these monstrosities grow, year on year, and continue to fail to deliver the basic standards of services we expect from them.
184. Think small - get small. If the Uk had enough cash that would be the best place for it (24hr flights). Heathrow no 3 might get the go ahead but will it be started before 2010 - who would lend BAA any money to build it ?
180. that now appears to be the line of both parties on far too many issues, egged on by the media.
two inquiries are apparently not enough on this issue, and the only reason i can see for that is to do with partisan pointscoring on an emotive subject. after all, this girl is not the only child to have been abused and killed, and she certainly won’t be the last.
146, 151 And IMO (although I would say this wouldn’t I) it is not currently obvious that the Tories are ahead on competence - the government has got its act together in the last couple of months and the Osborne affair has left the Tories looking a bit ragged.
I do agree, though, that Brown is likely to come as a much less likeable person than Cameron during an election campaign. This will not necessarily be fatal to him - Thatcher was much less likeable than Callaghan and Heath was much less likeable than Wilson - but obviously it’s a disadvantage that is masked at the moment by the economic issues.
173 Coldstone - why do you continually fabricate splits between members of the Tory party. This is at least the third time I have seen you attempt to do this. We have had discussions on this board about this before - the Conservative party allows different views on some matters, because the core ideology of those involved is the same. David Davies and Boris Johnson have different views to Cameron on some subjects, so what? It is not a dictatorship which does not allow different points of view within the party, like the BNP or the Labour party.
162. Morus. When you have kids it changes yr perspective on things. I’d never read the Baby P stuff before, but then I read it, and then I saw Brown’s sterile and asinine remarks - and the emotional jarring was intense.
It was just the wrong reaction, emotionally. Because, for whatever reason, Brown just doesn’t do “feelings”. Especially when they have to be spontaneous.
We may decry the modern demand for politicians who can “share our pain” - theoretically all a politician should be is competent and honest (though of course I would say Brown is emphatically neither of these).
But the fact is in a televisual age a politician needs to be able to “emote”, to do the Clinton thing. Obama has the same Clintonite gift - maybe in a nobler way - Obama seems empathetic and warm, despite his intellectual gifts.
Brown is so lacking in this department it is embarrassing. The credit crisis has disguised this huge flaw by playing to his limited but granitic “strengths” - that air of Caledonian reliability. But Mike Smithson is right: a general election will not just be about bank bail-outs. It will range across many issues - on most of them Brown will be weak, on some he may be horribly exposed.
I guess that’s why the markets shifted yesterday. We all remembered that Brown is a fairly crap politician.
186. an important part of this is people on the sidelines playing the role Cameron played yesterday - doesn’t this nasty man care about this little girl? we must have another inquiry
183 Probelm is that even business groups said that the Tory idea on supporting employment was too timid and wouldn’t achieve much. A policy is only coherent if it finds support amongst those it is designed to help.
188. It was a boy. (Nearly as bad as Cameron’s gaffe about 17 year old vs 27 year old mother). It’s HARINGEY - where Victoria Climbie was killed. The boy was visited 60 times. It’s not partisan to ask for an inquiry. It is partisan to claim that asking for an inquiry is partisan. Face it Brown was in the wrong. It’s pathetic that labour spinners try to obscure this basic fact. Face it - the Sun just lambasted Gordon for a basic error of judgement - one that Blair (or any normal human being) would have aced.
185. That truly is a dreadful story. She’s basically admitted that the government has been budgeting as if the good times would continue for ever and they’ve saddled us with another white elephant. The Dome on the way in, the Olympics on the way out.
190
I’ve pointed out a newspaper report, that has shown that the Conservative Party does not support Boris’s belief in an Airport in the Thames estuary: whats wrong with that?
It is also true, that there are Labour MP’s that do not support the 3rd runway at Heathrow, I do!
I am an aviation enthusiast, (ever since my first flight in a DH Chipmunk) although not a supporter of vanity projects, like Concord etc.
re 175
Tyson, surely you’re having a laugh. All previous evidence points to Brown having to be dragged out of Downing Street kicking and screaming. I don’t think there’s the remotest chance of him volunteering to go this side of a General Election.
192 Ed Balls agreed we hadn’t had a proper enquiry and that yet another national enquiry wasn’t the answer as to whether there were specific weaknesses in the management and operations of Haringey Social Services. To use Brown’s expression, there is now common ground between the political parties on this, Lynne Featherstone asked for this, David Cameron asked for this and Ed Balls has ordered this.
Brown was inept yesterday and he and his benches were playing party politics.
185 - So they really did believe “no more boom and bust” then.
Incredible!
Quentin Letts (OK, not an entirely unbiased voice, I grant you) thought Cameron was “magnificent” yesterday;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085249/Mr-Camerons-vehemence-spontaneous—magnificent.htm
I agree with Tyson that yesterdays events will not change the outcome of the way people vote, but I do think it may come to be seen as quite an important moment in the history of this Parliament. I suspect the depths to which Brown sank could well be seen as a bit of a narrative changer. Ever since September Brown has been playing the role of the nation bank manager. Dour and serious. Yesterday he reminded everyone all of his negative points. His bi-partisanship. His naked political ambition. His absolute, quite irrational loathing of the Tories. His terrible failure to be able to emote with people on any human level. His stiffness and awkwardness when on any subject that doesn’t involve the economy.
No, it won’t change the way people vote in six or eighteen months, but its an important moment non the less.
199. ‘Shock as government are a revealed as a bunch of idiots’
What I don’t get about the current Olympics debate is that surely in a recession it actually quite a useful thing to have such a big public project underway. Especially one that can attract money from all over the place. If it’s done right it should be a good thing.
196. An airport in the Thames Estuary is not a “vanity project” - it is the obvious and correct option, on all levels - environmental, political, technological. It even fits with the Eurostar highspeed line.
Is it so hard? Hong Kong managed to do it, why can’t London?
Boris is right. And if the government is determined to pump-prime the economy, this is precisely the sort of longterm investment it should be funding, not hiring another zillion Bulgarian GPs on £200k a year.
194 - Fundamentally, though, governments cannot produce sackings out of a hat. Is it partisan to ask for an inquiry when the PM responds that an initial report has been received, and that the government will ask for one in due course? I believe it is - and there’s nothing wrong with acting in such a partisan way. What I’m in disagreement with is the need to indentify a vast moral gulf.
193. Dont be dumb. The business groups said it was OK. What they would prefer is free money you dolt.
“A policy is only coherent if it finds support amongst those it is designed to help?”
So the more popular a policy is with those who it is designed to help the more coherent it is? So let’s see - I think we should give everyone in Britain a £10,000 lump sum - wow, everyone loves it, it must be coherent. Or what about, I propose to give all train operating companies £100 million to upgrade their trains. Wow, it’s really coherent, it’s so popular.
Who is the policy designed to help and will it be cost effective? The real target group are the unemployed - is it too timid? Probably not, it is a carrot to get people back into work, the amounts of money are significant at the margin - a few billion. You can attack it on the grounds that it might no stimulate employment much and that it doesnt enhance equity. What you cannot claim is that because the policy is not popular it is not coherent. What an asinine argument.
Coldstone you are as bad a liar as Brown yesterday. You didn’t just point it out, you added the line:
“What odds on Boris standing as an, ‘independent’ come the next Mayoral election”
I didn’t realise you were a Labour MP. Nick Palmer puts you to shame.
202 That was Jowell’s line - we wouldn’t have done but as we are, then in view of recession, its a good way to employ people and support firms. A white elephant yes but at least it keeps people off the dole.
Better would be to spend the cash on high speed rail links, road building projects to remove accident blackspots and congestion bottlenecks, developments to take forward carbon capture technology so coal fired stations become an alternative to nuclear, investment in improvin fuel efficiency in motor vehicles or new engine technologies - investment not just make-weight jobs.
203 - The problem with an airport is the politics. Most of the councils, and most of the people, in the estuary don’t want an airport there (although there are exceptions), and there are also environmental objections. While some people in West London and Heathrow will welcome the freedom from noise and traffic moving the airport would give them, there are tens of thousands of airport-related jobs in the area, and the prospect of losing jobs, or having to relocate to Essex or Kent, would be unpopular. There are quite a few key marginals in both areas, and serious discontent might well swing a few seats. In addition, there’s probably no money for the necessary road and rail infrastructure for the airport for the next quinqennium, at least. All of these factors make the island a non-starter for the rest of Boris’ first term.
171 Morus: Yes, the allergy angle was the reason I thought someone would make it into a betting market - because there are only half a dozen dog breeds that would fit the bill.
Doesn’t have to be hairless though - as long as the hairs don’t have a habit of getting loose and floating about! (Poodles, bruxelloises, greyhounds, etc.)
205 thanks Ken, couldn’t have been so direct in my response
Just caught up with Richardgate. Richard, please feel free to return as Dick or, if you prefer, Dickhead.
Now who were the nasty party again?
205 Calm down - no need to get personal.
The point I was trying to make, not very well perhaps, is that the Tories need a policy which comes over to the uncommitted as worthy of support and a better idea than those of the government. It will come over in this way if it receives support from respected “non political” voices like the CBI, NIESR, city economists etc etc. The general verdict on the scheme Cameron came out with this week - even from business groups - was that it wouldn’t achieve anything very much.
206
Hmmm I asked what odds on Boris becoming an ‘Independent’ I didn’t say he would be come one!
Your obviously letting your, ‘football team’s’ kack of ability get to you!
203
Its a nonsense, it aint’ gonna ‘appen anymore than Maplin/Foulness ‘appened.
Still as you’ll be living back in Independent Cornwall, under the benevolent rule of President for life Peter Tatchell, I wouldn’t let it worry you.
‘It will come over in this way if it receives support from respected “non political” voices like the CBI, NIESR, city economists etc etc’
Goodness yet more tedious ’spin by the book’ from a Labour urchin.
206 Albion
May I take you (and thereby several other posters) to task about calling another poster a liar? Unless there is incontrovertible proof (as in the case of the dismal Richard) this is not only impolite, it’s technically libellous.
However much we may disagree with them, the integrity of other posters should be taken as read until its absence is beyond dispute.
You are by no means the only one who does this so I am sorry if it seems I am picking on you. However it’s a strange discourtesy. I don’t undersand why anybody would post here other than in good faith, and although some clearly do, I think we ought generally assume that inaccuracies are due to error rather than mischief.
181 - Because Brown is constitutionally incapable of saying anything which might suggest to the slightest degree that anything a Conservative says might be right. He has to get one of his minions to do it hours later.
213 Coldstone, I’ve forgotten who you are. Could you remind us please?
“There are Labour LibDems and Tory LibDems, but no actual LibDems.”
I think I’m a Democrat lib dem in that case! Seriously, Clegg wasn’t my choice so I’m less enthused than I could be, if only the postal votes were counted the way they are in many US states, by date of postmark not arrival.
Richardgate reminds me of the sort of dishonesty which led to the ‘World at One’ abandoning its “Man of the Year” competition in 95 or 96, when it emerged that the Labour Party had co-ordinated a large voting block by Labour Party members.
215 PtP, quite right. Calm down everyone. It’s not as if some old man got an abusive message on his answerphone.
215. Very gentlemanly Peter but I’m afraid the persistent and widespread astroturfing on this site probably does require pretty constant challenges to the integrity of some posters to keep it in check.
Price Watch:
Betfair GE market - Date of GE
2008 150
Q1+2 09 : 4.1
Q3+4 09 : 5.5
2010 : 1.67
2010 price still being kept up by a layer - my pot not big enough to gobble it all up
217
I’m me!
213
I’d like to apologise for the typo in 213 I put in kack instead of lack. Although as I was replying to Albion, therefore the word kack does sort of seem appropriate.
209 Do we know what Obama’s daughter is allergic to? Is it dander/dog hair or saliva (or perhaps dare I say urine). That makes a great difference in suitable breed. If it’s to saliva then then some low shedding dogs groom themselves more often so would be ruled out.
221 - If people are astroturfing, let them do it. So what? I judge the value of the comment by the content, not by the name of the person at the end of it. On many occasions I have agreed and disagreed vigorously with the same poster, sometimes in the same thread. There’s no need to impugn integrity to do that.
221 Agreed, Runnymede, but you can winkle those irritating little fuc*wits out without necessarily calling them liars.
re 190 I suspect that David Davis has different views to Cameron too.
One point that people might forget re. Dickgate is that he actually might be telling the truth. I haven’t read all his posts, but I know a few Labour members who would never actually vote for the party. It’s not entirely beyond the realms of the comprehension that …
I actually thought the boy Dave dun guid. Has to be a first time I suppose. He was a wee bit priggish and petulant but he had a point. It was Brown who made it party political because DC wound him up with that ‘won’t be answered’ aside/jibe. Will someone give Gordy some brain-coaching?
