Contrarian? Crazy?
Six months ago the Tories looked set for victory at the next general election, they were the odds on favourites, Labour activists were downhearted. Now things have reversed, Dave is in trouble and can do nothing right. So Guido just put £50 on Betfair on the Tories being the biggest party after the general election.Why? Well look at the price chart, it appears to have topped out recently with firm support from punters at an implied probability of 40%. Clearly Guido is not the only one who thinks it can't get any worse for the Tories.
The Ashcroft marginal seats machine is purring away quietly, the SNP control Scotland and seem to be doing well and that will require Labour to divert resources to shore up their crumbling position. The Cameron project's problems coming now mean they have plenty of time to recover and adjust their approach before the general election. Brown is spinning that the election is around the corner, it ain't - Labour is bust financially.
Talking of of bust, boom to bust is the other factor. The U.S. economy is spluttering, the property market has some worrying signs, unemployment is as high as it was under Thatcher in 1979*, interest rates are up, inflation is up, government debt is prolific, mortgages payments are ballooning, home repossessions are astonishing and bankruptcies are at a record rate. Brown has not abolished the economic cycle.
So in six months the economic and political picture could, Guido is betting, look very different. Don't bet against it.
*In 1979 unemployment was 1.4m, in 2007 unemployment is 1.7m, Source: Unemployment ONS Labour Force Survey.
57 comments:
Time to dust off that old advert ....
Labour (still) isn't working.
It doesn't matter how bad the news is they always seem to have been able to bury it somehow. I don't remember this making the front-page anywhere on the MSM !!!!!
And that 1.7m figure conceals the steady growth in those claiming disability benefits. Since the UK has moved from a manufacturing to a service economy since 1979 you can't tell me there's been such a huge growth in work related injuries. If I were Cameron I'd factor in a few more unemployed, tactically concealed as disabled and start bashing Gordo repeatedly over the head with these numbers.
Once all the dodgy financial dealings that Gordo has done over the last 10 years unravel, the results will make Enron look like a case of minor fraud.
For the taxpayers it will be a disaster, taxes up, benefits down, mass unemployment, pension funds broke and pensioners begging in the street....Financial Meltdown.
The Tories would be better off letting Labour choke in their own vomit and then take power.
Much as I enjoy your blog your betting record hasn't been to brilliant of late.
I'd like to see Labour scum get a good kicking mind.
Guido, no disrespect but when you say things can't get any worse for the tories I'm all of a sudden getting an awful sense of deja-vu.
Unemployment is as high as it was under Thatcher in 1979 is a bit of a ridiculous statement, She was only PM for 8 months of 1979, so had basically nothing to do with it.
The big question of there is a global credit slump is whether it will damage or boost Labour. The more global the recession, the easier it will be to for Labour to blame on external events, and there could easily be a stick-with-nanny reaction from the voters, rather than handing it all over to George Osborne. He's not a man you want in a crisis, I think it's safe to say.
The credit woes and rising interest rates could well cause a shake-out of the UK housing market. Just look at FT.com now, the top story is that the European Central Bank is resorting to emergency funding to prop up the markets.
Anyone who bought a house or flat in the last 18 months will keestered big time.
Remember, there was no rising unemployment or recession in the US to prompt the collapse in house prices there. In some cities, prices have falled 25% in a year already and they haven't stabilised yet...
So after the Brown boom will come the bust.
A moot point perhaps, but IVAs and bankruptcies were both down last quarter, and therefore cannot still be at a record rate.
http://www.mortgagesolutions-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=461158
Ashcroft didn't have the "advantage" of Dave last time.
Save your cash-buy Mrs F some more flowers.
Remember Gordos "No more boom and bust" slogan? Well he has spent ten years stoking up the biggest bust we have seen since the thirtys. 8trillion dollars of foreign capital injected into the economy to pay for our houses and corporate takeovers will do that to an economy. Now the foreign capital is taking flight. House prices are levelling off which means mortgage equity will level off which means credit fuelled growth will stall. Unemployment is rising which means fewer UK consumers have any high street spending power and one of our major markets is about to enter a serious recession, probably dragging the rest of the world with it.
But like the Daily Mail and the Telegraph I want Brown to win the next election. I don't want him slipping out by the backdoor and leaving the Tories to clean up the mess while the BBC and the Grauniad lay the blame at their door. Keep the left in power while the economy implodes and then tear them apart. Maybe the fuckwits we share this nation with known as Labour voters will finally learn a lesson.
You are quite wrong, you know. Gordon and Tony assured us that 'Gordon has put an end to Tory Boom and Bust.
Would they have lied to us?
