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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cyclefree on the perils of hubris
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cyclefree on the perils of hubris
“It’s the economy, stupid” has been the default position for electoral campaigns for seemingly forever. It was fundamentally the basis on which Remain campaigned. It appears to be the reason why the Tories are confident that a Corbyn-led Labour party cannot win, not just because of Corbyn himself but because it will be easy to point at how Labour will ruin the economy.
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That picture still pains me, why I chose it for this thread, I'll never know.
I try to be transparent where I have differentiated insight so people can judge for themselves. If you'd rather I wasn't then I won't be. But "friends" is often a euphemism that covers all sorts of different relationships.
What amazes me is how this complete garbage gets past the editors. Same with so much stuff I read on newspaper websites. Are they that short of people who can write balanced copy?
The problem with pennies and steamrollers is that one day you are going to get hit.
I would look for equities that behave like debt - MediX or Assura , for instance.
But your evidence, so far, is rather weak. Again, documentation would be the best way of sorting it. I'd expect a project with any public funding would have oodles of it.
6. Wrong sales people fronting the campaign.
Cameron became the main front man even though the key voter group (for REMAIN) was Labour GE 2015 voters. The back up front man was Osborne, who had personal ratings in the gutter, e.g. 2% of all voters rated him on Leadership. As the campaign developed, Cameron's ratings fell further, yet REMAIN stuck with these two.
Good piece, Miss Cyclefree. I agree with most of it but would add a slight caveat to the hubris argument regarding the forthcoming General Election. The electoral system insulates Labour from total catastrophe and makes SDP2 harder to see happening. However, it also helps the Conservatives.
If we had the demented drunkenness of proportional representation then both Corbyn-Labour and the Conservatives would be in rather more precarious positions.
Even during the campaign people (most here) pointed out the idiocy of the 'Little Englander' line [democracy lesson 1: don't insult 89% of the electorate], and the potential for the 'back of the queue' line to backfire.
Yet it never seemed to occur to Cameron or Remain more generally. This was absolutely their referendum to lose, and they set about the task with gusto.
GB women safely though. Men up next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-fanAsrY_s#t=1m48s
Is there a way to get the link to work here when it has "#t=1m48s" on the end of it?
In terms of the post-EUref strategy, I feel the key ingredient is the media, who are almost uniformly awful. That's both sides - from the hysterically anti-EU Express to the comically doleful FT. I'm not sure that they are capable of mediating a sensible, adult conversation with the electorate on such a complex topic.
That's how to do it. Last time one of them got sick.
My Twitter lists [that's usually how I check things] are full of retweets of Trump's Mr. Brexit utterance, usually with a following comment about how racist and ruined the country/people within it are.
....
It was a 50/50 split [well, 52/48, but you know what I mean]. Do people really think the majority of their countrymen are bigots?
Try not to reply to such things as I prefer to keep off politics on Twitter.
Most media seem to be in a race to the bottom when it comes to quality of their research and writing these days. The writing by amateurs on this site is a least equal to most of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twQKilaHBro
http://www.yorkmix.com/food-drink/16-pictures-of-wonderful-old-terrys-chocolate-boxes-do-you-remember-any-of-them/
Mr. 1000, only watched the first half-minute or so. Worth reminding people that North Korea has actual concentration camps.
Dialogue's a good thing, but when nuclear missiles are being developed I'm uncertain whether an inaugural pop video is the wisest move.
What gets right up-my nose is the fact that there is seems to be no sub-editing done. Nobody seems to read the the stories to check that they are coherent and grammatically correct before they are published. That and the fact, with the Telegraph at least, the headline is frequently misleading.
As, Miss Plato, says we pay for this. I wouldn't but I fear divorce would follow if I deprived Herself of her crossword.
If you only consider the 10 aggregated regions of England and Wales, yes. But 74% voted for remain in Cambridge and 70% did in Oxford.
Both teams in the final, with the British women in with a great chance of a medal - they're probably second favourites behind the excellent Jamaicans.
What the Remain side should have done is give us good reasons to stay in the EU, tell us what the EU is going to do for us in the future etc. Instead all they did is issue scare stories and even when these were roundly ridiculed, they continued regardless.
