Betfair Exchange in to 17/1 for Most Seats, with Paddypower, Corals and Ladbrokes in to 8/1.
Betfair Exchange now in to 88/5 for Labour Majority, StanJames best priced at 33/1, with two bookies going 20/1.
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General Election 2017 | Cabinet reshuffle: Hunt re-appointed Health Secretary for record third time
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Betfair Exchange now in to 88/5 for Labour Majority, StanJames best priced at 33/1, with two bookies going 20/1.
I'm looking at it from outside the UK media circle, and from here it appears that her government are hitting the foundations of the country in ways that mean any centrist positions she might hold or pretend to hold will be fairly irrelevant in a few years. She's using Brexit as cover to attack the big third rails of UK politics such as the NHS and pensioners, compounding the existing ideological changes carried out under Cameron and Osbourne using the excuse of austerity.
Oh and also regarding employee rights, I think people might be in for a few shocks when the next government suddenly have complete control over rewriting EU legislation into UK law. They planned to do it using just the cabinet, and after there was a big fuss about it suddenly May calls an election which will likely give her a huge majority and a 'mandate' on Brexit.
I agree with much of what you say, but this stuff on the left about pensioners at the moment is truly bizarre. They've been protected hugely throughout the coalition and Cameron government, the welfare budget's huge cuts specifically exempted them at the expense of everyone else.
Of course, pensioners are always protected because they have the highest electoral turnout rate in the country. Traditionally if you piss off the pensioners, you're throwing away the next election. Ideologically its an annoyance to the conservatives because protecting pensioner welfare so strongly isn't part of their bigger ideological picture. Now though they see they have a golden opportunity to finally move in, using Brexit (which pensioners massively supporter) and the fearmongering about the supposedly 'far-left' alternative.
It's kind of ironic really though, the same pensioners who want the country to go back to the 70's via Brexit, simultaneously hate the idea of a 70's style socialist gaining power.
It is part of their manifesto to guarante that employee rights will stay the same as they are in the EU once we leave plus some expansions on rights here and there. It remains to be seen if they stay true to their word but on the employee rights issue I think they will.
Manifesto promises aren't worth the paper they're written on for the most part. They broke a load of the last ones too.
I know. I think priorities have changed for the Tories though. The biggest problem governing the UK going forward in the medium term will be the impending pensions crisis. The government need a population better capable of financially supporting themselves in old age and that can't be achieved with the 'bonfire of employee rights'. You said yourself that pensioners are the most important voting demographic, especially for The Tories.
I think the problem with them though is that they actually genuinely believe a lot of the ideology. They don't see it as a bonfire or workers rights, or trashing pensioners rights, but rather improving the system which will then trickle down to everyone. I suspect that even though they know the changes will be unpopular they're banking on once they happen them being a positive that people come to support. Or at least enough people to keep them in power.
Oh and of course they also have the cover of Brexit. They can put a lot of negative stuff down to the cost of 'taking back control' to distract from the effects of their own policies.
I think they realise which is why they introduced compulsory workplace pensions with employer contributions and raised the minimum wage way beyond what was expected of them.
Tory ideology isn't intentionally evil (although a lot of it is socially blind), they do want to economically succeed and after they originally opposed the minimum wage, they've clearly seen that it didn't have any of the negative effects they claimed back then. They also don't want a generation of poverty stricken pensioners in the country. My opposition to the Tories is usually when their market driven ideology becomes so focused that they forget (or don't care) about the effects of those policies on real people. The reason I'm so vehemently anti-Tory at the moment is that the party has been pretty much taken over by what I can only describe as ideological extremists. Even now though it doesn't mean they're incapable of doing the right thing from time to time.
It is a fair assessment. We are lumped with them for at least the next term. I think after a period of economic strife resulting from Brexit the ground could be right for for a centre left Labour to take power, one can hope
It is a fair assessment. We are lumped with them for at least the next term. I think after a period of economic strife resulting from Brexit the ground could be right for for a centre left Labour to take power, one can hope
I think a Labour government in 5 years or less is close to certain, although my predictions for the next 5 years in the UK are pretty horrifying. We'll see.
There is a little part of me that is wondering if the Tories intention all along has been to throw this election. They're certainly trying their damned hardest with the manifesto and their approach to canvassing and debating.
Thinking logically, it's not a bad mid/long term plan either. Brexit is a no win situation and whoever negotiates it is going to come out of it looking like they have just burnt the country to the ground which isn't far from the truth.
So if they concede this round, they give Labour the impossible task and steal it back once we are in dire straits economically, promising to fix it.
Thinking logically, it's not a bad mid/long term plan either. Brexit is a no win situation and whoever negotiates it is going to come out of it looking like they have just burnt the country to the ground which isn't far from the truth.
So if they concede this round, they give Labour the impossible task and steal it back once we are in dire straits economically, promising to fix it.
LKY was who I had in mind, but I guess you need a combination of factors for a regime like his to come into and stay in power. Agree he probably will be a one-off.