"Remember, there was no rising unemployment or recession in the US to prompt the collapse in house prices there. In some cities, prices have falled 25% in a year already and they haven't stabilised yet..."
Some cities got overbuilt by speculators e.g. Las Vegas and many got mortgages they weren't qualified for but for most of the country price moves, up or down, are in the single digits. As usual MSM concentrates on the coasts and ignores "flyover country".
Gordon's government is already bust even before the recession/credit crunch kicks in. Government revenues typically decline by around 8% in a downturn. Britain's borrowing requirement will go from 3% of GDP to 11%. Gordon will go from greyish to white in six months, as we face the consequences of his profligacy.
Interest rates will hit 8%. The Euro will disintegrate. hallelujah!! It will be Gordon's nemesis arriving bang on time so he collects the blame, which is deservedly his to collect.
Tony the lucky sod, he got out in time.
The economic arguments are pretty compelling reasons for an early election. A slowdown is pretty likely, but it won't really bite hard and painfully in terms of repossessions/significant unemployment for a year or more - why would Gordo want to be running a campaign then? Far better, surely, to cut and run for the polls now when general feelgood hasn't disappeared and Cameron is all over the place?
Gordon can read the "runes" as good as the next man and knows the dangers of waiting too long as all his "pigeons come home to roost" but if he is going to call an election in the autumn then the odds must on early/mid November rather than October
Parliament is scheduled to return Mon 8 October and whilst Gordon could seek a dissolution whilst Parliament is in recess it's unusual and he intimated in his Camp David Press conference that he would make a statement to the House on the status of our forces in Iraq so the earliest he could do that without requesting recall is on that date. He could seek a dissolution later that day with Parliament being prorogued the following Wed 10 October- allowing for a min 21 days campaigning the earliest the election could be called is Thu 1 November although there is no reason other than custom for not holding an election on any other day than a Thursday.
The second scenario is linked to Gen. Petreaus' report on Iraq to US Congress due to be delivered Sept 15. Gordon could convince Speaker Martin that such was the importance of that report that a recall was deemed necessary to debate the issue of our forces status in Basra and possible withdrawal. This could be scheduled for say one day the following Tues 19 September with a Dissolution immediately the Thursday afterward making October 25 possible for an election.
Why would Gordon want to wait until the situation in the country starts to work in Cameron's favour or the economic cycle starts to bite ? Gordon may be indecisive in some matters but he's not stupid.OK he could go down as the shortest serving PM but he's surprised a lot of people during the last month.
The money issue I think is a complete "red herring" - money to fight a campaign would be forthcoming no problem on that. As for the Conservatives stating that any election called in the autumn would be linked to the forthcoming EU Treaty and a demand for a referendum which would deter Gordon from "going to the country" ;that may cause a "frisson" in the right wing of the Conservative party and UKIP unfortunately I suspect that the majority of the electorate don't connect with that issue(even those who actually understand what's happening)enough to make it a decider in the outcome.
In the final analysis - has Gordon got the nerve and can he rely on the polls ? He may end up winning but with a reduced majority or even a hung Parliament with the Conservatives the largest party forcing Gordon into coalition with the LibDems(not something he would be happy about) or horror of horrors Dave could actually become PM(well the last scenario probably isn't too likely at the moment)
Whilst anonymous posts are temporarily allowed on this site, could I just point out to 'tapestry' and 'newmania' that your posts are amongst the most cretinous in the world of blog.
Thankfully, you do not post anonymously which allows me to just scroll past your junk as soon as I see your moniker. I am not alone!!
Anon. 4.13: When Lord Levy apologises for Alvin Stardust. When Robert Maxwell pays the Mirror pensioners their money back. When weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq.
Can't get any worse?
Let's wait and see what happens at the party conference.
As for Brown, so long as we get a referendum on the so-called treaty, an election is not exactly a fight between opposing policies, and it'd be fun watching him attempting to hide in his bunker while his economic miricles turn to dross.
I am indeed honoured to have my name linked with the great newmania. I've been looking for a way to tell him for ages. Thank you anonymous for providing the opportunity I've been seeking.
I'm shocked to hear that anyone reads anything I write, and I accept the compliment graciously.
The Tories plummet in the polls,their MPs cross the floor (with two to go soon), senior party members join Labour, senior 'funders' criticise their own leadership, Dave can hear knives sharpening (in the Davis and Hague 'loyal' quarters...
And Guido has fifty notes on them to win a 'snap' election.
Bollocks.(It's the way he tells 'em.)
My understanding is that the Labour Party is so heavily in debt, and has such small prospects of repaying that debt, that it is no longer a going concern. In due course, its auditors will have to sign up to the same view.