191. I see SeanT has sobered up since yesterday. I’m sure everyone on here will wish him well after his car-crash of a day yesterday.
213.
“what odds on Boris becoming an ‘Independent’ ”
In the shadow of the ‘Terminator’ we’ll have the VEGETATOR!
224 - I believe it is asthma that is exacerbated by dog hair, but don’t quote me on that
O/T - I think Boris airport is a brilliant idea - move the noise footprint off shore, it could be modified to help with flood defences in the very long term, and would be much more convenenient for getting to the important parts of London.
I don’t mind massive public spending, when we actually get assets in return, and this would be one. The jobs would move pretty slowly, as Heathrow wouldn’t be turned off, but rather wound down. Good to see us challenging ourselves architecturally as well - and keeping the construction sector afloat.
206. If Bozza stands as an independent, he’ll win I reckon.
231. hoho ….not
233, he’ll win if he’s independent or a Tory. Especially if the Labour candidate turns out to be Lammy.
Why would Boris run again as an Independent?
I’m not convinced he’ll run again, because he now has eyes on a higher prize. That means being a Tory MP again in the not too distant. Why would he leave the party?
218 That’s interesting - are you saying Huhne might have won?
As a Lib Dem member I do cringe when some spokepersons of my party always feel obliged to criticise Brown And Cameron on equal terms. Let’s face it yesterday Brown was a partisan a*se and reminded us why he is a poor PM. Cameron does emerge with credit for raising the subject at this time and we should not lose sight of the distressing issues here. Praising Cameron on this makes no more likely to vote Tory especially as I see our role is to challenge Labour on the centre left.
“Why would Boris run again as an Independent?”
Because he’s patently not a Tory. Red Boris – his policies are almost identical to Ken’s, he’s just a nicer bloke.
Boris is a Asprilla. (a Tino – Tory In Name Only)
232
O/T - I think Boris airport is a brilliant idea - move the noise footprint off shore, it could be modified to help with flood defences in the very long term, and would be much more convenenient for getting to the important parts of London.
You do know where the Isle of Sheppey is do you?
Right cut to the chase, how many posters would be prepared to put a months salary on, ‘Boris Island’ being built?
The world’s third worst pundit*, Janet Daley, has suggested that George Osborne needs to be moved. So that’s him utterly safe then. Hurrah!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/janet_daley/blog/2008/11/13/sadly_geoge_osborne_should_go
* William Rees Mogg and Pollyanna, since you asked
240. What about Roger?
239. Hurrah we agree on something. I suspect you are correct however that politicians of every hue bar Boris are too cowardly to push it forward.
Maybe when Boris is PM in 2018 it may happen ?
224 232 yes I gather it’s the dog hairs that are the problem. At least, that’s what this lot seem to think:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20238687,00.html
Rob
241 - Not sure Roger really qualifies as a Pundit does he? More a kind of Oracle, I would have said.
240 - And what about David Aaronovitch?
243 PS - still no puppy market though!
244. But wasn’t the Oracle accurate, if obscure?
125.”I think Cameron was really angered, we didn’t hear the comments from the Labour front bench that Martin condemned (what did Harman say that caused her to be told off?) but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t, as a politician, decide he should show that anger and use the opportunity. He does think on his feet.”
I almost missed Harman being told off by Martin yesterday, anyone know what she said?
138.”I think women will react to this much more than men. IF the exchange was noted by the public (admittedly very doubtful), I think Brown could have lost a half a million female votes.”
This terrible tragedy has been brought up by female family and friends over the last 48 hours. And yes, Cameron’s passionate comments about the parents behaviour at PMQ’s did resonate, as was pointed out to me just this morning.
169.”167. You assume Brown will lead Labour into the next GE ? Is that a given. 18 months is a long time..”
I am still inclined to believe that Brown will not lead his party through the next GE.
240 — Don’t forget Mark Steyn, Gabble and John Junor.
245 - Good point. Maybe we ought to have some kind of dynamic league table.
242, nope, Justine Greening to be next PM. (I want my own 50-1 shot to win:p).
248, got to disagree with your final point. I still think Brown will go into the next election. Labour have missed the boat to axe him, now he can only axe himself (although he’ll do it by accident if he repeats yesterday’s horror show a few times).
251, *next Tory leader.
241 LOL!
In fact, Roger has a lot of competition these days. Didn’t Test pronounce, one day before the election, that McCain had a 45% chance of winning?
I suppose it was only 45% wrong?
212. I deeply dislike dumb ideas - and popularity = coherence is a dumb idea.
If you meant - policy coherence should be measured by support from “neutral” groups, the CBI is definitely not a neutral group. (They want big transfers to business or failing that a big short term stimulus - they dont pay for it later). More neutral parties saw it as being a B- in terms of stimulus plans, not great, not big, attempts to hit unemployment, partly funded, a bit bureaucratic, plus questions over how it runs. (The tax analysis places and the City economists). I’d be surprised if anything got more than a B, stimulus packages are notoriously difficult to craft well.
The bottom line is that on your analysis, the most popular (and thus coherent) policies will be ones that shift large amounts of money - at least in terms of places that want stimulus like the CBI and they prefer it without string attached. Thus larger = better = more coherent. It’s still stupid. It’s not a personal attack, it’s a statement of fact.
The Tory policy is a small scale attempt to boost employment and overall aggregate demand. Even if not a single new job was created that would not have been created without it, it still represents a stimulus (new jobs x £2500). It fails the equity test and the efficiency tests (although the latter no more than a straight tax cut does). So I dont get your “it wont do much” argument - it’s patently bollox. I dont think much of the Tory plan, but to claim it doesnt do much is a blatant lie. It is at least as effective as an equivalent tax cut in stimulating aggregate demand.
249 - Junor’s punditry days are long behind him, as are minor details like breathing having a heartbeat.
I like Gabble. He’s funny. Sometimes intentionally.
Don’t get me started on Steyn!
230. You’re still bemoaning the fact I called you a retard??
Get over yerself. As longterm pb-ers will readily acknowledge, that was practically a compliment from me.
Note that, for instance, I have already called “Richard” a “glistening egg of spin” deposited by lefty “blowflies”; I also called him a “maggot” who will “pupate” into a Labour supporter. And it’s only 12 noon.
9. EDW: ““It is a story about a 17-year-old girl who had no idea how to bring up a child. It is about a boyfriend who could not read but could beat a child. It is about a social services department that gets £100m a year and cannot look after children.”
Excellent, Dave, stick it up ‘em.”
Except, as someone else has mentioned, it’s a woman in her mid 20s, not a “17-year-old girl”. Saying the latter gives a vastly different impression of the case. Cameron’s error was genuine, I’m sure, but it totally undermines the idea that his anger was controlled. He was ranting, more at Brown than anything else. And Brown’s response was pathetic.
The pair of them were pathetic yesterday.
256 - That metaphor has, however, been taken rather a long way now, and is now looking flyblown.
257, the baby was 17 months old, I imagine that’s where the slip came from.
Why is anger at the brutal death of a baby and the Prime Minister’s allegation Cameron made it party political pathetic? If you can’t get angry at that, whatc an you get angry at?
257. No. Brown was pathetic and evasive. Cameron was righteously angry.
Big difference.
253. interesting probability question: how wrong is it to say that something has a 45% chance of winning, when it then doesn’t come in?
i don’t think it is necessarily wrong at all.
256
Yeah! bad enough, but at least they’re not Cornish!
183.”Conservatives are more concerned about what they expect to inherit in 2010. They don’t want a growing national debt, high annual deficit and increased interest rate repayments. They don’t want the inherent inflation attached to loose fiscal policies once recovery commences. Cameron and Osborne do not want to be forced into the position Thatcher and Howe were in their first term.”
Ted, why can’t some in the Tory party understand that? All we hear from ConHom etc is that the electorate are now much more keen to see tax cuts than they were when they were affordable, which is why the Tories wanted to offer them then. Now there is rumblings about not offering them when we cannot afford them.
So Labour have briefed about a possible tax cut bonanza, the Libdems are screaming for one, and some in our party are shouting don’t leave us behind.
But I never hear any detailed argument from any of them about how we maintain this increased debt, and pay for it in the future. I don’t mean 10 years from now, just within the next couples of years. I think the PBR is going to disappoint many who bought into the hype being briefed over recent weeks because Darling’s hands are so tied. He simple does not have the room to manoeuvre.
Now I suspect that the government will be punished more for disappointing the electorate, rather than the Tories will for being more honest and cautious.
Public debt is going to increase in the short term whether these tax cuts come from savings else where or borrowing. In fact, I am increasing sceptical about the Libdem proposals in particular.
260. would you be saying that if Cameron’s future righteous anger at some pathetic, tinpot, evasive dictator sparked off a nuclear WWIII?
254 As has been said already in this thread accusations of lying don’t add to the debate.
FWIW all the views I post here are my own, I do not, and have never, worked for the Labour Party and have no links with it apart from being a member of it. Anyone who read my posts about Brown a few months back would know that I am by no means an uncritical supporter.
I consider my views to be genuinely held, and I take the same view of yours and those of anyone else who doesn’t agree with me. I don’t consider you a liar or suspect your motives - I merely disagree with you.
264. Good grief.
264
We wouldn’t be saying much, we’d all be dead!
Cameron’s problem is years of heavy smoking, have given him high blood pressure. I have noticed his heavy breathing and flushed face when he responds.
re 248 Yesterday in Parliament this morning suggested that she wagged her finger at the Speaker, and that Martin was livid.
261 Well, Ed, the betting odds with Betfair, Ladbrokes and the like suggested a 5% probability. In a betting context, that’s a pretty gargantuan error.
Put it this way. If you were a bookie and you put up a 20/1 on shot at 5/4 on, what do you think would happen?
265. I assumed that you had taken the statement that it doesnt do much from somewhere else, not that you had lied. And it is a lie - it will stimulate demand by about as much as an equivalent tax cut - it’s just adding money in a slightly different way. I assume that by concentrating on the lie point, you are conceding the rest - as you should do, my analysis of this point is fair. (It’s crap, about as crap as every other plan, it hits unemployment. If you want more - then you gotta spend more.)
re 261 me neither. I don’t understand how such a sucessful punter as PtP doesn’t do probability. McCain’s chances of winning on the day may well have been nowhere near 45%, but they weren’t zero either.
If we are “best placed” to weather a recession - why is there a run on the pound ?
http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/the-pound-has-nowhere-to-go-but-down-14044.aspx
Anyone ?
Meanwhile, back in the financial world, Sterling continues to fall - to $1.48 this lunchtime. The government’s perhaps lucky that this has happened out of the main holiday period when fewer people will notice but anyone taking Winter breaks will find the rest of the world a much more expensive place.
271 ChrisA - See 269. (Perhaps I should have been more explicit in the original post.)
264. What a stupid post. Labour spinners getting a bit desperate today.
The Spectator coffee house is exposing Ed Balls’s damage limitation announcement of a review for the lie it is; Balls claims that it couldn’t be announced before as they only received the report at 10 am, when the information had been in the public domain but embargoed for a year.
To the former Haringey councillor on this post who queried whether social services should come under Health and Safety at Work legislation, I say “yes”, they should. What sticks in the craw of so many people is how local authorities are so rigorous in enforcing rules on members of the public and penalising them for petty infringements but seem unaccountable themselves for any major fiasco which end in death.
275. Agreed. Post 264 is somewhat childish is it not?
This has been as bad a week for Labour as much as last week was good. Accelerating and high profile redundancies (600 at GSK in the Labour marginal constituency of Dartford for example) together with GB’s PMQ debacle have quickly turned the narrative. My suggestion on Friday that GB goes for a pre-Christmas or Jan/Feb election suddenly looks a bit daft lol. He is shortly going to boxed in and left with no other option than play it long ie May/Jun 2010.
278. If we believe Labour spinners, the cabinet will be breaking out the champers at today’s news of mass redundancies, will they not?
277 Not as childish as calling people liars.
279, not because of redundancies, but relief that Cameron hasn’t started a nuclear war.
280. Getting very flustered indeed. Time for a pat on the head and a glass of milk.
272 I’d like to add another question as a supplementary to why there is a run on the pound. I bought euros about a month ago at a tourist rate of 1.24 euros to the pound. Today, the same exchange is offering 1.15 euros/pound. This is a fall of 7% in a month. For a long time, the tourist rate was about 1.41 euros/pound, so it’s fallen 18% from this point.
How far does the pound have to fall to warrant support from the BoE?
Mike Smithson… I am enjoying the your website, but is it possible to have a sub forum where we can discuss political BETTING?
I almost feel like I am intruding when I want to make a post to discuss political betting odds.
272 A year ago I got 1.40 Euro but yesterday I got 1.19 just before the slump. I think you will lucky to get 1.15 today. Husband has decided to pay with VISA at our accommodation in the Somme in the hope the exchange rate will rise a bit while we are are. A lot of unhappy tourists I think. On the other hand foreign tourists to the UK will benefit.
