politicalbetting.com – Page 606 – The web's premier resource for political betting.

Is PaddyPower right not to pay out now on these “2020 or later” bets?

22/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Quite often punters contact me about disputes they are having with bookies and this is a case where I think the bookie, PaddyPower is wrong. The bets the punter made were: When will Donald Trump cease to be POTUS? ‘2020 or later’ When will the next IndyRef take place (in Scotland)? 2020 or later’. When will alien existence be proven? ‘2020 or later’. In all 3 cases he expected PaddyPower to pay out after New Year’s Day. It is now…

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New LAB member polling has them rating Corbyn as their most favourable ever

21/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Jeremy Corbyn is the most popular leader of the past century among Labour members (partly because a quarter don’t seem to know who Clement Attlee is) Corbyn 71% favourable viewMiliband 70%Smith 67%Attlee 66%Brown 65%Wilson 62%Blair 37%https://t.co/Zx9bgxPaaj pic.twitter.com/7nB3NIcE2z — YouGov (@YouGov) January 21, 2020 A reminder to LAB members about why so many GE2017 voters defected last month Mike Smithson

Johnson’s opening gift to Starmer – scrapping HS2?

21/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Being portrayed as anti-north so soon after the election might not be smart The biggest mistake that was made over HS2 was to call it just that. It sounds like a vanity project which is exactly what it isn’t. The new line would free up chronic under-capacity on the existing West Coast Main Line including for all the local and commuter services. If this had been billed as “West Coast Mainline upgrade” it wouldn’t have attracted anything like the opposition….

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LAB leadership latest

21/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Hot betting LAB leadership favourite Keir Starmer first to make it onto the leadership ballot https://t.co/CQ0O2Bvokn — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 20, 2020 Two things are working in Thornberry’s favour, as I understand it: the first is a desire by some members to widen the ballot because Starmer is already on, the second is that she has genuinely picked up support after her hustings. https://t.co/kO3iMjjJ1s — Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) January 20, 2020

Political cross-dressing

20/1/2020 CycleFree Comments 0 Comment

One of the oddest political developments is how certain concerns are seen as the exclusive property of one side or other of the Left/Right political divide, almost regardless of the nature of the issue or the reality of a party’s record. Green issues, for instance. The general assumption is that being concerned about these puts you on the left side of the axis. Take this quote. “…..consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary…

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Two weeks into LAB’s leadership election and Starmer’s looking good

20/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

So far, fourteen CLPs have nominated candidates to be leader of the Labour Party. Starmer: 11 Long-Bailey: 3 pic.twitter.com/8uvlxH95iI — CLP Nominations (@CLPNominations) January 19, 2020 It seems to have been going on for an eternity but it was just a fortnight ago that Labour’s NEC formally launched the election to choose a successor to Corbyn to lead the party following its fourth successive General Election defeat. The first round involved getting the backing of MPs while the second is…

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Buttigieg’s powerful new argument two weeks before Iowa : When the Dems choose an old insider they lose

19/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Their White House winners in recent times have been with young outsiders I’ve just had an email from an old acquaintance who has recently visited Iowa where he attended a packed Pete Buttigieg meeting, asked questions of the young contender and got himself a selfie. This is from his email. He said one thing that interested me: The Dems always do better when they have someone who is new to the National Stage – Obama, Clinton, even Carter, for example,…

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Johnson/Cummings propose moving the House of Lords to York

19/1/2020 Mike Smithson Comments 0 Comment

Johnson plans to move House of Lords to York – Sunday Times https://t.co/vJRqP277zU pic.twitter.com/JsIO78cNmE — Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2020 If not London then York is as good as it gets There’s a single column story on the front page of the Sunday Times that reads like one of those spoofs you see on April Fools day suggesting that Johnson wants to move the Lords permanently to York. The paper’s Tim Shipman reports: “The prime minister last week ordered work…

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