Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[JGurney]

I would say the Tories have no chance whatsoever of winning the Mayor in London. Even allowing for that they seem to be doing better in outer London boroughs than elsewhere in the country (partly due to ULEZ), London is already too strongly Labour.

"Seem" is a key term there. I live in outer London, and while ULEZ opponents here are very noisy and sometimes destructive, they are also clearly a small minority.

 

[Acfb]

If those odds are correct I should hotfoot it down to your local bookies and have some. Assuming you ignore the possibility of any other candidate winning, a bet on each at those odds will give you a healthy 11% profit:

£77 @ 3/10 will net you £100 (and ten pence).
£12.50 @ 7/1 will net you £100

So, £89.50 invested, £100 guaranteed return. Better than the Nationwide!

Of course you could always take a real punt and just invest £100 at 3/10 on Mr Khan and make an (almost guaranteed) 30%. But I couldn't possibly countenance gambling!

I did successfully bet £5 on Liz Truss becoming PM in 2022 at 9/2 on betfair before the 2nd leadership debate as I considered that amazing odds and made £22.50. I also bet £2 on her getting 60-65% which I lost.

There was also money to be made betting on the Tories in Uxbridge and Labour in Mid bedfordshire but I didn't go anywhere near those.

The London Mayoral election looks like a Khan win by 10-15% so I think you'd want something like 12/1 to bet on Hall. I only see her winning in Sutton, Hillingdon, Bromley, Bexley, Havering and possibly Harrow. Maybe Kensington and Chelsea.

Khan is probably value at those odds.

 

[brad465]

I did successfully bet £5 on Liz Truss becoming PM in 2022 at 9/2 on betfair before the 2nd leadership debate as I considered that amazing odds and made £22.50. I also bet £2 on her getting 60-65% which I lost.

I won £150 on her being PM from 2 bets: 1 was around £20 on 13/2 at the end of 2021, when Johnson was being riddled by Partygate, Sunak hadn't yet had the spell of damaging leaks regarding his wife's business dealings and his green card, but Liz Truss was very clearly trying to raise her profile. The second was another £20 at shorter odds of about 9/2 in early 2022. However I cashed one of them out during the leadership campaign when the return was good, as Truss was clearly damaging herself further in the drawn out campaign so wanted to make sure I at least had a profit.

In any case the money went towards offsetting the cost of her actual time as PM

 

[takno]

I would say the Tories have no chance whatsoever of winning the Mayor in London. Even allowing for that they seem to be doing better in outer London boroughs than elsewhere in the country (partly due to ULEZ), London is already too strongly Labour.

I think you can overstate the opposition to ULEZ in outer London. Quite a lot of the people cutting cameras down are more engaged by the fun of cutting cameras down than they are actually bothered by a charge they (in all likelihood) aren't even paying. If you took away ULEZ you'd take away the fun.

It's possibly a slightly glib view of things, but I'm not convinced that being bored, ansty and possession of an angle grinder is at all the same thing as wanting to rush out to the polling booth and vote for somebody who isn't actually going to do anything for you.

 

[Acfb]

I'm inclined to think you're correct. Reform have no real presence anywhere - few councillors, no mass-membership to get on the doorsteps in the election, etc. Add in that minor parties will get squeezed when people are in the polling booth and are deciding who they want to be their Government. I can't see them doing nearly as well as the polls seem to be showing.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Jan 2024 ==



I'm not convinced that Reform will on balance hurt the Tories. Even aside from my doubts about how many votes they'll actually get, people seem to be assuming that they'll attract mostly Tory votes because they are right-wing/pro-Brexit. But I can see Reform taking votes away from Labour as well as the Tories: Remember, a lot of people vote on general impression, not on policies. And in particular there are a lot of normally-Tory voters who right now are going to vote anything-but-Tory just because they are so angry with all the incompetence/etc. Some of those voters are likely to hold their noses and vote Labour if they see no alternative, but will gladly vote Reform instead, if they are able to. I think Reform could take votes equally from Labour and the Tories (and if Richard Tice has privately made the same calculation, that may go some way to explaining why he's happy to stand in every seat).

Apparently Reform is not even going to field a candidate in the Kingswood by election and Michael Tice given some bizarre reasoning as to why to do with Net Zero and the by election being held.

It would make more sense for Reform not to stand in Wellingborough than Kingswood surely as Wellingborough is likely rmto me much closer.