So just when will they be able to afford to call an election? The proverbial twelth of never, I think.
No poster sites have been booked, so they're leaving it a bit late for a 'snap' autumn election.
At a public meeting in East London yesterday, Prof Sir George Alberti (Fit for the Future London Review) and Dr Thome, National Clinical Director for Primary Care, stated that PFI-built NHS facilities had placed the NHS in a 'financial straitjacket for which you will have to blame the politicians' - thanks Gordon, another nail in the NHS' coffin.
Labour could make a virtue of a small election fund.
People are pretty sick of money wasted on billboards and photo ops.
If I was a betting man, I would put 10 pound on Brown going to the country in October and Labour and LibDems forming an alliance after the election. GB is clever he will understand that good press can turn to bad press over night. Iraq, Afghanistan, Terrorism, Economy, all or one could make or break his government. A blogger making a Prediction, October dont book any holidays, time for an election and blogging for weeks!!
One thing occurs and that is that if Macavity does run to the country two years early, one reason may be that, as former Chancellor, he has a very clear idea of just how bad the economy is going to be c. late 2009-2010 when a whole flock of pigeons come home to roost.
So, if he does have an election in the spring, batten down the economic hatches.
Your assertion that Labour will not call an election because of its weaker financial situation has no logic to it at all. If Labour DO NOT call an election then they allow the Tories considerable financial advantage to run in those marginal seats for extra year or two. Labours inability to afford a sustain campaign for another 2 years in key seats makes it far more likely to go to the polls sooner rather than later.
We're always being told by Labour supporters how good things really are under Labour and Brown, therefore to call an early election and put such a golden position at risk would surely be an act of gross stupidity and negligence would it not?
"Low Unemployment" is NuLab's most successful lie.
Even Boris "crikey" Johnson was repeating it in The Spectator.
It shows the uselessness of The Opposition and "Tory Media".
As one of those seemingly rare people who doesn't have any particular political allegiance, i.e. I change who I vote for from election to election, I find the attempts to criticise Brown on the economy laughable. Despite the pitiful arguments about Britain being in recession without anyone realising or the 'imminent' slump we've been hearing about for 5 years and so on and so forth, the economy has been in a good state for a decade.
Furthermore, why is it Conservatives think they are more capable on the economy? Barber's spending plans caused all our problems in the 1970s, Thatcher/Major gave us boom and bust, leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
If 'Dave' hadn't made such a mess of things recently the Tories could have fought a positive campaign at the next general election. As it is now, they'll do what they always do and fight an exceptionally negative campaign culminating in defeat.
If the economy is booming as the labour trolls keep telling us why given this and an expanding and aging population are there less beds in the NHS and cuts and closures in maternity care.If we are so awash in money do our military have to buy their own kit to fight two pointless wars.If unemployment is so low why are nearly 5million people economicaly inactive?.why in such a boom is council tax rocketing and services cut?.Why the fuck do we put up with these lies??.Interest rates nearly doubled in two years,they go up nearly every month.Inflation(real inflation)ditto even that piss poor measure the cpi up 50%.house repossesions up,bankruptcy up,1.5 trillion personal debt.Need i go on? we are fucked you are fucked everybody is fucked.Even the Olympics£2.75 bill oh yeah £9 bill and going up daily.
Im not a labour party member BUT isnt it true that Gordon is an intelectual giant?
I am a life long Tory BUT isnt Dave evil and isnt Gordon the greatest world leader since Jesus?
Ive never voted labour BUT the fantastic new socialists have created heaven and paradise on this earth and its only spoiled by the evil baby eating tory toffs!
I am a Tory MP but I find Gordon so utterly fantastic and all knowing and sexy that I am in awe of his godlike stature and I hope he wins the next erection because the cruel and evil tories started the Iraq war and made poor Tony Go into Afghanistan against his will and the crooked Tories started the FMD with their evil witchcraft!
Must go now because I have to be at the Smith institute early.
Now look here I am a loyal life long Tory but the evil Tory baby killing toffs are to blame for the olympic games and our heroic leader Gordon has been trying to undo the damage that thatcher did so in his great wisdom he is employing thousands of equality/superiority advisors (and they dont come cheap) and media control experts that will make the London oylmpics the greatest show on earth in spite of the evil tory class traitors!
Dear vanfuertes,
"I change who I vote for from election to election"
Yeah sure you do sunshine I really believe you!
When you are old enough to vote for the first time, say in around 3yrs you will vote Labour and by then you will be only kid in your "special school" who got to vote! The rest do not know what a vote is!
