The Covid race: vaccination vs lockdown easing. It’s not over yet

The Covid race: vaccination vs lockdown easing. It’s not over yet

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Easing restrictions remains a gamble for all the UK governments You might think that things are finally going well in the UK in the fight against Covid-19. And, after a pretty awful 2020, so they are. Close to 25m vaccine doses have already been administered – more, proportionally than almost any other country on Earth; weekly case numbers are down by more than 90% from the peak, the weekly death toll is down by more than 85%, hospital admissions by…

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Oh dear… ODA…

Oh dear… ODA…

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BBC Graphic Charity begins at home According to recent reports Boris Johnson appears to be taking that rather literally. Nevertheless, the sentiment is one that voters share. Voters of all parties suggested the govt was right to cut the foreign aid budget. Foreign aid is an excellent wedge issue for Boris Johnson to divide labour voters from labour politicians. And yet – making sweeping budgetary changes is easier announced than enacted.  The cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP may…

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After the damaging spat with Salmond can Sturgeon lead the SNP to a Holyrood majority on May 4th?

After the damaging spat with Salmond can Sturgeon lead the SNP to a Holyrood majority on May 4th?

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We are now just eight weeks away from the May 4th when there’ll be the biggest group of elections taking place in the UK outside a general election. For as well as those contests that were scheduled to take place this year there are all those which had to be postponed last year because of the pandemic. This is going to be a very big night with counting expected to last well into the Friday evening something that is not…

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Punters now make it a 66% chance that Brian Rose will get less than 2% in the London Mayoral race

Punters now make it a 66% chance that Brian Rose will get less than 2% in the London Mayoral race

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The big surprise in the race for the London mayoralty has been the apparently well funded campaign by political newcomer, Brian Rose. At one stage he was being traded on the betting exchanges as 7/1 second favourite. For a month a two he was getting a fair amount of publicity and there were a few canny punters about ready to lay him at what seemed ridiculous odds for a total novice without a party machine. Quite how Rose got to…

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As far as punters are concerned the Tories are set to lose their majority at the next election

As far as punters are concerned the Tories are set to lose their majority at the next election

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The Bedata.io chart above shows what’s been happening on the Betfair next general election overall majority betting market. As can be seen a CON majority, now a 34% chance, has risen to its highest level in a year while a LAB majority has dropped to 22%. My guess is that the recent moves are in response to the positive polling news for the Tories. The thing I find remarkable is that even with one poll having the Tories 13% ahead…

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