 

[The Ham]

Apparently Reform is not even going to field a candidate in the Kingswood by election and they've given some bizarre reasoning as to why:

https://twitter.com/TiceRichard/status/1743601678291468769.

Really

That's now coming up as not available

 

[birchesgreen]

That's now coming up as not available

URL has a mistake in it, remove the full stop at the end and it will load.

 

[3141]

Here's what Richard Tice is claiming:-

"Tory scandal: MP Chris Skidmore resigns over Net Zero virtue signalling & triggers by-election in a seat being abolished in GE. Waste of circa £250,000 local taxpayers cash! Has he a cosy well paid eco job to go to? He should repay the cost. Reform UK will not stand a candidate on principle against this disgraceful abuse."

There's also a video of him ranting, which is quite entertaining with the sound off.

So, either Reform UK has no candidate available, or they don't have enough money to campaign there, or they're confident the Conservatives will lose the seat without their intervention but they won't win it so there's no political gain to be made by participating. Those three suggestions are an attempt to find a rational explanation for why they have decided not to put up a candidate. But in the surrealistic spirit of Richard Tice's statement I wonder if they will campaign in Kingswood without a candidate.

 

[renegademaster]

The cynical thing to rishi to have done would have been to call the election a few days after the attack on Israel when Labour was eating themselves over Israel. By October it will largely be background noise

 

[brad465]

Who let this guy out of rehab:

Without bold tax cuts the Tories are doomed – ‘safety first’ won’t do it

The public have not fallen for Keir Starmer or Labour. But they need to be given reasons to vote for us now. Promises aren’t enough

www.telegraph.co.uk

Contemplating the year ahead, in his 1939 Christmas broadcast George VI quoted poet Minnie Louise Haskins: “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year / Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”. As the King made his broadcast, people were wondering how long the war would last and what 1940 would bring.

By contrast, there are many things we already know about 2024. There will almost certainly be a UK general election. There will be elections in the United States and for the European Parliament.

We may know that a general election is coming, but only a fool would predict its outcome. We all remember the 2017 general election, when everyone thought Theresa May would win a landslide. I remember the Conservatives being 20 points ahead in the polls when the surprise election was called on April 18. By June 8, little more than six weeks later, we were only two points ahead. This shows how unpredictable and volatile modern elections can be.

Contrary to common belief, many of the things that happen this year can be shaped by the Government. It isn’t a foregone conclusion that Labour will waltz effortlessly into power. Ten months is time enough to forge a convincing narrative, challenge Labour’s vacuity and win re-election. The Conservatives have it in their power to close the gap on Labour, but that time is short.

It may seem paradoxical but, as I see things, the Government is in a reasonable place. I was directly involved in government at the highest level, and subsequently removed from office as a consequence of market reaction, in the autumn of 2022. After those experiences, I commend the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for having steadied the ship, so to speak.

Rishi Sunak deserves credit that inflation has more than halved since he became Prime Minister. This, after all, was what he pledged to do, even if the Bank of England was in control of interest rates, the main lever with which to tackle inflation.

Looking at the Opposition, Labour remains as unconvincing and as unimaginative as ever. Few people have any idea what Sir Keir Starmer has said about his potential programme of government.

Even fewer seem to know the man himself. Rather stiff and reserved, he leaves people with very little impression of his beliefs or overall vision for the country. After Labour failures in the past four elections, Sir Keir’s caution is understandable. Yet he remains a blank sheet of paper.

Beyond the personality of its leader, the glimpses that we have had of Labour’s policy platform are annoyingly vague. There is the enduring stale atmosphere of class war rhetoric: VAT on school fees and, inevitably, higher taxation.

It also seems likely to me that Labour will be looking at plans for a “mansion tax”, or other capital taxes, to raise revenue for ever increasing public spending, while punishing “the rich”. In reality, we all know it is the middle classes who will be affected. The genuinely rich will find ways of preserving their wealth.

As far as spending restraint is concerned, the Labour Party’s union paymasters will not allow a Labour government to slow the increase in public expenditure, even in the unlikely event of Rachel Reeves wishing to do so. “Tax the rich” will be their answer to every problem. All this is depressingly clear.

Despite Labour’s crushing lack of creativity, the Tories will need to mobilise millions of naturally conservative voters to win the election. Voters need causes around which they can rally. For Conservatives, national security and strong borders have always been important issues. This is what makes controlling immigration so vital to any prospect of a Conservative victory.