277. sorry if you think it childish, i think it is worrying that of the two leaders of our main parties (PM and “PM elect”), one has all sorts of well-documented personal flaws including inability to take responsibility for anything and propensity to tell fibs, the other has blood pressure and a fairly obvious anger management problem.
284 That’s a commonly held view around here, Penny, but to be fair there isn’t a great deal of political betting currently available.
And we have gorged on the US elections recently.
284, as a newbie punter, I do sometimes feel a bit out of place raising odds and the like (although, to be fair, I usually am concerned with formula 1 and tennis odds rather than politics).
SeanT was spot on earlier about what yesterday’s PMQs showed. Emotional Intelligence. Cameron has it, Brown hasn’t.
put it another way. Say if someone shot Brown in the leg, he would go down and his first thoughts would be ow that hurts closely followed by how does this look, I should not show weakness, must not soil pants or grimace, how will this affect my polling? He will then deny he ever soiled himself in subsequent interviews and maybe talk to conference about the treatment he had and how humble it was to be wheelchair bound for 2 months.
If someone shot Cameron in the leg, he would go down and his first thoughts would be ow, followed by get me to safety and to hospital. following that there would be “hello” type photo shoot with samantha at his hospital bedside whilst a wan looking cameron reads the paper and eats grapes. He appears in public limping, and makes jokes in private that the gunman was hired by Brown.
If Someone Shot Blair, he would go down and his first thoughts would be ow, get me to safety, followed by a mental note, to grimace through the pain. On being stretchered out he would make a glib comment “all in a days work” followed by a winning smile. On his return he would sya that the extra investment in police and NHS saved his life and captured his wannabe assassin and that wouldn’t have happened under tory cuts. He would later write in his autobiography that the episode and the brush with brought him closer to god.
284 A nice thought. I’m afraid you’ll have to live with Tories supporters expunging the frustration for a while. They’ve built up quite a bit over what has been a difficult couple of months for them. It will pass, it always does. Perhaps Mike should find some nice obscure foreign election for us all to profit from.
269, 271. bookies get it wrong sometimes too (and are definitely vulnerable to “groupthink” because of the way their market operates. we could argue all day about what his chances actually were on that day - definitely well over 0% and probably less than 50%. i tend to agree more with you that they were small, but i don’t think that is the point.
264 Oooh frightening, especially as the big red button is on the PM’s desk next to the telephone. If only they’d thought about things carefully, and had a chain of command between the politicians, and the military with the weapons. Idiot.
Somebody at the Speccie is either utterly gormless or has a very mischievous sense of humour…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2008/11/13/george_osborne_and_peter_mandelson_meet_for_lunch
Mandy and Osborne at lunch together again.
286 Actually I quite like it when someone is provoked into calling me a liar - means they have no more coherent response to my arguments!
293 Snap!
Morus has called this row right - Cameron as well as Brown was pretty poor and just as culpapble in the ‘politicising’ stakes with his uneccessary jibe about not answering the question.
Only two people come out with any credit - Speaker Martin and Lynn Featherstone MP.
285.Marcia, hope the weather is good for your trip. Edmund is displaying good sound North East housekeeping there.
283 All to do with the interest rates. UK interest rates are below the Euro for the first time EVAR!
256. No not at all. I welcomed it yesterday in fact. I actually enjoy your posts and was simply trying to draw comment from you by reheating yesterday’s discussion. I reveled in yesterday’s banter. And as you were the catalyst for it all, you should be justifiably proud. You demented half-brother of a flea-bitten gerbil.
297, balls. Brown never answers questions and utterly failed to address the initial point which was bloody obvious (ie conflict of interest) and non-partisan.
275. I hate to agree with Runnynose, but even I must admit that was a poor post.
292. you must take the wider point though, appearing hotheaded is not a great advert for a PM-in-waiting.
re 284. Well this morning’s thread lead is about betting but hardly nobody has offered a view on which way things are going. Last night’s thread was on the betting on Broxtowe
I was always worried about what would happen when the US elections were out of the way.
There are no by elections pending
All three main party leaders look fairly secure
The general election probably won’t be happening until May 2010.
Our only hope is the ingenuity of people like Shadsy at Ladbrokes to devise new markets to entice us.
284. There is nothing to bet on Penny! As far as I know there is almost no meaningful elections now for many months.
304. Snap.
297. Brown didn’t answer the question. He never does. Cameron picked him up on it. An entirely unrelated issue to Baby P.
215- peter the punter- well done old chap. I must admit I saw that post by Albion about Coldstone and winced.
Coldstone is a pbCOM fixture and fitting, is unerringly solid and reliable in contrast to some of the more erratic types (i.e moi).
305 - Could we not find some public spirited MPs who are prepared to take the Chiltern Hundreds? That could keep us going nicely.
ON TOPIC - I was surprised at the sudden move in the spread betting yesterday. We didn’t really learn anything new about Gordon Brown, we already knew he is rubbish at the touchy feely side of the job. I had assumed that was already factored in. Perhaps it was the realisation that political discourse will be about non-economic matters as well as economic matters over the coming months?
303. So is this the Labour attack ad now then?
“Look what an angry man Mr Cameron is, he could start a nuclear war and kill us all”?
… Seriously, clutching at straws much….?
306, no formula 1 for 4 months either:(
However, I have put together a little table for next season, with previous fastest lap holders and top 3 winners from the previous 2 years. Hopefully will prove slightly useful when considering bets.
310, got to stick with Labour, the Peace Party.
Coffee House Blog reporting that Darling hints at a taxing future
“Nothing too surprising in Alistair Darling’s interview with the Independent this morning. There’s chat about how the Government’s spend ‘n’ borrow reponse to the downturn is the “responsible” thing to do; how the country will “get though it” all, perhaps by 2010; and how we shouldn’t expect £15 billion worth of tax cuts in the Pre-Budget Report. Halfway through the article, though, there are two quotes which add up to a something of an admission:
“There are two sides to it. It is also important that, like anybody else, you live within your means. You have to demonstrate in the medium term how you propose to do that.”
And,
“Keynes is best remembered for what he said about making sure you help the economy in difficult times. But he also was very sound on making sure you live within your means. He did believe that at some stage you have to pay for it.”
Now, given that Team Brown won’t want to confuse their current “we’re cutting taxes” message, this is probably the closest the Chancellor will get to admitting that taxes will eventually have to be raised to pay for our PM’s addiction to debt. The hope for the Government is that this soft sell approach will count as being “up-front” with the public, and thereby limit the scope for Tory attacks.
A slightly snide postscript: Darling says that “You do have a duty to level with people. There is no point in telling people things are better than they are.” Maybe he should tell his debt-fiddling boss.”
OK, at the risk of being accused of going off topic.
I’d like the punters amongst us to look at the odds for the next General election date.
Ghost of Harry Flashman bemoans the fact that someone is holding up the odds on a 2010 election at around 1.67. I think the price is being held up more by the fact that the other two options in 2009 are being backed.
I think the 2010 price is just plain wrong and have backed my opinion accordingly. Given that most of the political “experts” on here seem to be of the opinion that the longer Brown holds on, the worse it will get for him, one would have thought that Labour are also pretty much aware of this.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that it is nearly 5 times more likely that Brown will hold on until 2010, as opposed to an election in the first half of next year, as the odds suggest?
I have taken a position where I have heavily backed both the 2009 options on Betfair. My reasoning is that if an election is called in the first half of 2009, I clean up. However, if we get to late April/May and no election has been called, then it is reasonable to assume that the odds on an Autumn election will tumble as there will only be two options left. I will therefore be in a position to minimise my losses by laying off my late 2009 bet at lower odds.
I suppose I am a safety-first punter and like to have a fall-back position to minimise my losses. Whereas those going for broke on 2010 have no fall back position if Brown suddenly announces an election early next year.. once the announcemtn is made, it is game over on this market.
304- ergg,cough, Mike Smithson- please see post 167, one of my more profound posts (not saying much mind), and giving a good explanation why a huge Tory landslide is on the cards.
309. Excuse my woeful ignorance but what are the Chiltern Hundreds and where do we bet on them?
309 - I think it was also the continuing bad economic news, antifrank. The realisation is slowly dawning that this is bad for everyone, not just bankers and estate agents. Thus Brown’s claims that he is an economic genius are likely to backfire, in political terms.
303 Hotheaded or passionate? Human maybe? Unlike the uncaring, autistic, calculating, self interested and self preserving robot currently occupying (without mandate) Number 10.
291 It wasn’t the most serious of points, Ed, so let’s not get too hung up over it.
If I did want to get technical, I say that Roger’s famous ‘mistake’ in negating the Obama suggestion was only a few percentage points out and no self-repecting bookie would fret about laying the occasional 50/1 winner. Otoh, you’d be in a lot of trouble if, even once, you put up a 20/1 on shot (or even 10/1 on) at 5/4 on.
But then I don’t suppose Test really thought about it in those terms before posting.
re 297. Cameron might have played it badly but what it has done is change the agenda. It’s got the Tories away from the economy where they are weak and onto something else.
That’s the big message of yesterday which hardly anybody is picking up.
I’m coming to a view that Cameron might have planned it this way. You wind the emotionally illiterate Brown up so he responds inappropriately thus exposing his deficiencies. You also get through your 6 PMQ questions without moving onto the agenda that Brown and his MPs desperately wanted to talk about.
Then you see Balls make his statement a few hours later which totally vindicates the initial outrage.
Brown was right - Cameron was playing party politics but he did it brilliantly so that Brown looks like the loser.
314 Welcome, Penny, and thanks for the interesting post. I like your strategic thinking.
[BTW I noticed yesterday you saying that you hadn't bet on the US market because you didn't feel you knew enough about it. That's what I thought initially, but then I started dabbling, and my experience was that the opposite is true - it's easier to be objective when you are more distant from things, and of course there is plenty of information available, not least on this site].
320 - And it’s the gift that keeps giving, ‘cos my suspicion is that Cameron will play this card again.
320. This was Nick Robinson’s line yesterday, for which several hundred posters have now castigated him
320, I think you’re overegging it. I do agree Cameron won’t the divide between human Cameron and robot Brown to be played up, and planned for it, but I think he was genuinely shocked at the party politics allegation, and only intended to use 2 or 3 questions on Baby P to start with.
314 Penny
Fwiw, I’ve bet heavily on 2010 but I do have a fall back position because I have also backed Brown to go in 2009. So, if he calls an early election and gets beat, I collect. If he stays until 2010, I collect. If he is defenestered in 2009 and the new PM delays the election to 2010, I collect twice.
Of course, if he calls an election in 2009 and wins, I am in the sh*te, but that’s a chance I’m prepared to take.
264 -. would you be saying that if Cameron’s future righteous anger at some pathetic, tinpot, evasive dictator sparked off a nuclear WWIII?
Ed - I have never heard of Cameron throwing mobile phones at a wall or smashing chairs. Indeed better to have a man who can empathise emotionally than a potential phycopath more interested in scoring political points against the Tories by using an infants death.
324 - I agree Cameron was genuinely shocked, and certainly I doubt he expected it to go through all his questions as it did, but he wouldn’t be a party leader if he didn’t have one eye on how Brown was likely to respond, and lo and behold Brown delivered for him, better than he ever could have hoped.
320
But it’ll always be, ‘The economy stupid’
Bad people will always do bad things, and they’ll happen on every governments watch. Everyone will always do everything to prevent them happening, but they’ll still happen!
Spats at PMQ’s or all the rage and sorrow you can muster, will never change that.
316 - Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds is a job in the pay of the Crown, and therefore forces an MP to give up his/her seat, triggering a by-election (on which we can bet!).
Along with the Stewardship of the Manor of Northholt (or something) it is the only mechanism by which an MP can resign.
This article by Theodore Dalrymple in the Times yesterday suggests why effective lessons are never learned following enquiries into tragedies such as the deaths of Victoria Climbie and Baby P.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5133966.ece
It seems that the box-ticking culture is there to protect officials and create work for box tickers rather than to protect children.
320.It also allowed Cameron to display a bit of real passion and anger, traits that some on here mistakenly assume is a negative in a UK leader seeking to become PM.
320. I’ve no doubt Cameron was fishing for a stupid response by Brown. I’ve also no doubt he was genuinely surprised by just how stupid it was.
314 Penny - but your figures aren’t quite right on the current BetFair odds, I believe. 2009H1 4.1, 2009H2 5.5, 2010 1.67 = implied probabilities of 24%, 18%, 60%. In absolute terms, leaving aside your very good point about how they might change with time, those don’t look ridiculous. In fact, I’d say 24% is a bit high for an early election.