I have voted Tory since before I was a baby but isnt it true that the fabulous Gordon Brown tried to send thousands of tons of new equipment to our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq but Cameron sank the ship with a limpet mine as it left port because he is an evil and bad man?
I am also a tory, I am most certainly not Gordon Brown because I don't care what anyone says about me and I never read this site anyway, and I am quite busy pouting at boys, however as a tory it has come to my attention that Gordon Brown HAS abolished the economic cycle by being so very clever. Also I don't like that David Cameron, I think he's rubbish and he can't control the media like us so sadly I will not vote tory again as I usually do.
Hey I told you that ages ago I sent an e mail saying pretty much exactly that..Ashcroft..marginals broke etc.....
I want some credit for being a keen observer iof the poltical scene and i want it now !!
HAS abolished the economic cycle by being so very clever.
The price of youre brains is not likely to get much above nothing if thats what you think.
Anonymong 6:00 PM, when are you going to shut up you cunt? Levy and co were guilty, the CPS just didn't have the balls to prosecute them. Now, kindly fuck off and die you Nu-Lab turd.
Guido, this is the political equivelent of a Spurs/Liverpool/Bolton/Wigan etc. fan explaining why THEIR team is going to win the league this year. Passionately held views expressed with honesty, usually with more than a hint of plausability. But no matter how good some of your stats are/how good some of your players are, if you have too many diddies in your team, your going to lose. And their lies the Tories problem.
If the economies in such good shape, why isn't it?
Interest rates 6% coming soon.
Inflation RPI 5%. CPI is rubbish.
So Interest Rates should be 7%.
5 million economically inactive people of working age - what used to be called unemployment. 12%.
Share prices tumbling.
Government already running large deficits even before any recession/credit crunch.
The media knows Gordon's a genius. Why doesn't the economy?
Is Brown going to pull out of iraq and then try for a snap election on the back of it?
If he is can he do it NOW before anymore of our soldiers die in this stupid conflict. playing politics with peoples lives is a naional disgrace.
Thanks Tony, great job.
Our shitty ancien regime wants to close down the army blog ARRSE and gag service personnel according to the Guardian/Indy today.
That's absolutely typical of course, keep the truth from coming out whatever you do. Perhaps our "democratically" elected politicians are afraid that the good General Dannatt, mindful of the "Judeo-Christian" heritage of the army(a not so coded message) and so of the nation, will turn them out, as did Cromwell the Rump.
"I say you are no Parliament, you are drunkards and whoremasters and unjust men...............You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!" Call them in! Call them in!" Enter file of musketeers.
A nasty, authoritarian streak is already becoming evident in the Broon regime, as we have just seen in the case of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme. The cowardly West Midlands Police and the Craven Poltroon Service launched their sneaky attack amidst all the trivial nonsense of game show cheating. And so what Boris called the "sinister and hypocritical" prospect of a "regulatory framework" for the media rears its hideous head. To add insult to injury the Islamist fanatic gloats that he has the full backing of the "security forces", well perhaps he does - his recorded menaces do after all have to be set in "context".
The Poltroon Service applies the law at the behest of its appeasing, corrupt political matters; but arbitrary law is tyranny and no free man or woman will live willingly under such a yoke.
Perhaps we do need a coup to get them out for the grotesque electoral system reinforced by the "Old Corruption" of "increasing participation" entrenches the monster, I am not at all certain that they can be prised out by conventional means. The Tories are no alternative and the legacy of Thatcherism is such that they are despised throughout the ruined old industrial areas(Sedgefield). If the army were to take a hand there might then be the prospect of free and fair elections by secret ballot, at present there is none. It is also clear that the army and the other forces are the only organisations we possess not utterly rotted by PC liberalism and hollowed out by unrestrained greed and selfishness.
When, as is more than probable, it all goes tits up economically and Cyclops' lies and calculated deceit are there for all to see, then all bets will be off.
Your right the economy is fucked; money supply is 14%! Those of you that are economically illiterate read 'Fiat money inflation in France' on project Guttenberg. We will have a great depression within the next twelve to fifteen years. The dollar is nearing collapse, we and the yanks produce nothing and credit is not wealth. Labour is in big trouble with the economy; we are actually in a reccesion.
If the military would carry out a coup to reestablish British democracy I would be entirely in favour of it. What a brilliant suggestion. But would Preseident Dannatt hold elections within a year as he would promise or not?
Meanwhile DEFRA is spreading foot and mouth around as they make so much money they can't possibly allow the outbreak to be stopped.
They've advised Brown not to vaccinate - the only way an outbreak can be contained - unless it 'gets going'. By which time the payoffs are rolling into DEFRA pockets from contractors raking it in with noddies earning £1000 a day, killing cattle.
