The predominance of skilled prevaricators in elected office does seem to argue for the wisdom of carefully maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with unpleasant truths.
Oh, and hey, look at that:
Just as predicted.
This is true if you only consider that the job of politicians is to get elected. If you consider that their job is to govern, and to govern well, and that governing well does involve communicating honestly with the electorate in order to get a mandate for necessary but in the short term painful decisions such as for example tax rises to pay for rising welfare and health costs, then you are fully entitled to look around you at the UK today and ask yourself if maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with the truth to get skilled prevaricators into office has in fact been a genius strategy for the betterment of all or if perhaps it has led to things being considerably fucked.
I’m not in any way arguing for the wisdom of the system or the health of countries governed by these principles, only pointing out the cold evidence of what has been historically successful for the attainment of office.
To put it another way:
Starmer is not particularly popular or well liked, he is simply benfitting hugely from everyone’s collective disgust with teh skilled prevaricators of the Tory party.
If his plan is to come into office definitively ruling out tax rises for “working people” and then go through a charade of “opening the books” to “discover” that public services are underfunded and try to pull a Captain Renault “shocked, shocked to find I have to raised taxes” then he will be correctly pegged by voters as a charlatan and his support will evaporate, the press will turn on him, his party will fracture and his ability to govern effectively will take a massive hit. Is this clever or.
Oh really, how do you know?
It is section 42 that concerns cheating. However, “cheating” doesn’t seem to be clearly defined in the gambling act, and checking on the gambling commissions website, interestingly they seem to define it according to a council of europe regulation:
“Inside information” means information relating to any competition that a person possesses by
virtue of his or her position in relation to a sport or competition, excluding any information
already published or common knowledge, easily accessible to interested members of the
public or disclosed in accordance with the rules and regulations governing the relevant
competition.
But let’s put it this way: I don’t think we can say unambiguously that they did or did not break the law, thanks to the gambling commission’s rules being a mess. I mean, most of their rules explicitly say they are for sporting competitions, meaning a lawyer could probably argue that any betting outside of sports has no governing rules whatsoever, up to and including whether the bookie even needs to pay out.
Yeah, it’s pretty clear it’s not written with “fun politics bets” in mind which again raises the question of how much protection bookies deserve for offering bets in unregulated markets. However! I’m conscious I’ve encouraged us to wander in legal minutiae rather than politics so let me bring back by saying that whatever the legalities, it’s the sort of behaviour that would make any serious person with a semblance of public service ethos feel morally queasy and beyond that, let’s just imagine the conversation:
CCHQ Director of campaigns: Just had a call from Rishi- we’re on for 4th July.
CCHQ Aide: What the fuck!? Since when?
CCHQ D: Since now. We need to get cracking.
CCHQ A: I’ll say! We’ve lost a bunch of local councilors who would normally co-ordinate on the ground activity, we don’t have a coherent policy offer, we’re low on funds and after we lost all those councillors the funders aren’t exactly lining up to write cheques, we don’t have all our candidates and we certainly haven’t done the vetting that’ll stop dumb scandals blowing up… Jesus Christ, what do we do first.
CCHQ D: Relax buddy, this is why I’m the director, so I can make the big calls. The first thing we do is…
CCHQ: A: Candidates? Money? Policies?
CCHQ D: I said relax! The first thing we do is get on to Paddy Power and place a bet that will earn me slightly less than a day’s pay, Ka-ching!
CCHQ A: The first thing I’m doing is getting a new job.
This the dumbest and most fun election ever.
Breaking news that. Labour candidate has been suspended for betting - not on the timings, which he couldn’t have known, but on the result.
But hey, Stanislaus you handsome devil, you’re thinking, what harm in a person backing themselves?
None at all sexy, I reply, but that ain’t what he did. This towering genius bet that he’d lose.
Thoughts and prayers to the luckless party functionary who is having to explain to him for the tenth time why that is bad.