253 I didn’t post one day before the election! One week before, during a Mac polling surge, I did. And as I said to you then, it wasn’t a tip. You see everything in betting terms whereas I’ve said I never bet.
In fact, PtP, my tip of “don’t gamble” makes me the official best pb tipster ever!
320 Disagree - Cameron couldn’t have known Brown would be so inept. He was being political in raising a matter of public interest away from economics, but there is more going on that the Government is responsible for than just Gordon’s latest air trip to solve the financial crisis.
Brown doubtless had lots of tractor statistics and quotes like “its a price worth paying” ready to deflect any attack on the huge rise in unemployment and Nick Brown & co had doubtless also prepared the benches to respond. Unemployment is a tender issue for Labour, protecting jobs has always ranked higher than bringing down inflation or levels of public debt. Cameron though has plenty of time to attack on that front - newspapers & TV will keep issue at the forefront anyway and even BoE expect unemployment to rise through till Spring 2010 in their very optimistic view of a rebound in last quarter of 2009 in economic activity.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/11/live-blog-from.html
Oh dear – it seems Sean T’s favourite Tory, Ozzie Osborne, and my dearest Labour minister Peter Mandelson are having lunch together this very day.
Why do I worry that the private conversation they have over the Pinot Grigio and Chicken Supreme is unlikely to remain private?
330 “It seems that the box-ticking culture is there to protect officials and create work for box tickers rather than to protect children.”
That applies to many areas, Kat, not just child care. Have you never witnessed an audit in action?
Benbobjim - MPs are not allowed to simply resign. However, any MP who accepts an “office of profit under the Crown” has to give up their seat.
The Chiltern Hundreds is actually an abbreviation for Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham. The position has no duties and the holder does not receive any benefits, but it still counts as an office of profit. An MP who wishes to resign can apply for this office and will be appointed automatically by the Chancellor. Once appointed, they serve until either another MP is appointed or they apply to be released from the position. David Davis applied for the Chiltern Hundreds when he wanted to trigger a by election in his constituency, but was immediately released from the post so that he was eligible to stand for re-election.
There is another similar role used by MPs who want to resign - the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. The two roles are usually alternated. However, the Northstead position is less well known so resigning MPs are often described as “taking the Chiltern Hundreds” regardless of which position they have actually taken.
Antifrank was therefore suggesting that an MP should resign so that we have a by election on which to bet.
329, question: does that mean that only 2 MPs can resign at once? Or can multiple persons hold the Chiltern Hundreds and Manor of Northolt?
Suggestion to Shadsy/Aaron/bookmakers:
Can we have a market on next MP to take Chiltern Hundreds, and one market on next to take Northstead?
Chiltern Hundreds is currently *vacant* (pretty rare) as it was taken by David Davis, who was then released by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to fight the H&H by-election that he triggered.
David Marshall (ex-Glasgow East) is currently Steward of Manor of Northstead.
So, markets would be on the next two MPs (in order) to resign from the House of Commons. Could be a high margin, long-odds crap shoot - like the VPOTUS market on crack. What do people think?
334 Test
My recollection was that it was a day or so before but the old grey cells are not what they used to be, so I stand corrected.
Even so, it was a pretty spactacular miss!
338. Only in dearest Blighty would such a gleefully Byzantine and richly twee system for quitting exist.
339 - I think 18 MPs resigned over the Anglo-Irish Accord back in the day (RodCrosby is the expert in this area). I think they get appointed in order, but released very quickly!
Alastair Campbell will be on Radio 5 at 3pm plugging his novel. Yes thats right, he has written a novel. I bet you lucky lucky people can’t wait to read it.
342, I rather like our often bizarre and antiquated system. I like the fact we have a bloke called Black Rod, who carries the world’s first pimp stick as a staff of office and wears tights, and that we have a pair of red lines in the Commons beyond which MPs shouldn’t step, to prevent them swordfighting.
Pardon me, but why?
Why did Balls make his statement?
Either Cameron was right or he was playing party politics as Brown said.
148. Great post. The spectacle of our Tory friends fretting last week over the election result was bizarre even by their wacko and paranoid standards. Labour is doomed if even I’m not likely to vote for them, the Tories will waltz it. Let’s just hope they do the decent thing and replace Ozzie and Grief with a couple of decent alternatives.
Morris Dancer - an MP is released from either of these offices as soon as another MP applies. Therefore, if a lot of MPs apply at once, most of them will only hold one of these posts for a few minutes (or maybe even seconds if the Chancellor can get through the paperwork quickly enough!).
ptp,
to refresh those grey cells I only posted in alarm because Mike suggested risking his pension!
and it wasn’t a miss at all - it was my opinion. Its a bit tiresome of you to pretend it was a betting tip, something I pulled you up on at the time when you said it then. The majority of pb commenters uae the site to talk about politics, not as a betting site.
if I offer a tip I’ll say so - and to reiterate, mine is “don’t gamble”
314. I think you missed Nick Palmers comments the other day. He reiterated what I believe Labour thinking to be - why go early just to lose by less ? There is a short termism and a hope for “something to turn up” (ie Brown’s Falklands moment part II)amongst Labour which showed when Brown was kept on this summer. Also I see no appetite for a Super Tuesday of Local/Euro and GE on the same day.
I agree with you that this is market susceptible to panic - but this could work the other way round if Labour continue to lag in the polls in the Spring then we could see 2010 shorten back to 1.3.
Good luck with your bets but I hope you lose
16 Great sleuthing Mike and good riddance to “Richard”
No doubt you have his his IP No. should he try again under a different guise.
345. I know! It’s bloody great isn’t it? My American staffer (who now regrettably has returned to her homeland) just thought the opening of parliament hilarious and ridiculous and said it confirmed all her prejudices about the English. This made me exceptionally proud – as I like our international reputation for being a bunch of eccentric traditionalists. Which brings me to morris dancing…
348, ah, thanks:)
What a terribly well-informed fellow you are.
343. Who holds the all-time record for being in the Chiltern Hundreds for the shortest time?
352, other nations are just jealous of our mighty traditions and unparalleled history of success. And, of course, our formula 1 world champion.
352… on the subject of Englishness. I was explaining to New Zealander friend of mine that we’d either invented or codified pretty much every sport here. She said “oh codified, you mean you wrote the rules, well that hardly suprises me as the English love to make rules for everything.”
Again, I brimmed with pride.
Re political betting I tend to feel as long as posters on here don’t resort to excessive, rather tedious party political name calling/point scoring and focus on political events and issues in an adult way there’s no problem with our discussions. At their best they have added a lot to my grasp of politics and more recently economics. Some days/threads can be outstandingly good. Even a hotly debated topic like yesterday’s PMQs has been interesting - as a poster pointed out seemingly minor events can change the narrative and consequently your betting perspective..
John Major slates Labour: Brown’s answer to the recession will do long-term harm -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3452019/John-Major-blames-Gordon-Brown-for-recession-in-UK.html
It should be remembered that whilst Major was the last recession PM, he did at least act in the national interest and do unpopular things to redeem the economy in the longterm. Brown on the other hand is obsessed with scoring party political points off everything including the economy, no matter what the long-term cost.
Brown is a nasty, vile and shallow cretin.
For all tennis follows, Davydenko has just beaten Del Potro 6/3 6/2 which means he has qualified through his Masters Cup Group. This lands a 9/4 winning selection from earlier this week. Davydenko and Djokovic both had 2 wins from 3.
Remember all those predections that oil would be $200.00 a barrel by xmas, (this one I suppose)hmmmm.
Oil prices plunged to $50 a barrel today on gathering concerns the global economic slowdown and the perilous state of the US car industry are driving down demand for crude.
In London, Brent North Sea crude fell $1.77 to $50.60 following heavy declines earlier in the week. While overnight in Asia, prices for New York oil fell to near $55 a barrel. Oil is now trading 66 per cent below the $147.27 peak reached in July.
Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia in Singapore, said: “As the global economy continues to weaken, we’re going to see further downward pressure on oil. I think we’ll certainly challenge the $50 threshold. We could challenge the $40 threshold.”
Shows how wrong predictions can be!
I rather think it’s about time that PB had its’ own officers for profit under the crown :
Black Rod Crosby - Too often has the door flung in his face by Tory PBers.
Speaker of the House of Commoners - Morus keeps the riff raff in order.
Great Great Grandfather of the House - Er Erm - Jack W is 105.
Silver Stickler in Waiting - David Herdson - The very model of Churchillian conservatism
The Tories should win it - Time’s Up for the Government. You can sense it. Even those who say “brown is dealing with a difficult problem” falter when you cite the mess we’re in is in major part due to him.
Interesting article in the Times today saying that in Australia the talk is all about how much of their budget surplus to use up to stimulate the economy and avoid recession.
Here we get John McFall telling us how being in debt isnt bad at all and racking up a shedload more is the only way to prevent Depression. What a joy to live in this most prudent of countries.
Of course, Labour can only benefit… lol - whatever! The Tories will win big. Brown and Co are losers who have left the country badly exposed at precisely the worst time.
There’s absolutley no other way of looking at our current situation than as a financial disaster for this country, one caused in large part by Gordon Brown & his government.
358. “Brown is a nasty, vile and shallow cretin.”
Come on Martin that’s a bit harsh. Whatever Brown’s political flaws and lack of emotional intelligence, I think if you were to meet the guy you’d find him to be a nice bloke.
358
If you want to know what an honest, decent man, John Major is, ask his wife!
358 Ben Brogan reports that the delay in PBR was due to Gordon wanting a bigger splurge than Darling or the treasury would agree to. We will presumably see on 24th which side wn or most likely a compromise that doesn’t please either side.
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/11/darling-holds-t.html
He also lines up with Christina and myself of the utter stupidity of Tory supporters attacking Osborne.
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/11/will-tories-be.html
360. I should imagine that puts Mr Putin in a tight spot - time for a little conflict in January ?
344: ‘Alastair Campbell will be on Radio 5 at 3pm plugging his novel.’
Yes, they discussed it on Newsnight Review last week. On of the contributors said that, while you would normally advise a crap novelist to go back to the day job, as Campbell’s day job involves sexing up dossiers for illegal wars it’s probably best that he sticks to writing crap novels.
357. I actually think that this is one of the most intellectual and sophisticated blogs on the web, if not the most intellectual and sophisticated. Even the slanging matches on here demonstrate a superior class of wit and verve.
364 oh come on Coldstone, who could possibly have held out against the pure sex that was Edwina Curry…
…now where did I put those pills?
367. Yes it appears that some of his best works of fiction are already out there..
365. Yes and the first comment on the Ozzie blog articulates clearly why, as per usual, Brogan is wrong.
354 David Davis???
369. Ah but remember what she could do with an egg…
371 - or,from a Tory perspective, why he is right?
366 The Duma is expected to change the Russian Constitution today to increase the length of a Presidential term from 4 to 6 years, Certainly not being done for Medvedev, expect a Presidential election in 2009 and Putin back in the Presidential seat (perhaps on the back of some trouble on the borders).
349 Sorry to be pedantic, Test, but it IS a betting Site. Mike makes non-punters very welcome and it would be a bloody dull Site if all we ever talked about was betting, but its primary purpose has never been in doubt.
re 367. By far the best writing that Alastair Campbell has ever done was when he produced a column called “Riviera Gigolo” for the soft porn magazine, Forum, in the 1970s.
371. Remember the Labour spin on Ozzie has two halves - one is replace Osborne, the other is “bring back that wonderful Ken Clake - he scares us Labour types and the public love him”
Both are wrong.
376. Was he ghost writing for Roger?
Another article about Osborne:
“Should Osborne remain Shadow Chancellor?”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2636151/should-osborne-remain-shadow-chancellor.thtml
359 re tennis bet — thanks HenryG M
377. Was it about George Osborne? Oh sorry that was the Greek Islands…
360 that oil is plunging to such lows does indeed indicate we could be in for a pretty much worldwide depression which sadly we can’t avoid. what a time for us to be caught out in our dire financial position as a country. it could hardly be worse.
359 Thanks again, HenryG.
You are in top form on the old tennis tips!
380. Again, the posters say that he should go. They are right.
I see Gordon’s close advisor, confidente, and husband of Brown’s gatekeeper Sus Nye, Gavyn Davies is advocating Mugabinomics
I can almost hear the distant hum of the printing presses, the Ride of The Valkeries starting up, as a wave of helicopters appear over the horizon, throwing bales of £20 notes to the grateful nation below
359. Henry G - I’ve never backed a losing tip from you yet. You are the tennis guru (or oracle
)
354 - The Northern Irish MPs I mentioned and David Davis - all were released within seconds of being appointed.
314 (and others)
The prospects of an early election? This is one of the few betting areas where I am at odds with PtP. I feel the recession, which we are only just entering, will be far more devastating than we have been told. In such circumstances, I just can’t see the logic of Brown waiting 2010 (although his natural instinct would be to do so) and thereby suffering a far greater defeat.