The Conservatives have always been a party which promotes wealth creation. We simply cannot afford the public services we all expect without increasing economic growth. A growing economy produces greater tax revenues for public spending. Extracting more taxes simply weakens incentives and damages growth.

Winston Churchill famously bemoaned being presented with “a pudding without a theme”. This government needs a theme. That theme should be economic growth.

We all know that there is a wide gulf between the socialist inspiration of the Labour party and what we stand for as Conservatives. We are naturally sceptical of an overbearing state. We are proud of our country’s traditions and its past. As Conservatives, we are eager to encourage the creativities of our entrepreneurs and inventors.

An overly cautious approach, so close to a general election, runs the risk of allowing the clear distinction between the Conservates and Labour to become blurred. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the Government to increase public spending dramatically. When I was first elected as an MP in 2010, we spent £700bn. Today that figure is well over a trillion (£1,000 bn) pounds. This in itself explains the relentless increase in the tax burden, to the absurd point where people actually associate a Conservative government with increased taxation.

Even after these increased taxes, there remain great prospects for the UK and its economy. Much to the disappointment of the EU elites and their supporters in Britain, the UK is outstripping France and Germany in terms of economic growth.

A little more than a week ago, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted GDP growth in Britain will be between 1.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent until 2038. This would make Britain the best performing major economy in Europe.

As far as start-ups are concerned, the UK is way ahead of its European competitors. A “unicorn” has been defined as a private company that is worth a $1 billion or more.

The CEBR report noted that Europe had 514 unicorns in 2023. These businesses were spread across 65 cities and 25 countries. Of these innovative companies, Berlin has 35, while 44 are located in Paris. London has 105, more than Paris and Berlin combined.

We should build on this success. This Spring’s Budget will almost certainly be the last chance to establish what used to be called “clear blue water” between the Conservative party and the Opposition. More of the same won’t do.

Tax thresholds have remained the same for years. This has increased the tax burden on aspirational people. More “jam tomorrow” and promises of future benefits from a hypothetical fifth Conservative term of government simply won’t cut it. Labour will only commit to more tax and spend; merely offering a pale imitation of their policies can only lead to certain defeat.

In many ways, we have been here before. In 1929 the Conservative Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, campaigned on a platform of steady competence. “Safety First” was the party slogan during that campaign. Baldwin was at the centre of the campaign, where he was described by the party machine as “the man you can trust”. The electorate delivered its own devastating verdict. The party lost 152 seats.

As a young activist in the 1990s, I remember very elderly party members talking about that general election. In those pre-television days, they didn’t have all the visual gimmicks that accompany elections today. As they huddled round the radio, party activists heard a clear-cut, sonorous voice repeating the depressing phrase “Labour gain”.

We can’t go into the 2024 election promising more of the same. There has to be a brighter vision for the future. We all know what Labour is about. More taxes, more spending, more stagnation. We can, and should, do much better.

 

[The Ham]

From the article quoted above

An overly cautious approach, so close to a general election, runs the risk of allowing the clear distinction between the Conservates and Labour to become blurred. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the Government to increase public spending dramatically. When I was first elected as an MP in 2010, we spent £700bn. Today that figure is well over a trillion (£1,000 bn) pounds. This in itself explains the relentless increase in the tax burden, to the absurd point where people actually associate a Conservative government with increased taxation.

The Bank of England's inflation calculator says that £700 in 2010 would be £1,040 in 2023.

Whilst the actual figure for 2022/23 was nearly £1,200, the majority of that increase is down to matching inflation.

Even if the government had put in places policies to aid the Bank of England to keep inflation at the target of 2% per year inflation would have still meant it would have risen to £905 over the same time period.

However, even with real term cuts to lots of departments (as well as for quote a few public sector workers - junior doctors being a classic example) and the Conservate's ideals of lower government spending, the fact that spending has increased by 15% above inflation since 2010 can only be down to the Labour Party and nothing to do with the Tories‽

Week that appears to be the message from the Tories, and they assist to be trying to repeat it enough so that everyone thinks that it must be true.

Anyone care to suggest why it might be Labour's fault????

 

[class ep-09]

From the article quoted above



The Bank of England's inflation calculator says that £700 in 2010 would be £1,040 in 2023.

Whilst the actual figure for 2022/23 was nearly £1,200, the majority of that increase is down to matching inflation.

