Looking beyond March 29 2019 Earlier this week I wrote about the likelihood that Britain will leave the EU on the current scheduled date of 29 March 2019. My logic was simple: the timetable is preset, adjusting it requires the consent of a lot of different parties and there is no sign yet that many people in Britain have changed their minds. You can still back that proposition at 5/4 on Betfair and it still looks to me to be…
Twelve month chart from Betfata.io Everyday for months, it seems, the news has been dominated by developments over Brexit and tinight, of course, we have the letter from 62 conservative MPs saying to Theresa May that they want a hard exit. But the Westminster numbers remain very tight and it is hard to come to any definitive conclusion over what form of Brexit will be agreed or whether something else might come along to put a total spanner into the…
I am running for United States Senate to serve the people of Utah and bring Utah's values to Washington. pic.twitter.com/TDkas6gD2p — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 16, 2018 The Republican White House nominee in 2012 and Trump critic, Mitt Romney is running to become the next Senator for Utah – a GOP stronghold. Given the tightness of the current split in the Senate, 51 Republican to 49 Democratic, the former nominee has the potential to cause problems for the White House….
Love this pic.twitter.com/A0lylpFIRJ — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 19, 2018 How Brussels created the electoral system for UKIP to prosper One of the ongoing political developments that has amused many since the referendum has been the UKIP leadership and the problems the party has in ensuring that whoever is gets the job lasts the course. An of the success of UKIP over the years is that it owes so much to Brussels for seeking to impose similar voting systems for…
My little punt this afternoon One of the things about running a site about political betting and being a punter myself is that I like to spend a few minutes each day casting my eye over the markets to see if anything interesting is happening. I’m usually on the lookout for long odds bets where my assessment of the chances of it coming off is better than how the market is pricing it. One such one I took this afternoon….
Is it going to be March 29 next year? Can you hear it? That is the sound of inevitability. Shambolic though the government’s preparations have been for Brexit, failing to explain its proposals to the public, the EU or even itself, the time to exit continues to approach. When the government gave notice under Article 50, a two year timetable was set in motion. That will expire at 11pm (GMT) on Friday 29 March 2019. Nothing the government has done…
There’s some new polling just out by YouGov for the latest Prospect Magazine which appears to identify and quantify a divide amongst voters based on a series of questions that I don’t recall being asked in this form before. The one that is most telling is where voters were asked what they preferred in a leader. Overall 45% preferred “politicians who spoke bluntly, without worrying about who they offend,” against 38% who opted for a leader who “spoke carefully” to…
Picture credit : WWF One of David Cameron’s early and later much-derided moves was to go to the Arctic to be seen hugging a husky: I hope it won’t be seen as partisan to say that few of us felt that Cameron had a deep-seated love of huskies: we were all clear that it was symbolic. He was detoxifying the Tories – not just about harsh efficiency, but caring about the environment too. Ultimately, though, the environment was seen as…