If I’m wrong, of course, and the worst is over by the end of next year, then he will have a fair chance of winning by having waited until 2010.
In betting terms, I too am very heavy on 2010, having loaded onto this option before and in the immediate aftermath of the election that never was last Autumn. More recently, however, I’ve been taking the 3-1 on H1 2009 with Betfair as insurance. I’m far less enthusiastic about H2 next year with the recession likely to be still very much in evidence.
Coldstone, apologies for calling you a liar earlier in the thread. I may have misread you posts and apologise.
(1) “Looks like Boris is on his own re-Boris Island.
What odds on Boris standing as an, ‘independent’ come the next Mayoral election: something Ken should have remained.”
I read this as you saying “here is a link to a story showing Boris disagreeing with Cameron. Does the pb.com population think this will lead to Boris standing as an independent?” I appear to have read this wrong.
(2) “It is also true, that there are Labour MP’s that do not support the 3rd runway at Heathrow, I do!”
I read this statement as admitting you were a Labour MP. I appear to have read this wrong.
Perhaps more clarity in you English to prevent this type of misunderstanding would be helpful. Try reading your post out loud before you press the submit button and you will learn how it sounds to the recipient.
(3) The interesting thing is that my original post was “Coldstone you are as bad a liar as Brown yesterday”. None of the Labour astroturfers / Draper drones here took exception to the implication that Brown was a liar.
Afternoon all,
Quite frankly Alastair Campbell can shove his novel up his f*****g arse where his b******t spin & lies do not see the light of day; the man is a cretinous waste of space who should crawl back under his rock from were he crawled out of. Trust the Labour hugging BBC to air his recent program about his tough childhood upbringing – like anyone gives a s***
So the whole mainstream media narrative that Palin didn’t know Africa isn’t a country is now unveiled to be a complete lie, originally fabricated by a duo that has made a career of spreading lies and disinformation about Republicans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Not that the media need help sliming Republicans, but they have it.
390 Albion, you are a gent.
‘Perhaps more clarity in you English to prevent this type of misunderstanding ‘
Yes quite right - don’t confuse personal pronouns with possessive adjectives for a start.
364. If you want to know what an honest, decent man, John Major is, ask his wife!
I never said he was honest or decent - I said Major worked in the national interest. Brown just seems to work in his own interest/ Party interest. Is there nothing Brown won’t do to try and get credit or score points?
363. benbobjim, I know what you are saying but maybe this is Brown’s problem - He can be all charming and nice to people but it is only to score points or gain credit. Brown in this sense is a politician like Stalin or Hitler. He will do anything for political victory despite the human costs.
The problem for Brown is this approach does not work well in an active democracy.
392. Didn’t fox report that story?
359 That’s absolutely great tipping Henry - many congrats. Having already funded my family’s Christmas Dinner, we are now looking at New Year’s Eve booze!
Please let’s have more of the same, but don’t ask me to back Andy “Argie-Shirted” Murray.
340. I think I’ll leave that idea for someone else, Morus.
Pricing up a 650 runner race would be tricky enough. I fear we’d do our money to some Labour MP in a hopeless seat who fancied supplementing his pension by retiring early and backing himself at 400/1.
398. Don’t give Nick P any ideas
361. Jack W.
Mike Smithson. Steward of the Manna from Heaven
Sean T. Steward of Bad Manners.
398 Honestly, Shads, where’s your cullions these days?
400 Can I be Bar Steward?
398 - Could you not just price up 20 likely candidates, and offer 1/500 on ‘Others’? Or choose 40 candidates and say ‘which of these will be the next to take either job’ with a none option at 1/10?
This could be a great standing market to see us through the winter!
Surely you’re not accusing MPs of acting in a slightly dishonest but fundamentally legal manner in order to supplement their incomes? Shocked, I am. Shocked!
377 I guess we’ll have to take your word for that Mike. Do you still have all those hundreds of copies of Forum in a box in the attic? They could be worth a fair bit on eBay you know.
re 284 but we do discuss other betting things as well, and thankfully some of us are saved from potentially very expensive mistakes!
399/400/402/404 - LOL!
402. PtP. I thought you were? I’m sure I’ve heard someone call you that before!
re 304 thinking of new markets I came across Betfair’s who is to blame for the credit crunch market last night. It’s completely illiquid, but may be a bit of fun. Punters have to choose who will be first to be sacked before 1/1/09 from a list like Bananke, Paul, Darling, King etc.
392. Stars and Stripes is a true GOP devotee. He is the only one who can be bothered to defend the Republicans now, even the Republicans can’t! Palin is due to explain the weaknesses of the GOP today so that exercise in navel-gazing should be one to watch out for. S&S for GOP chief media strategist! He is a tireless one-man band, regrettably only preaching to us in the UK who do not have a vote.
407 Many times, StJohn, many times…
400. Sean T is the Beast of Bolsover (sorry Bodmin).
407 Shurely shome mishtake?
Reposted from yesterday with appropriate corrections made (apologies): If the Dems can grab the Alaska Senate seat (as now appears likely) and win the Minnesota seat in a recount (as also appears likely given that an ACORN-supported Democrat is in charge of the recount process and given the interesting pattern of Dems nearly always gaining against Republicans in recounts), that would give the Dems 59 Senate seats, undoubtedly a veto-proof margin. This would give Obama Carter-like congressional majorities to work with and Republicans will be de facto non-entities in Washington.
It is interesting to note that only ONE post-war Democratic president has managed to win election to the White House twice: Bill Clinton. The others were Truman (was so unpopular by the end of his elected term that he didn’t bother to run for re-election), Johnson (same story), and Carter (ran but was defeated by Reagan). Note that while Truman and Johnson came into office upon the death of their predecessors, neither managed to get elected in his own right more than once although both were constitutionally entitled to run again.
So why could Clinton get re-elected where Truman, Johnson and Carter failed? One obvious difference is that the GOP was in charge of Congress during Clinton’s re-election bid, while the Dems were running Congress when Truman, Johnson and Carter ran for re-election. Again, we see the strong aversion of American voters to maintaining one-party rule, particularly following four years of complete dominance of one party.
If the Dems indeed come out of this election with the overwhelming majorities they appear to have, it is unlikely that the Republicans will take back the House, and even more unlikely the Senate, in 2010. This sets up a likely scenario where the Dems will go into 2012 having controlled the House, Senate and White House for four years continuously, likely most of that in poor economic conditions. Based on all this and from this very early vantage point, 2012 looks decidedly rocky for the Dems. Total control can be a poisoned chalice, as history has shown.
N.B. Truman may seem a bit different that the other post-war Democratic presidents in that he served nearly a full term before facing his first election in his own right. However, the GOP controlled Congress during Truman’s only election campaign. Therefore, to look at this a bit differently, Truman and Clinton are the only two Democratic presidents to win election after effectively already having served an entire first term. Both did so with GOP Congresses to run against. Neither of the two Democrats who had effectively already served a full first term with a Democratic Congress even bothered to try for a further term given how unpopular they were, and both were followed in office by Republicans.
Lesson for punters looking at those early odds on 2012: things are not always as they seem on the surface, so what may seem a “steal” at 5/6 is not necessarily such a great deal.
re 314 Penny.. I fear alas that you have not learnt from the mistakes of last year. Brown’s flaws are such that he will not risk an election unless he has to. Last autumn was like taking sweets from a baby (although a lot more nervewracking), and if you bet on 2009 then I’ll be happy to take some pennies of you.
Morus [88] Exactly as I saw PMQs, and I saw it live.
Clearly Brown and Cameron dislike each other intensely but I do believe that Cameron getting cross was (probably) over the top. Brown emollient response to Lynne Featherstone who seemed to make exactly the sane point as Cameron was significant.
re 391
In fairness, Campbell’s novel was universally panned on Newsnight Review last week.
One of the reviewers said (I’m paraphrasing): ‘I suppose it’s less harmful for the country that Campbell spends his time writing rubbish novels than writing up dossiers on which to take us to war.’ Well put, I thought.
388 - indeed. On 17th December 1985 we had eight stewards of the Chiltern Hundreds in a single day. On the same day there were seven stewards of Northstead. I believe both posts were vacant by the end of the day.
392- Yes, Fox fell for it too (in fact, they were apparently the first to fall for it). Others later joined in the fray without verifying the story.
re 330 “Theodore Dalrymple” is a charming and witty man, but can be very brusque. He used to work here.
409- Thanks for your genuine and heart-felt show of support. I knew I could count on you.
414. Nice to see a few people putting their cullions where their mouths are. I got stung in Glenrothes so would like to recoup on this market. Although I have done well on the Strictly Come Dancing market recently
413 Clinton’s and Truman’s chances must have been helped by (a) having to run as centrists and (b) having their supporters fired up against a Republican-controlled Congress.
BTW, why was Truman so unpopular at the end of his term? He’s always struck me as being a reasonably able President, and quite clear-sighted about the Soviet Union (much more clear-sighted than Roosevelt).
418. Had they bothered to verify it, they would have discovered that in fact Palin realised that Africa was a continent, but thought that it was a continent in “socialist Europe”.
A lot of talk in the media about Ken Clarke returning to the frontline. What odds would you get on him being made Shadow Chancellor soon?
420. You’re welcome. Always right behind you, old bean.
416 - Everyone has one great novel in them. Sadly, Alastair Campbell’s was entitled “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government”.
The collapse in oil price is astonishing. Just goes to show… er… something. Not sure what.
Actually, I do know what is shows: ONE OF THE MAJOR DISADVANTAGES OF DEVALUATION.
Everyone in the world is gonna benefit from a lower oil price, except us, as our currency is collapsing against the dollar, and oil is priced in dollars. We will still benefit of course, but all our energy-guzzling industries will be at a disadvantage, compared to our competitors. And so it continues.
Relatedly, I’m not liking the sudden appearance of the word “Depression”. I’ve seen it in several places now, in the last few days.
Hm.
413 I think Obama would have preferred a less dominant position in the Congress - there are Democrat pet projects, initiatives etc. that are less than popular and which will weaken his presidency, as in cases he will be seen as led by Congress rather than as the leader. Truman & Clinton may have been helped by being seen to fight to get their proposals through Congress.
Agree with you that by 2012 we should expect gains in Congress for the GOP and there is a chance events, weakness in face of Congressional led policies would make Obama’s re-election less of a certainty it seems today (he did after all not take 46% of the voters with him so GOP retains a strong springboard).
re 330 it’s the same view reached by Beatrix Campbell from the entirely opposite end of the political spectrum in today’s Indy.
That’s new Labour for you though, they just cannot let professionals get on with their jobs. GP these days is a much a matter of ticking the right boxes to claim the money; children have to go through endless tests rather than relying on teachers’ judgement to know who is doing poorly; the police caution one person and then spend the rest of the day form filling; really sick patients have to give way to the walking wounded to avoid a target being missed and box unticked.
Jowell retracts idea that they would not have bid
“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7726926.stm”
All irrelevant really as Brown would never have won the games for the Uk if he was PM at the time. Only TB could pull that off.
Look at the pound against the dollar in the last three months:
http://www.fxware.com/forex-currency/fx_chart.asp?f=GBP&t=USD&d=p&l=en
Call me mister paranoid, but I spot a trend in there.
422- Sean, I think your interpretation is quite in line with mine. Clinton and Truman were forced by political realities to run to the center just in time to save their re-election chances. Johnson and Carter had no such forces driving them (nor did Truman in his 2nd term, which was his first in his own right), and their re-election chances were accordingly undermined.
Although I don’t claim to be major expert on the Truman presidency, it seems he was hurt generally by the unpopularity of the Korean War, federal employee corruption, and general fatigue after twenty years of Democratic presidencies. Truman did actually run in the New Hampshire primary in 1952 (which he lost to Estes Kefauver) but dropped out immediately afterwards.
430. Now testing 1.48 as a level.
[361] - 105 - well done Jack!
When was Jack’s birthday - I missed it.
We need something to keep the old chaps mind active now that his ARSE is redundant,due to no elections pending.
426 SeanT, as a nation we still sell quite a lot of oil and have two major oil companies that pay tax in Sterling. This will cushion things a bit. But that said, you’re right it is astonishing on two counts. (1) The size of the moves and (2) that no-one seems to care.
For those, like me, still awaiting the final election result for Missouri, here’s the latest from the Kansas City Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/887821.html
392 Palin/Africa. See, you do need a fairness doctrine!
Thanks for your help and updates from America. When’s the next one start?
Perhaps it already has, with McCain busy defending Palin from GOP critics.
431 I think the US was quite right to fight in Korea, and successful too (unlike Vietnam). Why was the war so unpopular?
75.
“Once again the iron law of PB.com is proven true - anyone who describes themselves as a ‘floating voter’ is almost certainly a party hack.”