In fairness Corbyn must be a genius as he's been trying to loose it since before the referendum.
Ok i have a question, who the hell gets polled? And how? It's just i have never been asked which way i'm voting, neither has anybody i know. So i was wondering about the polls.
Corbyn turned up to a fecking Libertines gig.
Phone polls are done by randomly calling numbers and asking if they'd like to take part until you've got enough to call it a representative sample (usually between 1000-2000 responses). With online polls, for YouGov at least you have to sign up to their panel and they'll feed you surveys but you might never get a Westminster voting intention one.
If you think about there being, say, 150 polls in a year, averaging 1,500 responses (and assuming there's no overlap among these people), that still only comes out to 225,000 people - with an electorate of 46.5m as of the 2016 referendum, it's very unlikely any of the vast majority have been individually polled. Ask enough random people on the street though and the chances are a fair few will have been.
Savings and house value will be taken into account among everything else making it in effect a sort of self assesment for the elderly so all the red tape and bureaucracy won't be as easily avoided as you may think.
Corbyn turned up to a fecking Libertines gig.
Ahh ok thank you. I wasn't sure how they did it.
After calling random people, the important thing with polling is to make your sample representative. A smaller sample size is ok if it's representative; increasing your size but not diversity won't help your accuracy.
I would guess they sample based on the last GE, by asking voters how they voted last time, so they can weigh them accordingly. Then you also have to weigh by geography, gender, race, etc if you want your 1000-person sample to look like the electorate at large.
There has been an element of cross-party consensus on pensions stemming back to the 2005 Turner report. Everyone knows we need to either work longer, save more or pay more tax as the population ages and the pension bill soars.
I think Labour introduced auto-enrolment and the Tories expanded it iirc. It's a good policy tbh- excuse the finance nerdery.
Corbyn turned up to a fecking Libertines gig.
Went down really well though by look of it.
It still seems quite easy to see how the polls have been so wrong based on the last two big votes though (last GE and Brexit) as for their best efforts it seems they can only reach a small proportion of the voters.
Polls weren't wrong about Brexit though, was it?
Oh i could be wrong but i think the polls predicted that stay would win?
The latest polls weren't wrong about Brexit or the US election, but 99% of the population think they were.
Ah ok my mistake. Thanks.
The problem with appealing to the young is that the young never fecking vote.
You had girls thinking they were politically engaging by self-declaring themselves #Milifans on Twitter, day of the election you might as well have presented them with a turd with a candle on than explain to them what voting was, the look on their faces would have been similar.
Tories making a complete mess of it. In a largely sympathetic media they've wildly lost control of the school dinners change, winter fuel payment issue and social care funding. Complacency, idiocy or both?
Doesn't give you much faith in how they'll handle Brexit negotiations if composing a thought through manifesto has proven too much.
You had girls thinking they were politically engaging by self-declaring themselves #Milifans on Twitter, day of the election you might as well have presented them with a turd with a candle on than explain to them what voting was, the look on their faces would have been similar.
Tories making a complete mess of it. In a largely sympathetic media they've wildly lost control of the school dinners change, winter fuel payment issue and social care funding. Complacency, idiocy or both?
Doesn't give you much faith in how they'll handle Brexit negotiations if composing a thought through manifesto has proven too much.
Corbyn turned up to a fecking Libertines gig.
Man of the people!
Aye, it makes him seem very personable. It's arguably sort of absurd he's there because he looks so out of place, but then I equally think that makes him sort of endearing, a bit like your out of touch grandparent going to something you're interested in just to be nice. Since he's supposed to be going for a sort of anti-establishment, semi-populist sort of message, doing stuff which is harmless and fun but also gets him some attention can only be a good thing.
While May's cowering and unwilling to meet voters or actually engage with people, Corbyn's quite energised and wants to engage with voters. Whether he's winning over the type he needs to actually win an election is something else, but I think his approach is ideal.
Full speech here
It was in a football stadium, which seemed a bit odd.
It was in a football stadium, which seemed a bit odd.
Yes, the issue is usually with getting a represenative sample since it involves some predictions/guesswork about what the electorate will look like (for example will young people, stay at home or be energized?) I think the turnout of older voters was underestimated for 2015 and Brexit. For Trump, the national polls were right (Hillary did win by 2%), but his win was by a narrow margin in 3 states that the state polls completely failed to pick up.
The polls were only slightly wrong though, mostly around the margin of error. Plenty of polls indicated Brexit would win, and while the Tories winning comfortably in 2015 wasn't expected, it only really required a slight swing on both sides compared to what was predicted. Polls aren't 100% accurate but they're mostly there or thereabouts.
The 2015 GE and Brexit does show that the polls, if anything, underestimate the right-wing vote.
Ok yeah i have just been researching the polls. So that at least indicates that labours recent mini resurgence according to the latest polls means things are looking positive from my personsl point of view. I guess i just have to hope that it isn't too little too late.