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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » November’s US midterms are looking a lot tighter than a month
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » November’s US midterms are looking a lot tighter than a month or so ago
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It looks like the GOP have learned their lesson from the Roy Moore debacle.
I wonder if the constant loathing of Trump is having the dual effect of making it white noise, and also diluting the impact of real criticisms.
Being dogmatic about an election that's still five months away in one country while arguing about whether we might have another one in this country ?
Okay.
It does seem Trump and Corbyn share the ability to polarise both their opponents and supporters in equal measure.
That's all I've got at the moment.
The House is another matter.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/999565961828208642
Indeed In Senate races the Democratic candidate still leads in most Democratic held seats bar Indiana and Montana with Florida tied while Republican candidates have been behind in Senate polls for Republican seats in Arizona, Nevada and Tennessee.
International trade secretary tells Today programme the government is not making contingency plans for leaving without deal
What is the point of talking about an extension when May can't even decide what outcome she wants?
The objective is obvious - delay delay delay. And then hopefully find a way to never do it at all.
Nothing to do with the complexities, which could quite easily have been resolved without even having a transition period.
Unless the Republican candidate turns out to be terrible, Tennessee will return a Republican.
Keeping Johnny Foreigner out is still firing up Tories? Most of whom live in the areas of lowest immigration - I find it incredible. EDIT: unfathomable is probably a better word.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/20/liam-fox-uk-eu-trade-deal-after-brexit-easiest-human-history
Then develop an interim version of maxfac for the NI border and simply advise the EU that if they want to co-operate with that, we are more than happy to discuss it. Could be improved later - it doesn't matter particularly to the UK if the NI border is secure or not from a customs point of view.
https://www.barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Migrant_Voters_2015_paper.pdf
Most countries outside the EU design their immigration system so it's of more benefit to their country's citizens than of that of arrivals - albeit welcoming genuine refugees fleeing war and persecution. Is that so wrong - putting your own citizens first?!
Brexit will simply mean "Importing poor people with no skills who end up reliant on the state ..."instead of skilled Europeans who will contribute, and "... just means less money for the poor already here and is of no benefit to wider society"
Post the 2015 election debacle May took things back into no 10 and she has been driving the agenda not Boris or Davis or even Fox. She is weak and her negotiating has been weak - setting red lines and then conceding on almost all of them.
The reality is that Brexiters promise a unicorn, but deliver a donkey with an icecream cone sellotaped to its crown.
Not all Eastern Europeans here are net contributors - and many people from developing nations are skilled and add value. A free for all from Eastern Europe while denying visas to Doctors from sub Saharan Africa and the Indian sub continent - as we have now - does not seem sensible.
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/999580738881286144
Perhaps that's the problem with tweets!
Post-Brexit, most of our immigration problem will still be there. The non-EU people have always been subject to us picking "... the best and most qualified from wherever they come ..."
More people require more infrastructure. Migration is instant but infrastructure takes a lot longer to put in place. House prices also rise significantly.
And then we get into culture, which has led to the less than splendid situation of a higher prosecution rate for 'bacon hate crime' than female genital mutilation, and to the scandal of authorities utterly failing the children of Rotherham for years and years because they were so drunk on 'cultural sensitivity' they failed to protect children from rape.
The scale of migration and, perhaps more importantly, the failure to defend basic tenets of British culture (and I'm talking very basic stuff here, like don't rape children) is a problem that must be addressed.
If it had been pre-referendum, I think it very likely we would've voted Remain. [And yes, I know that leaving the EU will have a limited impact upon migration. If we leave].
Edited extra bit: Mr. L, precisely. They went for low-hanging fruit (as they saw it) rather than tackling more serious problems. The UK doesn't suffer from Caribbean migrants contributing taxes, the UK suffers from Islamic extremists, rampant inbreeding, and illegal immigrants who aren't deported.
As an aside, the Lee Rigby anniversary was scarcely mentioned by the media, and the Manchester anniversary coverage (that I saw, Sky and BBC) barely mentioned the bomb and didn't mention the insane Jihadist ideology behind it. We can't fight a problem if we refuse to acknowledge it exists..
Just why are we behind our OECD peers - an issue which basically means we have less money for private consumption and public services?
http://www.centreforcities.org/publication/the-wrong-tail/
Grossly simplifying, it is the “two nations” issue.
Overall productivity largely depends on how productive our export industries are.
Exporters in London/SE, concentrating on Finance, AI, Biotech etc are world beating.
But that’s only 1/3 of the population.
Exporters in the rest of the country - where 2/3 of the population live - are still focused in low value-add metal bashing (as I say, grossly simplistic). For whatever reason, they are not moving up the value chain. And the gap between the “engine” and the “rest” is getting larger.
If we could somehow fix this issue we’d be as wealthy as the Germans or the Scandis. (Incidentally, the report is issued the same day we learn we need another £2,000 per head on the NHS.)