I have to take issue with you on this one. After just seeing Spurs beat Liverpool 4-2 (I had recorded it and didn’t know the result) I can say that I am on cloud 9. If that doesn’t make me a floating voter, nothing will!
re 433 it’s probably a secret as a birthday would give us all some more clues to work on.
i reckon JackW is two or more people
430. fantastic isn’t it!
440 Yes, Jack is 98 (and has the experience) and W is 7 (and knows computers and enjoys bottom humour)
416. I concur; it was very well put, as it is less damaging then sending our troops to their deaths based on a lie i.e. the 45 min WMD deployment given that Hans Blix’s UN weapons inspection team found absolutely nothing over quite a period of time. Bliar & Campbell have that on their conscience as well as Dr. Kelly’s murder.
Thinking about the dreadful case involving that child we should remind ourselves of the past, ‘baby farming’ etc. The case of the ‘Ogress of Reading’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Dyer
One can only hope it isn’t so bad today, although London with its massive and shifting population, cases like that are only the tip of the iceberg.
438 Indeed. As is the one who says “I used to be Conservative/Labour/Lib Dem, but such and such policy announcement means I’ll be voting against them.”
Interesting reading the Speccie on osborne. Wonder if they mentioned they were running that to him at Lunch, might have put him off his starter, poor chap,
Anyway, for those who are convinced that this is all the work of sleeper labour activists burrowed secretly in the Telegraph, Speccie and 1922 committee campaign being activated in order to destabilise Osborne, I’ve just done a great big blog post on all the reasons why that’s not what’s happening and why Cameron can’t and won’t get rid of Osborne.
437. Coming so soon after WWII I think it’s not suprising it wasn’t very popular.
323
The difference between Mike and Nick Robinson is that I don’t pay the former’s wages.
448. No - one of them is a useful source of information as well. The other is buffoon.
376 no, Peter the Punter, it isn’t a “betting site”, other than in title only. Any site of this sort is defined by its commenters, not its lead articles, interesting though they may be. Mike’s own passion for political betting is shared by many important contributors including yourself but a very quick glance through of any thread, any thread at all, reveals the fact that the vast majority of comments are on politics and unconcerned with betting one way or another. And it is the sheer number of quality comments from all sides of the politcal spectrum - PB’s usp - that make the site what it is, not the small, if important and intelligent, faction of actual gamblers that post here.
I make some remark along these lines whenever you get too heavy handed on “betting site” stuff. Perhaps it’s annoyance at this that has caused you to mischaracterise my opinion on the US election as a “tip” or prediction and to discuss it in betting terms twice; on this thread and the original one, where I told you very clearly that it wasn’t a tip/prediction, and my only tip is “don’t gamble” - a tip which for the vast majority of punters, less successful than Mike or yourself, would make them better off.
437-The Korean War wasn’t going so swimmingly by the autumn of 1952 and Truman was also famously pitted against, and demanded the resignation of, the hugely popular Gen. MacArthur. Thus, I don’t think it was the war effort per se that was unpopular but rather Truman’s perceived inability to see the war through to a successful conclusion.
443. Mate give the Bliar stuff a rest – it just turns me off your posts as it reminds me of low info anti-war marchers.
I’m not saying TB was truthful, just that using a hackneyed anagram make you look a tad childish.
415 Brown’s response to Featherstone was significant only in the sense that he it showed he had realised his mistake.
446 Very good article, Hopi (other than the ludicrous last two paragraphs, of course).
I’m a floating voter. Up until yesterday lunchtime, I was Gordon Brown’s biggest fan. But now I have decided to vote Tory.
ALL HAIL DAVE.
You can’t prove anything, Smithson.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/11/live-blog-from.html
More gems from the Spectator Awards. Mandelson has won Newcomer of the Year.
Who gave him the award? That man Ozzie. I kid thee not.
“It’s good to be back on board, as they say in Corfu,” said Lord M, accepting. You could not make it up.
455. I am a floating voter. I used to support Brown. As of a few weeks’ ago I have decided to hold my nose and vote Liberal, in the vain hope someone will see sense and sack the woeful Clegg before election day.
Theories cannot be proved; no law is immutable.
452. You are entitled to your opinion but it was hardly a mature thing to send our troops to their deaths based on a well-known lie just to cosy up to Dubya Bush.
450. Pompous self-obsessed cr*p. The bulk of the interesting comments on this site - both betting and non-betting comments - come from regular posters who are also punters. Those willing to put their own cash on the line are often also those with the keenest sense of judgement and the best nose for a developing story.
If the site consisted only of ludicrous party hacks like you and assorted astroturfers it wouldn’t be worth reading.
455. Martin Coxall. I wonder who are more important in deciding elections; floating voters or voting floaters? I think, by definition, the latter.
@459:
Runnymede he speaks da troot. People’s opinions carry far more weight when they’re prepared to stake their own filthy lucre on it.
458. I’m not saying it was. I just don’t like silly anagrams – if you call people names it weakens your argument. I was lambasted on here the other week for jumping on a passing bandwagon and calling George Osborne by his given name Gideon. I was rightly lambasted in retrospect. I just think things like Bliar are the preserve of Junior Common Rooms, and should remain there. If you think Blair was a liar that’s fine – but you should tell us why rather than just call him one.
459. As one who has administered an enjoyable spanking, on occasion, to the fragrant Mrs Test, I must say that seems a little harsh.
The site needs BOTH kinds of commenters. If it was just about punting and betting it would soon dry up, with sterile threads full of arcane advice on spreads and value - lacking political relevance; if it was just about politics it would end up as a horrible bearpit full of people shouting ignorant abuse at each other - the punting angle brings people down to earth.
The doublehelix that is pb - politics and betting entwined together, like rapturously mating cobras - is what makes pb.com the glorious site it, possibly the noblest website in the visible universe.*
*Mike, can I have my fiver now?
In the immortal words of Guido, anyone not satisfied with this site should demand a refund.
Sycophancy really doesn’t suite you. Put your tongue away.
On topic.
Don’t have the faintest idea why the betting markets should move so much.
I don’t think yesterday’s PMQs will result in any significant polling movements.
I suspect that people were reminded of the differing strengths and weakness of the two main men and realise how reliant Gordon is on the banking crisis [as opposed to the recession].
The fact remains we are in the recession’s early days, when lots of announcement can hog the media and see short term benefit.
The medicine tastes sweet but it is given before the aches and pains of illness has really spread, and it won’t stop them.
Things can only get better v Things could have been worse?
I’m a floating voter. I’ve still got no idea who I’ll be voting for. It won’t be Labour, but I shift between Tory and Lib Dem, sometimes more than once a day. I may yet spoil my ballot paper.
What a suite heart!
437
It was the first of the ‘Police Actions’ that ground to an inconclusive cease-fire. No clear winner, just a lot of people killed, a lot of money thrown away to get back to the status quo ante.
And because it ended in a cease-fire, the lingering fear was that it could break out again.
392. “So the whole mainstream media narrative that Palin didn’t know Africa isn’t a country is now unveiled to be a complete lie”
My reading of that article is that the claim of responsibility for the story was a fabrication, not the story itself. Is it being reported anywhere else?
@467:
My reading of the situation is, that the BBC’s Operation Save Gordon and the entire Super-Gordon pseudo-narrative may have lead people to believe that the hundreds of billions of our money Gordon spent bailing out the rich will now ensure that the recession doesn’t happen/won’t be very bad.
Once the electorate realise they’ve been hoodwinked, their retribution will be swift and merciless. Nobody wants to be treated like an idiot, least of all By Gordon and his chums at the BBC.
409- You seem to have made the same mistake also made by many of Dr. Palmer’s critics here. If electioneering were the goal, this is the last place anyone should be. I’ve never believed the silliness that Nick is somehow trying to spin here on PB to win votes, and I’m surprised you’d think I would be attempting any such thing either. You don’t have to believe anything that I say here, or that Nick says for that matter, but trying to win votes is a ridiculous claim to put against someone here (except as a disingenuous insult, perhaps).
471. Correcto! See may post earlier calling for S&S to be chief spin doctor to the GOP.
363-Shame you could’nt be as charitable about Palin as you are about Brown.
458
jump off a cliff and try and repeal gravity.
464. Yes but my point is most of the interesting political commentators are also keen punters. The punting background exercises discipline on thought and develops an eye for spotting a shift in the weather.
The hack posters are almost uniformly boring, trotting out their predictable party lines and rehearsing tired prejudices.
471- Read the story more carefully. The whole smear is a lie.
470 Almost all of South Korea had been overran when UN forces landed though, so although it didn’t result in a total victory, liberating South Korea was a definite achievement.
464. Sean T has been possessed by Matthew Mild again. Can someone call an exorcist?
468. The other day I genuinely toyed (for about a second - but still) with voting Lib Dem.
I want a party that is low tax, in favour of real democracy and civil liberties, and will provide decent and convincing opposition to Labour’s hideous incompetence on the economy. And I want a party that is anti-joing the euro.
The LDs tick all those boxes, and they are now anti the euro. Cable is a better opponent to Darling than Osborne. So, a couple of days ago, I wavered…
But then I remembered the repulsive way this supposedly democratic party shoved through the Lisbon Treaty, despite their promises of a referendum, and I came to my senses. The LDs are a sad and hypocritical joke.
Nonetheless, I was TRULY floating in voterspace. For about half a second.
476. Thank you for your advice. I shall file a report of my experiences.
The LDs are anti-euro? When did that happen?
In our Georgesmiley-like search for deep sleepers on pbc our spy has been revealed. But Sean T is definitely a tinker.
475. Here we go again. I don’t like Palin. That’s the difference. In fact I would go as far to say I find her and her illiberal, whack job, wilfully ignorant views an anathema to anyone with a grain of liberty or intellect within their soul. Given that, why would I be charitable to her? You can do that, as for some reason, you seen to love her.
481. If we’ve got seanT wavering then we’ll be raking in the moderates. 150/1 for Lib Dems getting the most seats. Get your money on now
481 - My floating consists largely of feeling more Lib Dem-inclined when reading the output of the Tory hardcore on here and more Tory-inclined when reading the output of the Lib Dem hardcore on here.
I have to say, though, the Lib Dem stance on the Lisbon treaty is the biggest disincentive for me voting for them. This was a manifesto commitment that the party knew would almost certainly arise in the next Parliament. It reneged. Why should I believe anything written in a Lib Dem manifesto again? And I write that as someone who given the opportunity to vote in a referendum would have probably voted yes.
From the conhome blog of the Speccie awards
Newcomer of year is Peter Mandelson. Mr O looks distinctly uncomfortable presenting it!
GO reveals that Michael Gove plays Brown at PMQs prep and is better than the real thing.
“it’s good to be back on board as they say in Corfu” says Lord M accepting.
“For next year’s holiday” replies Mr O “we’ll be holidaying in the North Sea off Hartlepool - a place neither of us have visited for a long time.”
478. I did read the article carefully, because I was trying to work where it said what you claimed. All it actually says is that MSNBC’s claim that ‘Martin Eisenstadt’ had come forward as the source of the leaks was based on a fabrication. It does not say that the leaks themselves were a fabrication.
So if I’m still missing something, please direct me to the relevant quotes. Or perhaps it’s reported elsewhere?
460, observably provable tosh - I’m not enough of an anorak to go through this thread, as an example, and count betting posts vs: non-betting ones but the former are running 80% and the latter 20%, at a very generous guess.
I think to a large extent the recent media reporting of the current economic crisis has been strongly influenced by the enormity of the situation. Up until very recently we appeared to be facing the prospect of global financial apocalypse. Under those circumstances, wasn’t there an obligation on all reporters to steady the ship and support the various captains? To do otherwise risked us all capsizing and drowning.
Now that the threat of Armageddon appears to be receding I think more objective analysis should follow and the respective character strengths and weaknesses of Brown and Cameron as leaders should become much more relevant again.
….or even the other way around. chol
485. Say what you like about British leaders (and I’ve said plenty). I’ve thought them immoral, ideologically flawed, corrupt, arrogant, and all the rest of it. They all at least came across as intelligent, even if I disagreed with them.
I certainly had confidence they knew that Africa was a continent. That Palin came close to the Vice Presidency (and the presidency) scares the hell out of me.
488. That’s funny. I like Ozzie. Sounds like he he’d his own.
I have faith he will come through.
494 should say - held his own
485- You actually seemed like a respectable individual back during election season, but perhaps you’re now showing your true colors since the euphoria of Democratic triumphs has worn off. Please back up your attacks against me with facts, Mr. B. If I’m lying that the Palin episode was made up, please show me the legitimate source of the story. If I’m the one who’s spinning rather than you, please support your accusation with facts.
The NYT article states:
“But under the circumstances, why should anyone believe a word [the pranksters] say? “That’s a really good question,” one of the two, Eitan Gorlin, said with a laugh.