Even if the government had put in places policies to aid the Bank of England to keep inflation at the target of 2% per year inflation would have still meant it would have risen to £905 over the same time period.

However, even with real term cuts to lots of departments (as well as for quote a few public sector workers - junior doctors being a classic example) and the Conservate's ideals of lower government spending, the fact that spending has increased by 15% above inflation since 2010 can only be down to the Labour Party and nothing to do with the Tories‽

Week that appears to be the message from the Tories, and they assist to be trying to repeat it enough so that everyone thinks that it must be true.

Anyone care to suggest why it might be Labour's fault????

It the Tory world , they can’t blame EU anymore so it must be Labour or immigrants , or single parents, or disabled , or benefit claimants .
Just anyone but not them.

 

[edwin_m]

Who let this guy out of rehab:

Without bold tax cuts the Tories are doomed – ‘safety first’ won’t do it

The public have not fallen for Keir Starmer or Labour. But they need to be given reasons to vote for us now. Promises aren’t enough

www.telegraph.co.uk

Having clicked the link (so you don't have to), the author is Kwasi Kwarteng.

Remind me who it was that said "you can't buck the market"...

 

[Gloster]

Reports are circulating that Wellingborough Conservatives have selected Peter Bone’s partner to stand in the by-election caused by the recall of…now, who was it? I am not sure if this is a magnificent example of meeting your difficulties head-on or incredibly cloth-eared.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Reports are circulating that Wellingborough Conservatives have selected Peter Bone’s partner to stand in the by-election caused by the recall of…now, who was it? I am not sure if this is a magnificent example of meeting your difficulties head-on or incredibly cloth-eared.

Ah, the Elphicke gambit

 

[Acfb]

Ah, the Elphicke gambit

There is precedent for this in Burton and Dover but I think those candidates were actually estranged from their husbands.

Helen Harrison did stand in Bolsover in 2017 but I thought Michael Crick said something about Greg Hands trying to block her candidacy recently?

 

[brad465]

Reports are circulating that Wellingborough Conservatives have selected Peter Bone’s partner to stand in the by-election caused by the recall of…now, who was it? I am not sure if this is a magnificent example of meeting your difficulties head-on or incredibly cloth-eared.

It's not the same person but this does remind of this Commons' scene from 2011:

 

[Busaholic]

There is precedent for this in Burton and Dover but I think those candidates were actually estranged from their husbands.

Natalie Elphicke was the only candidate the Tories proposed to replace her (still) then husband Charlie on the ballot paper in 2019, and only announced her separation from him after his conviction in July 2020. In November that year she became involved in his appeal against his conviction, to the extent that a Commons Standards Committee found her guilty of attempting to unlawfully exert pressure on senior judges: a one day suspension followed for both her and four Tory MP cronies. 'Estrangement' takes many forms! Tessa Jowell and husband David Mills come to mind too, a legally 'separated' couple who still appeared to live together.

 

[317 forever]

Today's media chatter appears to be about a November 14th. election date, following the party conferences.

Yes, although I wondered where that date came from, I have subsequently heard it is so that Rishi can fire the starting gun for the General Election campaign during his leader's speech on October 2nd.

In practice, the phoney war is of course already underway.

An amusing formality if he does decide on November 14th is that he will have to ask King Charles to agree the General Election on his (Charles') birthday.

 

[edwin_m]

An amusing formality if he does decide on November 14th is that he will have to ask King Charles to agree the General Election on his (Charles') birthday.

The monarch is apparently allowed to vote but by convention doesn't, so he can enjoy his birthday in peace.

 

[jon0844]

I think anyone who thought there maybe would be a Spring election is living in cloud cuckoo land. Sunak is hardly going to willingly put himself and his other MP’s out of a job. He is clinging on, hoping for a miracle.

He can't be so dumb as to not realise they're going to lose. All they can do between now and the election, as they've been doing for ages, is try and grab everything they can. Perhaps more MPs will quit so as not to go down with the sinking ship, and secure themselves some other work before they're all looking.

 

[nw1]

Reports are circulating that Wellingborough Conservatives have selected Peter Bone’s partner to stand in the by-election caused by the recall of…now, who was it? I am not sure if this is a magnificent example of meeting your difficulties head-on or incredibly cloth-eared.

His partner? Who's that: Nora E. Potism?