If you’re gonna throw the bout, at least remember to get in the ring and land a few punches before laying down. And for gosh sake, have your kid’s neighbor’s nanny’s dog place your bets for you; don’t do it yourself. On camera.
Amateurs. I despise amateurs in a professional arena.
Actually, having learned some more I am completely reverse-ferreting on this one: I think what he did was fine and should never have been treated as a scandal.
- He’s standing in a seat where the Tories have a 23,000 majority at 63% of teh vote. Even in this febrile election he was never going to win.
- Everyone knew this: he was a paper candidate. He wasn’t there to lead a campaign, he was tehre to do the bare minimum - put his name on the ballot, show up at hustings, organise the mandatory posting of the election address, do one (1) interview with the local paper etc. Everyone knows its pointless but someone has to fly the flag in the lost cause. There was nothing he could actually throw because he wasn’t actually running a campaign.
- As a result of point 1) above, the Tory candidate was odds on. The £100 Mr Craig bet would have netted him enough money to enjoy a steak dinner for one, if he chose a cheap wine and skipped desert.
- Relatedly, this guy gave £100K to the Labour party. He is not in this for the money and he is committed to Labour winning.
- This is, by all accounts, fairly normal for paper candidates, he wasn’t innovating, it’s a little tradition that has grown up for what are essentially volunteers to mildly recompense them for their mild aggravation, it’s maybe not amazing but its also not corrupt.
I suspect that part of what has happened here is that the Gambling Commission is starting to get high off its own farts - it had a very exciting time making national news by releasing details of political bets, and now it’s on a mission to keep making news and if it doesn’t have an actual story, it’ll do it with something that sort of looks like one until you know the details. Per the above, it doesn’t really matter in this case but come on lads, settle down.
I think you’re being slightly over generous. It may not be illegal but it is at least a little unseemly - no matter how common it is. Even in a constituency that was previously 63% Conservative, that majority is likely to be slashed this election and there is still at least 37% of the electorate that could vote Labour.
At the bare minimum even a paper candidate should be publically projecting the idea that they’re in with a chance of winning. Anything less is not sporting. It’s just not British 
. Overturning a majority can be a longer game than just the result of a single election. Now whatever the candidate’s betting habits may be, they might have an understanding that this would remain private, but that is no longer the case here.
OB
Just from an abstract theoretical basis, betting on oneself to lose introduces the possibility that one might deliberately sabotage one’s performance in the contest, whereas a bet to win demands the requisite effort. Yes, in this specific case the loss is effectively foreordained and, as you say, there’s nothing to throw. Nevertheless, I’m sympathetic to the premise that betting on one’s own failure should at least be discouraged, if only as a precedential matter.
This is (was?) the candidate in the constituency where I grew up, and my dear old mother will be voting. It’s not the first bit of political controversy that has raised its head in the area either: the incumbent MP, a medical doctor, was a Conservative, but switched sides to Labour recently, having been shocked to discover his own party might not have been doing right by the NHS (such a revelation, I know). At the same time, he said he was not going to stand at the next election, hence this new candidate for Labour.
Candidates have to spend, or sacrifice, a lot of their own money to get selected. The piddling little amount you could make back by betting to lose won’t make much difference.
If there was genuinely no chance of him winning, then he wouldn’t be able to bet, because nobody would be willing to take the other side.
Interesting (?alarming) - the Electoral Calculus poll of polls has been showing a slight shading-off of Labour’s lead (likely still a historically massive majority) and also signs of a potential breakthrough for Reform, depending on how their support is spread across constituencies.
They’re predicting a Lib Dem opposition, which short of the impossibility of them winning is the best possible result. Anything that would lead to socially progressive centrists moving towards power should be celebrated.
What does the bolded phrase mean? That the BBC had to sit on the story for awhile, but something has changed which now allows them to run with it? I’ve never seen the phrase in American journalism.
It’s just a Britishism. It doesn’t mean anything special, just that they’re reporting it now.
Yes, it’s a shorthand for 'Our journalists are the source", as opposed to them picking it up from Reuters or elsewhere.