…
They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere. “With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mr. Mirvish, 40.”
And you claim that my outing of the Palin/Africa story as a lie is “spin”? Again, stop making such accusations unless you can back them up. I’m sure you can’t.
427 the worrying feature of the whole credit crunch right since 2007 and before, has been the spectre of the great depressison - it’s what most people are concerned with. We may end up merely alleviating the effects of it but in reality may be too late to stop it. certainly the “D” word was mentioned and dismissed as late as september. It is being taken rather more seriously now in November.
People have blamed the media for hyping things up & making a sexier story, but in reality the figures about the boom speak for themselves. the debt is very real and is not media hype. The crash in inflation expectations raised the very real prospect of depression.
Certainly if we see large scale car makers such as GM going to the wall, which looks a more than evens chance, and also many companies seem to be shedding around 10% of their workforce, across different types of industries. This is indicative of a depression.
re 451 but surely if it’s to serve its raison d’âitre then it needs to have all the political information as well. It’s then up to the bettors to make use of it as they will. If it were just betting it would serve no purpose.
491 That’s a very fair point.
The problem is they are like sheep and much of the day to day reporting is carried out by politcal pundits who don’t understand the finance anyway.
The try to look clever - not be it.
Its like turning round a tanker. It will be slow and obvious when it happens.
489- The pranksters themselves actually laugh at anyone who would believe anything they’re saying. They admit that the whole point of their pranks is to show how shoddily the media, and especially the blogosphere, do their jobs. The story is therefore unsourceable. And you still believe it? Then I guess you’ll believe anything as long as it suits your mindset and there’s no point attempting to engage in rational discussion with you.
This is a truly interesting thread. We can use that LibDem comment on Seant from here on. An utterly shocking revelation.
For now I am stuck in the Labour camp. But I did too flirt with thoughts of LibDemmery in 2003, but decided to rejoin Labour to work for all the best it represents.
I could never be a Tory, I was mauled by one as a nipper.
490. Try actually reading what I wrote you silly cow.
‘The bulk of the interesting comments on this site - both betting and non-betting comments…’
So we can have interesting comments about betting, and interesting comments about politics by people who are also punters.
Then we have the uninteresting cr*p by hacks like you. Though some of that (’dancing Iraqis’ etc.) I will admit has occasional comedy value.
463. Campbell sexing up the dossier, the very fact that the UN weapons inspectors found nothing over a long period of time (remember that they were inspecting from 2002 onwards up to being withdrawn before the invasion in March 2003), the 45 min WMD deployment clause was a last minute thing to sway the UN to OK the invasion as even Bush had nothing to do with that & the fact that someone like Dr. Kelly who had staunch religious beliefs against suicide just happened to be found dead with his wrist cut as it was so out of his character to name but a few ’suspicious’ events. TB cast his dye long before that with his ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ spin along with ‘education, education type utopia crap, surely you can see from the state of the country after 11 & ½ years of this government of the long, long term damage inflicted on it. It is not as if I am the only person speaking my mind about the illegal invasion as 100’s of 1000’s of people have marched all over the world in protest about this war.
496. Are those quotes supposed to be your evidence that the NY Times article claims that the Palin/Africa was a lie? If so, I’m now even more convinced that you’ve misread the article completely. The ‘prank’ that is being referred to is the outing of the non-existant ‘Martin Eisenstadt’ as the source of the leaks. Nothing more, nothing less.
500 One prank which was genuinely amusing was Sarah Palin’s supposed interview describing dinosaurs as Satan’s Lizards.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/13/crb_wrong/
I wonder whether any of these 12,000 were amongst those begging Ms Smith for ID cards?
450 Thanks Test for taking the time to deal properly with my post. I’ll deal with the easy point first.
If you give an opinion on a betting site wich is couched in odds or percentage terms, that is a ‘tip’ and is likely to be taken as such by anybody dropping into the Site. If like me they know you and your non-punting status, it isn’t a problem, but otherwise your hopelessly ill-judged assessment (and it was!) is likely to be taken seriously. You can call it something else if you like - a judgement, opinion, estimate or whatever - but around here ‘45% probability of winning’ when all the oddsgivers are calling out 10/1 or shorter amounts to a tip, whether you like it or not.
The point about the Site is an interesting one.
Mike is the Site Manager. He says it’s a betting Site. The title says its a betting Site. It’s true that most posts have little or nothing to do with betting, which rather raises the quetion of what non-punters, like yourself, are doing here? Of course, we both know the answer to that. This Site is infinitely superior to most if not all Sites where politics is regularly discussed. But that raises the further question of why is it so superior?
Again, I think we both know the answer. It’s because of the punters. We put our money behind our opinions, so others know we are not just propagandising when we put forward a betting proposition, (or anything that could be mistaken for one.) That’s why we are taken a little more seriously than your average poster on your average political Site. Most punters on here make money. They do so by being objective. That very objectivity is an attraction for those who, though they have no interest in punting, want some clear honest views and assessment of the current political ‘odds’.
Yes, I do get peed off with those who visit the Site for no purpose other than to proselytize on behalf of their party. I know Mike does too. They are grade A bores at best. At worst, they subvert the Site for their own purposes and make it difficult for proper punters with the Site’s original and main purpose in mind to obtain and exchange the kind of information which is simply not available elsewhere.
The Site succeeds despite these people but it could certainly do with fewer of them.
Some non-punters make a great contribution to the Site - SeanT springs to mind but there are many others - but these are people with something to say and a fine way of saying it. Many, many posts however are little more than so many variations on the theme of Brown/Cameron/Clegg is a tw*t. Fine if that’s what the ‘author’ thinks but why bother on a purported betting Site? There are plenty of other Sites that cater for that sort of crap.
The answer, Test, is that this Site has become authorative and influential. It therefore attracts Party Hacks who hope to further their own Party cause at the cost of irritating me and others who would like to be able enjoy some decent dialogue, if not actually the occasional betting hint.
It’s a viewpoint that I know is shared by many of the punters who post here and it does no harm for it be aired from time to time.
496. I was winding you up S&S – I thought that was obvious. That said, nowhere in that article does it say that the Africa thing was an lie – or not that I can see anyway.
483. They came out “against” the euro at their Conference. The new LD line is that euro membership is just not going to happen in the foreseeable future, so they are gonna sort-of forget about it.
Being LDs they might have changed their sexuality again, of course, in the face of the latest data: as I type this the £ is yet again at an all-time low against the euro. Down below €1.18.
On the Lib Dem discussion, I have honestly thought of them in the past too. I especially like their liberal focus on social issues (Labour try, but their constant nannying undermines it somewhat), and it looks like their economic policy is becoming more ‘liberal’ in the traditional sense of the word, too.
However, I still fear that a large proportion of the party membership are pretty much socialists that don’t like New Labour, or Tory-hating unreconstructed lefties. And I strongly dislike their European cowardice, and their stance on the EU in general. I love Europe and European culture - but I can distinguish between a culture and an unaccountable behemoth that’s seeking to subvert all Europeans and *force* us together.
497. Its worth considering just how people of my generation (32) and younger might cope with a depression. We have not known austerity, even the poorest amongst have access to luxuries only dreamt of fifty years ago, we do not worry about affording to put food on the table, or shoes on our feet.
If we do go into depression it is going to be an incredibly big shock to a lot of people.
The phrase ‘make do’ has disappeared from our lexicon. Nobody makes do anymore. The local community centre, when raising funds (ie. filling in grant application forms) for a minibus, it is always the newest, shiniest bus available etc. Everything is shiny and new.
It isnt like this for many other people in the world, my sister in law lives in Nigeria, and though herself, would be considered wealthy, everything is ‘make do’, clothes are passed down, old cars are cannibalised for all and any spare parts, computers are used until the break down, and then often replaced with machines already several years old.
504- Please provide me with the legitimate source for the story and I’ll buy your line. If not, then you haven’t a leg to stand on. By the way, I saw a circus clown running down the street today screaming that Obama is Bin Laden’s long lost brother. I’ve decided to believe that until someone can prove otherwise. I feel much better now.
504. 508. Yes that was also my reading of it. As I say S&S for chief media strategist for the GOP.
(By the way S&S you seem to have taken this badly – only a wind-up and no malice intended!)
505- That was funny. I’m also a devotee of “The Onion,” which certainly skewers the GOP more harshly than the Dems but at least it is clever and truly amusing.
The thought that Jonathan and SeanT could both have been rooting for the same side for even half a second is mind-blowing.
488. Miaowwwww
Typically, SeanT at 465 makes my point much more eloquently than I ever could, but I’m still glad I got it off my chest anyway.
515 antifrank - The LibDems are a broad church.
507. Where do I fall on your analysis PtP? I do like the odd flutter (even though my McCain forey showed me up to be useless at it) But generally I like to come on here for the banter and intellectual discussion of the news.
503. Fair enough!
512. You’ve got some cheek, S&S. A couple of weeks ago you went into an almighty tizzy because I had supposedly put words in your mouth (ie. that you suggested Obama is a ‘European-style socialist’ rather than a mere ’socialist’). But now you’re doing exactly the same thing to me with bells on, and you know perfectly well what game you’re playing.
At no point did I express a view one way or the other on whether the Palin/Africa story was genuine. I merely pointed out that the NY Times article categorically does not say what you claim it says - ie. it does not suggest the Palin story was fabricated by these pranksters. I hope that is now clear - but frankly it should have been fairly clear all along.
507 quality post.
515 “The thought that Jonathan and SeanT could both have been rooting for the same side…”
SeanT is more likely just to be rooting…!
490 Test - It’s generally reckoned to run at a ration of 9:1 (non-betting to betting posts.) It varies a lot according to season of course.
514 I thought The Onion’s article about JK Rowling being a Satanist, and winning thousands of American children to Satan, was hilarious, but even better was the fact that some fundamantalists took the article seriously, and were up in arms about it.
518 More a home for strays!
522 - The Lib Dems do appear over-represented in the rooting classes already. Vote Lib Dem and get more sex would see them sweep to power.
507 - I came here initially for the politics, then realised that clarity of thought came with having money at stake and started gambling. I do think that it has improved the quality of my own posts.
521- The story does indeed very strongly suggest the Palin smear is a lie by saying the guys who peddled the story have admitted the whole thing is a prank. This does require the use of deductive reasoning, however. (i.e., Pranksters make up stories. This story originates from a prankster. Therefore, this story is made up.)
519 Fishing for compliments, Ben?!
526 antifrank - Stuff clarity of thought. I find that political betting has improved the quality of my wine cellar.
529 Less clarity - more claret.
520. Thanks benbobjim, I am not spouting off just purely for the sake of it, I genially despise the New Labour, TB, Campbell & Mandelson spin machine that has caused so much damage to our once great country, the Tories weren’t perfect by a long way but we never had our freedom slowly eroded over time & we weren’t taken into any illegal wars, however I do respect your opinion as I would anyone else’s.
This chap has a sure fire tip - buy gold !
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/the-g-20s-secret-debt-solution-27996
The G20 lizards will make you rich.
485-Yes I do like her as indeed do others.Just because you do not does not make her a “whack job”.I find your posts extremely strident in tone & demonstrates an intolerability towards others with opposing views.I shall not engage with you again.S&S,Morus,Peter the Punter,amongst a few others represent the “gold standard” on this site.
529 You mean less boll*cks and more Bolly, young Sally.
[431] - Re: Forex. The 3-month Euro-USD graph looks almost the same as the 3-month GBP-USD. The difference between the two appears only when you look at the 5-year graphs. [The GBP is below its 5-year low, whereas the EUR is not].
The Europeans will also not see as much benefit from the fall in the oil price as the Americans will. I’m not sure how much worse off we are to the Euro-area in this regard, though.
533 You are most kind, David, but enough please, before my head grows bigger than Morus’s waistline.
Whilst many posts might not be directly on point about betting odds, many do though examine the current mood music being generated by the stories of the day - and how they feed into the odds for our Betters amongst us. So a string of posts on how the “Brown bounce” is being played up by the media will lead to a resource to decide whether it (and so Brown/Labour’s odds) are being overstated.
507 PtP, as one who rarely bets can I add that I find the chief value of this site is the discipline of thought that betting brings.
Take the discussion on PMQs - while there were arguments about the intent of the participants, overlaying that is whether or not it could changes, even marginally, possible voting intentions. The opinion of posters, the degree and way to which either possible astroturfers or party loyalists reacted as against the less partisan, the links provided and focus on the media story, the number and affiliation of posters - all together provide a probable guide to how this will play with the public or for spread betters how it might affect seat forecasts.
Taking those into account and asking if you would put cash down on your runner or if conditions look better for the others, even if you don’t bet, is a good brake on overconfidence or correction against becoming overly despondent.