Doesn't look good if so.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jan 2024 ==

Yes, although I wondered where that date came from, I have subsequently heard it is so that Rishi can fire the starting gun for the General Election campaign during his leader's speech on October 2nd.

In practice, the phoney war is of course already underway.

An amusing formality if he does decide on November 14th is that he will have to ask King Charles to agree the General Election on his (Charles') birthday.

Seems very late.

By November 14th we'll be on GMT again, evenings will be dark (as dark as they are now, more or less), and it'll probably be raining most of the time with a fair chance of one or more disruptive "named storms". That will not be good for turnout. And they'll be no scope for campaigning during the weekday evenings, unlike elections at sensible times of year.

This lot do seem to love winter elections, don't they?

 

[sor]

This lot do seem to love winter elections, don't they?

I think it's fair to say they haven't thought about it beyond "few more months of pay and perks innit".

He doesn't need the money, but it seems like he wants to reach at least two years in office.

 

[jon0844]

I do hope that when Rishi inevitably sorts out all the Post Office victims, to get their names cleared, he isn't treated like some sort of hero.

This Government has done little to help throughout and Rishi had to be asked multiple times if he'd do something and just gave his usual pre-programmed robotic answers (just as he did when bragging about how much money is being spent on dealing with flooding, despite it being less and less year on year).

Only now that he thinks doing certain things might help him seem electable will he act.

 

[jfollows]

It’s also telling that Computer Weekly, Private Eye and Radio 4 have all been reporting the Post Office Horizon debacle for years (since 2009 I think) but politicians only seem to take notice when it’s serialised on ITV.

 

[dangie]

It’s also telling that Computer Weekly, Private Eye and Radio 4 have all been reporting the Post Office Horizon debacle for years (since 2009 I think) but politicians only seem to take notice when it’s serialised on ITV.

Despite the Post Office being owned by the Government, this enquiry needs to be totally independent. As sure as eggs are eggs if the Government is involved it will drag on… and on… and on…….

 

[takno]

It’s also telling that Computer Weekly, Private Eye and Radio 4 have all been reporting the Post Office Horizon debacle for years (since 2009 I think) but politicians only seem to take notice when it’s serialised on ITV.

I feel like Computer Weekly were reporting on it virtually from day Horizon was introduced - I certainly remember it making me ashamed of my choice of career very early on. The whole way the Post Office prosecuted it, cynically destroying lives when it's unlikely they actually believed their own cases, and the way the contractors just went along with it was absolutely shocking. I doubt any of the actually-guilty parties will end up suffering any meaningful consequences though, and they probably won't even make the necessary changes to the law to prevent it from happening again.

From a political point of view I'm not sure there's any mileage in it, and there's so little left of the Post Office that it's barely worth looking for reforms. Most likely somebody on the nutcase benches will have a punt at arguing that it should be privatised, but even Rishi is unlikely to go for that.

 

[jfollows]

I feel like Computer Weekly were reporting on it virtually from day Horizon was introduced

For sure, and it could have been as early as 2000. I certainly "knew" about the Horizon "problem" from a long time ago, of course I didn't have the wisdom of hindsight so at the start I didn't know how well-founded the complaints were, but over time I adopted the "no smoke without fire" view that there probably really was a major issue. I've certainly thought about this for over ten years now.

 

[alex397]

I do hope that when Rishi inevitably sorts out all the Post Office victims, to get their names cleared, he isn't treated like some sort of hero.

I can see the tabloids having ‘Rishi the Hero’ headlines already!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I feel like Computer Weekly were reporting on it virtually from day Horizon was introduced - I certainly remember it making me ashamed of my choice of career very early on. The whole way the Post Office prosecuted it, cynically destroying lives when it's unlikely they actually believed their own cases, and the way the contractors just went along with it was absolutely shocking. I doubt any of the actually-guilty parties will end up suffering any meaningful consequences though, and they probably won't even make the necessary changes to the law to prevent it from happening again.

Out of interest, do you think there are any changes to the law that could usefully be made that would help? From my knowledge of the story, it looks like at least some staff at the post office must have acted fraudulently in pursuing prosecutions while withholding information that would have revealed the prosecutions to be baseless. Is that kind of thing not already adequately covered by various laws? (I imagine the difficulty prosecuting anyone at the Post Office for this will be due to the length of time that has elapsed and therefore the difficulty in getting sufficient evidence to show exactly who did what wrong - and that's not something that new laws are likely to solve).