Imagine a soap powder company advertising it's product not by saying how good it is but by suggesting that using anybody else's will leave your clothes dirty and make you a smelly tramp. Such a campaign would be doomed to ridicule and failure and it's the same with politics.
Going abroad and zapping every bug stops you getting caught by an alien lifeform. Along with not drinking the water or brushing your teeth with it.
If I'd the foresight - I'd follow TeamGB's tactics to avoid a day or two of squits. Took me almost three weeks to be struck down in rural Morocco to get caught.
When I meet pension fund trustees I always ask them how much they have in government bonds, aka "return free risk".
People do feel more physically, culturally and politically insecure than they did in the late 20th Century.
Trying to think of other elections where this has had an effect.. Possibly 1970 (immigration control) and perhaps added a bit in 1983 (physical security, although to be honest Labour failed on the other tests as well) and in 1997 the economy was doing so well and Blair seemed so middle class it was largely discounted as an issue.
Despite a well-exposed immune system, Pakistan is batting 1.00* against my immune system (* apologies for baseball stat reference).
I touched on this the other day but, in order to win, Remain needed to make an emotional case for our EU membership to the patriotic Right. Remain knew that they had an advantage on Britain's influence as a global power but barely used it other than to brand themselves 'Britain Stronger in Europe' and occasionally nattering about a 'seat at the table'.
Remain could have made a case that'd have appealed to Conservatives that the UK basically designed much of the single market, and that it amplified our influence globally in world affairs, and given a few example of some big (and preferably popular) wins. In other words, turned the EU flag into the British flag - "do you want the UK to stay a global power?" Etc
They totally failed to do so. Probably because the internationalists at the heart of the campaign found such a nation-ist method anathema.
More likely than not, I grant you. But were I PM I wouldn't plan my strategy on that basis.
Politicians of all parties have underestimated the public for too long now. The referendum should have woken them up. Lots of people - and not just the Northern WWC - are dissatisfied with what has been a pretty piss poor political class for some time now and with an economy which looks a bit too much like Richistan in the South East and Mostly-Standing-Still everywhere else. I'm not at all sure the political parties have really got this.
"... only drink bottled water (including for brushing teeth) ..."
When I first went out East my step father, who had been out during WW2, advised saving some of my morning tea for brushing my teeth. Later when I married I found out that my father-in-law, whenever in a country in which he thought the water might be unreliable, used brandy for the same purpose.
Brushing one's teeth in brandy is an acquired taste but it is a lot better than having one's bowels turn to water.
I'm glad those days are gone.
One of the best Christmas presents I got out of the blue was The History of the World in 100 Objects (or similar), which is a hefty and fascinating book. Mixture of art, culture and history.
Edited extra bit: ahem, meant to add it had a few things from that sort of era. I wasn't just randomly saying things.
https://twitter.com/mcdonnelljp/status/765174072414179328
This quote from Susan Rice sums up the mindset:
We are in an era where, as the president has often said, if you didn’t know who you were going to be, or whether you were going to be male or female; white, black, Asian, Native American, Latino, [or] something else; if you didn’t know if you were going to be straight or gay — if you didn’t know anything about who you were going to be and you had to pick a time in which to be born…
You would pick this time. Because the odds of success for any individual are much higher in the aggregate than they’ve ever been.
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12387600/susan-rice-vox
She omitted to list 'if you didn't know if you were going to be exceptionally talented or not' because it would substantially change the odds. Identity politics has obscured the more fundamental political debates.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/11/06/the-future-of-scottish-lab-and-holyrood-2016-this-weeks-pbpolling-matters-podcast/
Incidentally, our local Conservative branch is having a policy discussion next week on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration. I've been given the hot potato of preparing the briefing paper and chairing the discussion. I hope to get out alive, but if I suddenly stop posting you'll know why!
A fascinating thread from November last year.
And so many banned subsequently!
The way they are tipping that water over themselves, I bet they wish it were.
So the bet you are making is that you can anticipate correctly when the market will change it's mind on the likelihood of that happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serra_do_Mar