I know what you mean but this boils down to:
Lying to the electorate is politically smart.
And, you know, is it really?
How about “Farage and Johnson are both reprehensible, and neither one should be given any power”? I think that’s a reasonable compromise position to take.
If both of them tear each other (politically) into tiny immobile bloody giblets, that would be the maximal good outcome regarding the two of them.
And pretty entertaining too.
Yes, having insider knowledge is an offense according to the Gambling Act. You are not allowed to bet on the basis of information that is not in the public domain.
It’s similar to insider trading IMO. It’s best to not get too hung up on the word “cheat”. It’s breaking the rules that we’ve established as a society and government.
If people consider it a fun thing to speculate and bet on, and the gambling companies make a profit, who does it hurt? I quite like that in the UK we can basically bet on almost anything, even though I don’t partake myself. I can dream of one day striking it rich when Betelgeuse goes poof.
Are there bets available on individual seats? For example, can I bet £20 that Labour will win Islington North?
Yes. But it’s too close a race to have particularly good odds.
Jeremy Corbyn
8/13
Labour
6/5
Conservative
66/1
Liberal Democrats
66/1
Reform UK
250/1
Green Party
250/1
Betting on Sunak to lose his seat might be be a more interesting bet.
Anybody know which constituencies voted for an MP of the winning party in all elections since October 1974, if any?
I don’t think that’s right though.
By which I mean, I clicked on the link above and downloaded the pdf and scanned through the section on general offences and did some text searching on terms like “knowledge” “inside”/“insider”, “public domain” etc. and nothing came up saying betting on insider knowledge was an offense. In fact, I found the following in section 1:
Betting: general
(1) In this Act “betting” means making or accepting a bet on—
(a) the outcome of a race, competition or other event or process,
(b) the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring, or
(c) whether anything is or is not true.
(2) A transaction that relates to the outcome of a race, competition or other event or
process may be a bet within the meaning of subsection (1) despite the facts that—
(a) the race, competition, event or process has already occurred or been
completed, and
(b) one party to the transaction knows the outcome.
(3) A transaction that relates to the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring may
be a bet within the meaning of subsection (1) despite the facts that—
(a) the thing has already occurred or failed to occur, and
> (b) one party to the transaction knows that the thing has already occurred or failed
> to occur
Bolding is of course mine.
If there is a section I’ve missed, more fool me, but I honestly can’t find the relevant clause in the Act.
I’m not saying these bets should banned. I’m saying if the bookies want to offer them, they have to take the consequences - to wit, venal idiots with insider knowledge will risk their careers and their party’s reputation on winning a relatively insignificant sum of money.
It is if it’s “insider trading”, i.e., you know for sure something the bookmaker doesn’t. That was my original point - for a criminal prosecution to succeed, there’s got to be some evidence to show that you did in fact know, not just that you might have done.
An interesting question I’m sure I don’t know the answer to is how “know” is “know enough”?
E.g.
Case 1: Everyone with the slightest political knowledge knows the election must be called by the date set forth in law. But may be called sooner up to and including, e.g. 6 weeks from today. So everyone relevant is equal in that knowledge.
Case 2a: Suppose I know from my insider position that it’ll be called more than 8 weeks but less than 10 from today. I can use that to put a wheel bet on a much shorter list of possibilities (e.g. these specific 14 dates) rather than “all of them.” I’ve certainly moved the bookies’ odds in my favor by that move.
Case 2b: Now suppose from my insider position I only strongly suspect those 14 days. I might be wrong, but I’ve got a lot more objective reason to be more sure than some random punter from the out counties. Even if my strong supposition turns out to be wrong I’ve still moved the odds in my favor.
Case 3: Eventually at the limit case I as insider know the exact date and am dead certain of my knowledge. So my wheel wheel bet consists of one date and is guaranteed to win.
Case 3 is clearly insider trading. Case 1 is clearly not. What of Case 2 in all its many variations? Setting aside the difficulty of proving things while the folks doing it are working assiduously to not leave any evidentiary trail and to actively cover up whatever trail they did leave.
I honestly don’t think this is true, and I couldn’t find anything in the law you linked to that says it is. But I did find something that says it’s not necessarily cheating if one party has certain knowledge.
The law you quoted says it’s still betting, not that it’s not cheating. It’s there so a defendant can’t say “It’s only illegal to cheat if it’s gambling, and with my certain knowledge, I was guaranteed to win, so it wasn’t a gamble after all”.
I expect somebody closer to the action might well have something definitive but:
Since 1974 there have been 11 elections.
No named constituency has been won/held by the government continually through that period.
The most has been Buckingham which has been on the Treasury side for 7 elections, then Chorley with 5. There are 110 with 4.
Of course, with the redistribution process constituencies names and electorates are in constant flux and there may well be physical localities which have always gone with the government since 1974
Based on The House of Commons library data, there have been 1,279 electorate names used since 1974. Of these 222 have been in use for all 11 elections.
That seems almost impossible, to me… Only one district out of hundreds which, in the majority of elections, has sided with the winner? Given that, in any given election, by definition the winner has won the majority of districts… It’s still theoretically possible, I suppose, due to the existence of third parties, but even in a multi-party system like the UK, those parties are still relatively small.
I’m not sure what you’re looking at but Buckingham has consistently voted Tory/Speaker (who was a Tory but was technically neutral in his role as speaker) throughout Labour’s run in power, definitely not a battleground seat.
I’m looking at the House of Commons library data.
I provided you the link, do your own homework if you are going to be ungracious.
Buckingham voted CON in seven of the eight elections won by CON.
When they didn’t vote CON their MP was in opposition. QED
There was no suggestion that the electorate is a swing/battleground/bellwether electorate. They just back the right horse … provided it’s CON.
I’m not sure why you think a seat that has been solidly blue, (or in this case blue/neutral for Bercow’s reign as speaker) is an answer to a question of a seat that has managed to go with the flow and “get it right” consistently. There are many solidly blue seats. I’m not going to argue further with you though.