Tories forever?

Tories forever?

Comments 0 Comment

There used to be such a thing in politics as the pendulum. Rather like its physical counterpart, it appears to have gone out of fashion. In fact, there were two pendulums operating simultaneously, one between general elections and one across them. The intra-election pendulum would traditionally swing away from the government after it was elected, as it created a lot of disruption implementing its reforms and, probably, front-loaded other unpopular decisions it felt it had to take, while it had…

Read More Read More

If it looks like an outlier, walks like an outlier, and talks like an outlier then it probably is an outlier

If it looks like an outlier, walks like an outlier, and talks like an outlier then it probably is an outlier

Comments 0 Comment

This morning’s YouGov poll in The Times attracted a lot of attention, which given the allegations of sleaze emanating, inter alia, from the Greensill Capital story the doubling of the Tory lead was something most of us weren’t expecting. Critics of Starmer seemed to use this poll to criticise him until it was pointed they were inconsistent, contrasting their past behaviour when defending bad polls for Corbyn. The YouGov poll just felt like an outlier to me and others, some…

Read More Read More

Analysing the market on Biden serving a full term

Analysing the market on Biden serving a full term

Comments 0 Comment

In recent weeks Joe Biden’s struggles up the stairs of Air Force One attracted much comment from his opponents and critics. It is a bit of an awkward watch, for some reason it reminded me of Ed Miliband’s inability to eat a bacon sandwich. But Biden’s critics seem to be pushing various memes about Biden being weak and physically unfit to be President, if you want to bet on Biden not lasting the full term Ladbrokes have a market up…

Read More Read More

At last – I am able to have a holiday

At last – I am able to have a holiday

Comments 0 Comment

Like millions of others I feel as though I’ve been cooped up in my home office for more than a year. Well I’m going on holiday to North Northumberland in the morning returning in a week to get my second jab. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to waking up and have the above view from the bedroom window. PB will be in the capable hands of TSE. This has been a remarkable and sometimes uncomfortable…

Read More Read More

In spite of CON leads of 7-9% in the polls punters still rate a hung parliament as the most likely GE outcome

In spite of CON leads of 7-9% in the polls punters still rate a hung parliament as the most likely GE outcome

Comments 0 Comment

Above is the latest Betdata.io betting chart of Betfair’s next General Election overall majority market and as can be seen another Tory majority is rated as just a 37% chance behind a hung parliament. Part of this maybe because of the way the market is defined. A CON majority for this purpose requires the Tory seat total to be more than 50% of the total number of MPs. That means 326 or above. This for betting purposes ignores the fact…

Read More Read More

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of Interest

Comments 0 Comment

The concerns (scandal, if you prefer) in the Greensill affair are not primarily about lobbying, convenient as it is for current Ministers, Labour and journalists to describe it thus. Convenient for Ministers because they can stick it to a foolish, greedy ex-PM they don’t much care for and can claim to have it sorted by fiddling about with some more rules on lobbying. Convenient for Labour who can go on about Tory sleaze. Convenient for journalists since it is a…

Read More Read More

The Greensill/Cameron affair comes as postal vote are about to go out for the May 6th elections

The Greensill/Cameron affair comes as postal vote are about to go out for the May 6th elections

Comments 0 Comment

With maybe 60% of people voting in this way the timing could be crucial Because of the ongoing impact of the pandemic it is estimated by the Tory elections’ expert, Lord Hayward, that the total of postal votes from the May 6th elections could touch be in the region of 50-60% of all the votes that are cast. The big element here is that once someone has popped their ballot into the post then there is nothing they can do…

Read More Read More

What some Trump backing Republican donors get told if they don’t make their gifts recurring ones

What some Trump backing Republican donors get told if they don’t make their gifts recurring ones

Comments 0 Comment

Last week there was a big report in the New York Times about some of the high-pressure fundraising tactics of the Trump campaign. A feature that got special attention was that many donors who thought they had made one-off donations in the run up to WH2020 suddenly found that this had been deemed to be a weekly donation and money was being sucked out of their banks every 7-days. In many cases this had led to hardship. Apparently it was…

Read More Read More