Last time £8 billion was thrown down the necks of the corrupt agricultural regulators and their croneys. Brown has let them get their noses in the trough once more by not forcing them to vaccinate. He obviously trusts them - poor fool.
They work for Brussels that cares nothing for British agriculture, Brussels where bribery and corruption rule.
Brown is a Brussels stool pigeon. His regime will be ruined by the Brussels greed machine he has not the courage to confront. It's justice of a kind, but millions of farm animals will have to die.
If President Dannatt will enter Westminster today and throw out this rat-like government that permits corruption to destroy our democracy, he should be applauded.
Anonymous said...
Gordon can read the "runes" as good as the next man...
Excellent posting,unusual for this blog.The thickos will soon descend upon you.Wise move to post as Anonymous.Hope to see you again soon.Just a thought,probably a little light on the obligatory obscenity front.Perhaps you could keep that in mind,a nasty comment on Gordon always helps.You could always go with the nose picking,always goes down well here.But you'll soon get the hang of it.
Change the fucking record said...
Anonymong 6:00 PM, when are you going to shut up you cunt?
Language Timothy.
just an average tory said...I have voted Tory since before I was a baby ...............
Not very funny friend,good idea but there are folk here who do humour,you do not.Leave it to the Guido professionals pet, and move on.
tapestry said...
Just seeing your name makes my teeth ache.
"tapestry said...
If the military would carry out a coup to reestablish British democracy I would be entirely in favour of it. What a brilliant suggestion. But would Preseident Dannatt hold elections within a year as he would promise or not?"
Cheers tapestry, that's always the problem of course, but I would far rather trust Dannatt than Broon.
The key factor will be the economy, the high level of suppressed inflation plus the extraordinary level of personal debt certainly presages very dire happenings. "Credit is not wealth" is said above, how very true, but Cyclops has cozened the population into thinking it is. When it goes tits up the popular mood will be one of vengeance, the regime will be fearful and perhaps in a state of near collapse.
In these circumstances it may well be possible for the army to remove the regime upon a traditional "overmighty subject" usurpation of power basis. The obvious parallel is with the Earl of Srafford who was impeached and executed in 1641. Now "King Tony" well merited impeachment, but the sadly feeble but brave attempt initiated by Plaid foundered because we do not now have Parliamentarians of the heroic stamp of those earlier times. Give the brooding Broon sufficient rope and he will similarly hang himself.
If the lickspittles in Parliament currently are nothing to the purpose then the armed forces of the Crown must do the work, for otherwise I simply cannot see a way through.
This worthless crew have no legitimacy anyway, only 1 in 5 voted for them, it is a sick joke.
Ratty 3.3 (labour troll 1.1)
Its still a free blog isnt it? So you dont like my humour? Oh dear how sad! There there my little leftist bless your cotton socks! I think you and your brain dead chums dont like being exposed and laughed Eh? Your sense of humour(such as it is) only works when its you making the funnies and that makes you a prize cunt! Ill do you a deal! why dont you fuck off back to whatever state gravytrain job you do and leave this blog to real libertarians!
LOL
Ratty 3.3 probably inhabits Chris Bryant's y-fronts! That would explain the bulge in the (in)famous picture!
The Crash looms then
Wanker Brown has been arseholing the City for 10 years, well actually before that with the Prawn Cocktail Offensive, so the bogey gobbling twat's got nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.
Bet Blair's pissing himself
Yet another tory said...
Still not funny.
So lets see, the markets are in turmoil, (due to the yanks) lets get shot of Gordon and replace him with Cameron and Osborne, Osborne! yeah right.
"So lets see, the markets are in turmoil, (due to the yanks) lets get shot of Gordon and replace him with Cameron and Osborne, Osborne! yeah right. "
Hmmm "Gordon" has had big, rigid, City dick hard up his arse for 10 years, and indeed he has been gobbling their spunk well before that.
He cannot escape.
The cunt will be burned in Wicker Man, as in the 73 cult classic.
It isn't just "due to the yanks". That is total shit - "our" subprime spivs are just as nasty and parasitical as their mob
But if you don't like capitalism - booms and busts, unemployment etc - and a lot of you obviously don't if these postings are anything to go by, why aren't you socialists, proper ones I mean?
"But if you don't like capitalism - booms and busts, unemployment etc - and a lot of you obviously don't if these postings are anything to go by, why aren't you socialists, proper ones I mean?"
Because some of us don't blame booms and busts on capitalism but on credit expansion, often encouraged by central banks. And we don't blame unemployment on capitalism, we blame it on expensive regulations enforced by socialists who can't resist poking their noses into other peoples' lives and businesses.
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