Needless to say, Brexit makes it even more complicated to address the above by drastically reducing the size of our home market...
I am unsure whether he is supposed to be weak, a traitor or a remainer but apparently he is not a Brexiteer. Or least a proper one.
Businesses that boom locate to London because the market's bigger (more people locally and it's on the international stage). Public investment in transport etc in London dwarfs that of elsewhere, maintaining a higher standard than you get in Manchester or Leeds.
The Northern Powerhouse isn't a bad idea, though the focus should be Manchester and Leeds (two large cities very close together). Trying to make Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield etc into a northern equivalent of London, though, is optimistic at best. Of course, it'd help if work on transport weren't cancelled when funds were suddenly withdrawn (Leeds by itself has blown tens if not hundreds of millions on plans for a tram system which has been proposed and then axed by multiple governments).
People who come here and believe that our laws should not apply to them are no different from native born who believe the same thing. We have always had names for such people - criminals (or if very wealthy and with the correct school tie, "aristocrats")
Tbh, whatever the GFA says, the Irish position seems to be one that we should try to finagle round the edges, whether or not that is in aid of an eventual MaxFac solution, or how long we have to have a transitional CRAP.
Worth the long read if you are interested in this subject
https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/999362749179318273
The Northern Powerhouse is based on the idea that “urban agglomeration” drives productivity (hence, let’s connect the Northern Cities) because firms are able to access a larger pool of skills.
Yet almost uniquely, in Britain the reverse can be true. Birmingham, for example, actually has *lower* productivity than the surrounding countryside. Birmingham seems to *destroy* value! Whereas Cambridge - quite small compared to the big metros - is the outstanding success story of the last twenty years.
Policy remedies are still highly debated. But my read is that it comes down to:
1. Devolution - allowing public and private regional actors control over their own economic strategy.
2. Transport - enabling effective transport *inside* metro areas (ie replicating TfL and supporting infrustructure in our Northern Cities makes more sense than HS2).
3. A concerted effort to encourage academic/private partnerships in the regions.
4. A great push to create high value add industrial/knowledge clusters in the regions.
Obviously all of these, bar 3, have been considered verboten by the Treasury, and policy to date has been very half-hearted.
https://twitter.com/ftbrussels/status/999591776003547137
You have to wonder what the EU thinks it is playing at.
Well I know @archer101au doesn't!
Nonetheless, he is right in one respect - Brexit means Brexit and we will suffer because of it.
Trust in and respect for almost all the institutions of the state are at a low ebb and declining further, with the exception of the monarchy.
We are experiencing what we agreed should happen. I do not see that we are in any position to moan about it now.
We want out and "out" means "out". Not "out except for that bit there..."
Are the more up and coming areas of London like Elephant and Castle relatively productive these days or does the City/Canary Wharf/Knightsbridge generate enough income to pay for the Tottenhams ?
"But on Thursday Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch official from the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), told reporters: "All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces."
He said investigators had traced the convoy to Russia's 53rd brigade."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44235402
The Putin regime is up to it's evil little necks in it.
Where's LuckyGuy to post the latest Russian line?
Germany are, again, the problem country. They are an incredibly unreliable partner.
And no, I’m not denigrating those who voted for it. Too many people were the victims of serial liars.
The EU bureaucrats will enforce the legal agreements. That is their job. The politicians are constrained by EU law.
It will frustrate them too, but if you start trying to ignore the law and have tantrums about it, then you might as well call yourself "Donald"
Playing silly buggers over defense makes no sense whatsoever for the EU. We are the pinacle of defense, intelligence and security within Europe and they want that. If defense becomes a negotiating point that will do them no favours at all, somebody has gotten badly carried away.
Brexit means Brexit.
We wanted out.
Poor people in London have to live somewhere, and thus Tottenham exists (although it is gentrifying).
Birmingham has the same issue, but more fundamentally even the squires of Edgbaston are focused on low-productivity industries.
What hotch potch idea remains of "HS3" already looks like a 2 year old's scribble of a straight line, essing from Liverpool to Manchester Airport, up and then almost encircling central Manchester, then weaving to Leeds through Roch/Calder Valley (actually that last bit is fairly comparable with the current Tame/Colne route). Journey time is king, but still...
Sheffield shot itself in the foot over HS2 somewhat, being excluded from HS3 entirely is pretty terrible for it.
When the UK hinted that defense might be tied to the economic agreement the EU reacted with exaggerated horror and got the UK to agree that defense was imperative to be agreed separately with full security.
Having negotiators creating divisions in security does not fulfil that ambition. The EU is using that line as its backfired not because that was the reason.
But at the end of the day, it’s a rule based institution - it *has* to be to cope with 27 different members.
Galileo is a metaphor for the whole Brexit project.
We were in, and doing well from it.
Now it looks like we might be out, and will have to reproduce it if we are to keep up with the modern economy - but at vastly greater expense.