529 - There is that too. My winnings this year are going towards a swimming pool cover, which is tediously practical, but the funds are a welcome bonus.
531 “genially despising” is definitely the pb.com way!
515,518 I am sure that SeanT and I are both liberals and radicals and could easily find ourselves in the same party if the stones of the UK political scene had been cast differently.
I didn’t like the LDs for their “holier than thou”, patrician tendency. They seem more preoccupied with being pure and right, than actually doing anything.
I could never be a Tory, because I am neither an economic or social conservative. In the south they operate like a closed club. I don’t want to be part of any of that. They like the LDs have some great individuals though.
I am drawn to the imperfect Labour party, because at its heart its about working people representing themselves and winning a better deal.
In the end I suspect most of the ideological divide comes down to one thing. Whether you regard govt as inherently “them” or potentially “us”.
527. “The story does indeed very strongly suggest the Palin smear is a lie by saying the guys who peddled the story have admitted the whole thing is a prank. This does require the use of deductive reasoning, however. (i.e., Pranksters make up stories. This story originates from a prankster. Therefore, this story is made up.)”
S&S, I’m afraid you’re the one guilty of a failure of logical reasoning. In fact, you’ve completely lost the plot. Any number of juicy political stories originate from un-named sources. A prankster could then come forward and retrospectively claim responsibility for the leak, but it does not logically follow from that he fabricated the original leak. It’s comparable to when a bomb goes off without any claim of responsibility, and then some fringe organisation step into the breach to gain some publicity.
“The story does indeed very strongly suggest the Palin smear is a lie”
No, it doesn’t. It simply doesn’t. Show me a single quote that strongly implies that - or even vaguely implies that.
re 538 even the presence of large number of astroturfers can be indicative in itself that the party hierarchy is worried that the media narrative is slipping away.
If that’s not useful betting information then I don’t know what is.
536- Thanks David, and I hope you would add Sean Fear to that list as well. He’s the coolest cucumber in PB town.
538. Yep.
This is the process that made me deduce Labour would win Glenrothes (I promise this is the last time I will mention my brilliant Scottish soothsaying, at least for a week). My heart was yearning, nay screaming for Anyone But Labour to win - I wanted to see Brown caned, and humiliated. My heart was quite persuasive too, and was very ready to be taken in by the uber-confident SNP cheerleaders on here.
They know who they are. Or were.
But my head kept saying: Well, would you actually BET on an SNP victory? And then I looked at the polls, and the weird spin from Labour, and the blows to independence from the Krunch, etc
And I thought No: sadly, I’d have to bet on a Labour win.
It is a very salutary discipline. Unfortunately I didn’t actually bet on a Labour win cause I am a mincing squeak of fritness - but still. Yr point is proved.
544 Fear has no peer, S&S.
PtP,
thanks for your opinion and the polite way in which it’s expressed:
“Mike is the Site Manager. He says it’s a betting Site. The title says its a betting Site. It’s true that most posts have little or nothing to do with betting, which rather raises the quetion of what non-punters, like yourself, are doing here? Of course, we both know the answer to that. This Site is infinitely superior to most if not all Sites where politics is regularly discussed. But that raises the further question of why is it so superior?
Again, I think we both know the answer. It’s because of the punters. We put our money behind our opinions, so others know we are not just propagandising when we put forward a betting proposition, (or anything that could be mistaken for one.) That’s why we are taken a little more seriously than your average poster on your average political Site. Most punters on here make money. They do so by being objective. That very objectivity is an attraction for those who, though they have no interest in punting, want some clear honest views and assessment of the current political ‘odds’.”
No - couldn’t agree with you less here. It certainly isn’t the punters, nor do I accept that there’s some mythical value involved in gambling money on an opinion that makes it more valid. Nor do I accept, at all, that partisan posters are a problem. Nor for that matter do I even accept your definition of “spin”. if you have an ideology, you see things through that prism. Sure, we all spin, politicians and punters alike - but mostly it’s just the effect of supporting a belief system. I’ve often thought how tiresome it must be for Nick P to be told he’s “spinning” when he’s just expressing the views of an ardent Labour supporter.
No, I don’t think at all that the punters give PB its unique value. IMO, that comes from the high quality of political debate from all sides of the spectrum. In other words, PB is the site where Sean Fear and Jonathan both post. I don’t know another site around on the web where debate is of that quality. Andrea and Starts & Stripes and Sally C; that’s PB’s outstanding draw; not betting and not punters. This isn’t to minimise the gamblers and their contributions. Indeed sometimes the gamblers, including you, veer off onto other kinds of regular betting; horses, dogs, sports personality of the year. It all adds to the conversation.
“If you give an opinion on a betting site wich is couched in odds or percentage terms, that is a ‘tip’ and is likely to be taken as such by anybody dropping into the Site.”
This I reject completely, though. This simply isn’t a betting site for most participants, so an opinion is just an opinion like a cigar is just a cigar. I doubt any serious gambler is going to “drop in” on a site about a minor market, read one post by one poster and regard it as a “tip”, especially when it’s not described as a tip. If they do do that, I guess they shouldn’t be gamblers in the first place! The import of your comment here would be “don’t express any opinions on anything in numerical terms lest poor deluded gamblers are led astray”. Don’t agree to that, I’m afraid, at all.
but you know posts about the purpose of the site are a bit navel-gazy - I’ll continue to come here for the politics, you come for the betting. I’ll continue to post opinions which are not and never will be betting tips - and here’s hoping you don’t take them as such. And PB will continue to offer the best debate in Britain. Hurrah!
S&S - I have to say the story is hillarious, and credit to them for doing it, but I’m a little pissed off that the NYT had the gall to write ‘especially the blogosphere’.
For a start, plenty of blogs didn’t run with it (we didn’t) and many more only cited it when the ‘authoritative’ MSM reported it.
We are unpaid, one-or-two man bands - they have millions of dollars and armies of researchers. To say “this was sloppy - especially of the blogs” is frankly pretty insulting of them, don’t you think? Glasshouses and stones come to mind…
536 - My waistline has a little more hair…
538 Yep, agree with that Ted.
I hope nothing I’ve said implies that I don’t want anything but betting posts on Site. I just think that posts and threads that are betting related, however tangentally, are the better for it.
I’ll get me coat now. Enuf said, and I’ve things to do.
[...But if seanT mentions that Glenrothes tip one more time, handcuff him and march him off to Conhome.]
545. SeanT, my recollection is that you went back and forth between Labour and the SNP about fifteen times. If you back both horses in a two-horse race it’s fairly difficult not to be ‘proved right’. And I think the real reason you never placed that bet is that you actually didn’t know.
As for these fabled “blows to independence from the Krunch” - back in the real world, support for independence is down 3-4% since the economic crisis. Hardly a terminal meltdown.
548 PMSL!
Sam Coates on why there will be no GE in 2009..
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/11/three-reasons-w.html
PtP.
I too read your excellent chastising post above.
In less eloquent terms, can I make the case for the party hack.
Have you recently visited any of the following?
-the ravings that are ConHome,
-the three people arguing with themselves on Sky news blog,
-the Guidoness of Guido,
-the lack of sound that is Libdem Voice,
-the lack of substance that is LabourHome.
But I take you point about it being a better’s site and I will make an effort to be more like you all - if a measure of today’s posts is anything to go by, certainly I need to drink more.
553. Probably right.
New thread - Was the PMQ flare-up part of a Tory strategy?
551. Bollocks. I started noticing Labour at Glenrothes were value at 3/1 (or whatever it was) many weeks ago - and I said so on here.
At that time, yes, I still thought the SNP were slight favourites - but I was merely pointing out what I thought was a good “value” bet, despite that (and I was right). You can page back and check, if you like.
As the date got nearer I agreed with Mike that it was 50/50 - again go and check if you don’t believe me - this despite the punters thinking the SNP were faves, and SNP-ers like you lustily proclaiming victory beforehand.
A couple of days before the vote we had our own pb poll. I went for a Labour victory - against the mass of opinion here.
And on the night itself I posted a prediction here, that Labour would win - once more against the bulk of opinion (go and check the thread, if you wanna know for sure).
Anyone following my advice, and betting on it, would have made money all the way through.
550. And that IS quite DEFINITELY the last time I’m gonna mention Glenrothes - but Red Meteor brought it up.
BTW I’m not claiming any great predictive skills. I think I got Crewe and Nantwich wrong (appalling pessimism overcame me), and Obama in New Hampshire (but didn’t we all).
I like this site because i find more informative analysis of politics than i get in any daily paper. i woudl go further and say i often read this site as an alternative to the newspaper.
533. I shan’t miss your engagement, seeing as your only real contribution to the Palin discussions on here is to defend her slavishly without considering the possibility, however slight, that she is the scariest thing to come out of Alaska since a ravenous daddy polar bear unwittingly crossed the frontier with British Columbia.
554 Sally - You are no Hack. A Party Hack wouldn’t care a jot.
435. Thanks, even though the outcome seemed pretty certain days ago, I was still wondering what is actually going on in Missouri. I can hardly imagine what would be going on if that state were the decisive one!
Regarding yesterday’s PMQs, I watched them just now that it seems they may have a political impact, but my perception is also different from that of most posters here. Cameron’s performance made me feel quite uncomfortable. I don’t know how many cases like this you have had in the UK, but in Germany, we had quite a few over the last couple of years. In 2006 in my home town, a little boy was found dead and severely abused in the fridge of his step father. I had just finished working in a child care facility with a large share of children from… difficult family backgrounds, so it hit a bit closer to home in many ways. Believe me, it did not leave me cold. Haringey, again, is close to my Islington home.
The news led to the predictable national “debate”. Television would shove a microphone into the face of every politician they could get a hold of and ask just how shocked they were. I do not doubt for one second that all of them were in fact shocked, but the appalling fact is that this is never enough - you have to show it, in a way that the media find “convincing”. In fact if your performance is really “good”, you get to be on the evening news! There is no space for quiet sadness or some an introspective attempt to find what could have been done (or better: what should be done!). By contrast, if you could manage to cry a tear while the camera is filming… winner!
From what I gather from the German cases, there are three pretty obvious reasons this kind of abuse happens: firstly, the agencies responsible have inadequate resources (funding, staff). Secondly, our societies have a growing number of people whose lack of education/employement/social contacts means they never learned to take care of themselves and project their apathy and lack of respect for themselves on others, including even their children. Lastly, and this I can say from my (short) professional experience, it is almost impossible for parents to lose custody. As a society, we don’t want to increase social spending. We don’t want to be reminded of the losers in our society. We will not accept that “the state separates the mother from her child”. So what society, aided by the media, is really looking for is a scapegoat. A politician, ideally in tears, should point the finger at some individual in the agency (failing that, the head of it) so we can hate the parents, hate that person, and otherwise go back to normal.
I found the first exchange on the topic absolutely appropriate. Cameron was right to ask the question and, unlike virtually everyone else here, I found Brown’s answer to be unusually dignified and measured. I don’t know if he did not want to “do emotions” or is simply unable to, but he did express his grief in a quiet way that I appreciated a lot. It was neither media-savvy nor politically smart, and that was just so great for once. Of course, if you really do believe that this particular agency has a local problem, you may want him to agree that it’s irresponsible for them to review their own process. Wikipedia tells me that Haringey has an unusually high level of single parent households and the council website tells me that “within Haringey unemployment levels are even more extreme: estimates by the Greater London Authority show that Northumberland Park ward - at 13.7 per cent (of all people working or unemployed and actively seeking work) - has the highest JSA claim rate out of all wards in London.” Additionally (from networkharingey.com), “[o]ver 50% of unemployed Haringey residents have not worked for over 2 years or have never worked.” Quite frankly, from experience this is exactly the place where this kind of abuse happens. Of course an inquiry will find mistakes have been made. I’m sure constraints force agencies to cut corners everywhere, but it is in places like Haringey that the consequences will show. Even if they are lucky enough to have followed procedures in this case, The Sun will run headlines along the lines of “Shame! Agency thinks they did a fine job”. After all, it is not about the solution. It is about finding someone to blame. Additionally, there seems to be a broader national inquiry. It’s debatable, but I do believe that’s enough.
So, I’m sorry, but when I see Cameron devoting an entire PMQ session to Baby P, I don’t see a politician so shocked he loses his temper and so moved he will devote significant energy to help prevent the victimization of children. Instead, I see a politician who does what the media (and, secretly, society) expects: mount a meaningless inquiry, find someone to blame, move on, and all the while fit into the media category of “genuinely distressed”. I also see a politician who sees an opening because his opponent will not, or cannot, join in the ritual dance. From a political perspective, it’s good for the Tories - see Dukakis for how damaging it can be not to show the “appropriate” emotional reaction on demand. Obviously, most politicians, Labour, Tory, LibDem, would do the same. Blair would have aced it. Brown didn’t.
I gave him credit for just that.