The MORI trend turns to Boris
April 13th, 2008-
What will the next YouGov poll show?
The betting markets had this one right yesterday. Late on Saturday morning there was a big move back to Boris in the London Mayoral betting and there was speculation here that someone had got wind of some new polling.
The Ipsos-MORI firm, which was showing 2% leads for Ken in the previous two of its polls to be published, is now reporting in the Observer that the Tory is 2% ahead amongst those certain to vote after the second preferences have been re-allocated. So it’s now Boris 51% (+2): KEN 49% (-2)
Although the change is well within the poll’s margin of error it does mean that all three polling firms covering the race have the Tory ahead albeit by very different margins.
We have not seen the MORI detail yet but my guess is that this might be even more encouraging for the Tory. In both the firm’s February and last poll the proportion saying they were “certain” to vote was 48%. Given that just 34% and 37% bothered to go to the polling stations in the last two contests it’s hard to see, even in such a tight election, the turnout shifting up by a third. My reading is that the fewer the number of Londoners who turn out the better it is for Johnson.
The other big polling news overnight was the latest national YouGov survey for the Sunday Times. This had Cameron’s Conservatives moving to 44% over a 28% share for Labour and 17% share for the Lib Dems. This could put even more pressure on Gordon.
The detailed data for London in previous YouGov polls has proved to be a reliable guide on how Johnson is doing in their Mayoral race surveys.
The mayoral betting prices are here
MessageSpace Advertising
I seem to have done my usual trick of being the last on an old thread just before a new one appears, so here is my predikshun again:
I predict that the result of the election for Mayor will be:
Boris Johnson (Con) 36.0% + 6.4% = 42.4%
Ken Livingstone (Lab) 32.1% + 8.1% = 40.2%
Brian Paddick (LD) 15.5%
Richard Barnbrook (BNP) 4.2%
Sian Berry (Green) 3.6%
Lindsey German (LL) 2.8%
Gerard Batten (UKIP) 2.4%
Alan Craig (CPA/CP) 2.3%
Matt O’Connor (ED) 0.9%
Winston McKenzie (Ind) 0.2%
non-transferable + 17.4% = 17.4%
I predict that the result of the election for the Assembly will be:
Con 34.5% = 10 + 1 = 11
Lab 23.2% = 4 + 3 = 7
LD 14.2% = 4
Green 8.7% = 2
BNP 6.2% = 1
Respect 2.7%
CPA/CP 2.4%
UKIP 2.3%
Left List 1.9%
ED 1.2%
One Lon 1.1%
AbConCh 0.9%
UPS/CPB 0.4%
Rathy Al. 0.3%
N.B. The bit about this prediction that I was least certain about was the % of votes for Conservative and Lib Dems in the Assembly election: at first I predicted 35.5% and 13.2% respectively; then I thought that it was too much for the Conservatives so I transferred 2% from Con to LD to get 33.5% and 15.2% respectively;
*** BUT the net effect of this would have been to reduce the Conservative Party from 11 seats to 10 and increase the BNP from 1 to 2 ***
; so I “cheated” by transferring 1% back from LD to Con to get 34.5% and 14.2%. So the effective quota for each seat under this prediction would be only 3.14% (compared with 3.30% in 2004 and 3.22% in 2000). In other words, the BNP may have a real chance of getting a second seat with only 6.3% or 6.4% of the votes, let alone 7% or 8%.
Re: Will there be a new Labour leader before the next general election, and if so, how? Gordon Brown: According to statistics and extrapolations from the USA social security something-or-other in 2003, the probability of a 57-year-old man dying within the next year is 0.945%, and the probability of a 58-year-old man dying in the next year is 1.028%.
The Muslim Vote
Do you people think the Islamic moblization can affect the election in favor of Ken?
Today we celebrate 4000 consecutive days of Labour government.
If only we had had the foresight to set up a department in the Treasury to borrow £1,000,000 a day we could have had public debts of 40 billion pounds by now.
If only we had set up another department to give away just ONE million pounds worth of gold every day, we could have depleted the value of our holdings by FOUR billion by today.
So many missed opportunities……
4. Make that first “if only” £10,000,000 a day, please.
JohnLoony, the idea is that he would get kicked by his own party, not that he would die like John Smith
Livingstone hopes to beat Boris with a little Barack Obama magic
3. Muslims make up about 10% of London’s population. But, they have a young age profile, and tend to be poorer than average, which means they’ll be less than 10% of the electorate, and will be less likely to vote. They’ll probably make about 6% of the voters.
As the polls and the betting markets continue to indicate the likely result, Labour are clearly scared stiff of Boris Johnson. The Sunday Herald columnist Joanna Blythman (Labour loyalist) supplies us with an insight into the bitter mentality of the Scottish Labour Party:
‘One-man ad for independence’
Oh well, I was wrong about a possible new ICM poll in the Scotland on Sunday today. Sorry for the false alarm! Perhaps they did conduct one, but did not want to publish the findings?
As compensation, their Glasgow-base rival does have a new opinion poll, by BPC-member (always nice to know) Taylor Nelson Sofres System 3. And even-nicer: it is a tracker poll! Always better with trackers than with ad hoc surveys.
‘41% of Scots back the break-up of the union’
“The Scottish government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state.”
August 2007
Agree: 35%
Disagree: 50%
d/k, n/a: 15%
December 2007
Agree: 40% (+5)
Disagree: 44% (-6)
d/k, n/a: 16% (+1)
April 2008
Agree: 41% (+1)
Disagree: 40% (-4)
d/k, n/a: 19% (-3)
Is there a cause & effect here between the actions/behaviour of Gordon Brown’s UK government and the rise in support for Scottish independence? It would not surprise me if there was.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2192965.0.0.php
Sorry, I missed out the link to Joanna Blythman’s scathing column on Boris Johnson - ‘Boris is a one-man advert for independence’
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2192877.0.oneman_ad_for_independence.php
20% of murders are committed by immigrants.
Considering Labour let in 3 million immigrants, 5% of the population commit 20% of all murders. So, immigrants are 300% more likely to be murderers.
Vote Labour. Vote murder.
Yes Mike, the markets on which you can bet on an early Brown departure begin to look interesting. Yesterday I took some of the 20/1 Hills were offering against 2008. Sidney isn’t up yet. Wonder what price he’ll be chalking up today?
If he continues with his generoity, note the hedging opportunities against Betfair’s Party Leaders market.
I Labour can get a new leader about 6 months before the next General election (?May 2010?), then they’ll get a bit of novelty poll ‘bounce’. Otherwise they’re stuffed.
11 Here is the link to Labour’s Murder Immigration Policy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/ncrime113.xml
O/T but I must say I do find it quite extraordinary that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should try and order banks to pass on the BoE interest rate cut. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7344818.stm
It is NOT the job of Governments to interfere like this in what is supposed to be a commercial market. And the private financial institutions are NOT there to prop up Govts for their mistakes in making credit too easy over the years. I find this attempt to manipulate business to bail out Labour very sinister indeed.
Meanwhile, when there is a crisis, how about dragging out that well-worn tactic of finding a common enemy? I know: let’s get the Home Secretary to say that there are terrorists under your bed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7344925.stm
Well, the tactic is one that Mugabe in Zimbabwe is using http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl…icle3701819.ece
We’re witnessing the death-throes of New Labour, and it’s not pretty.
14) Eastern Eye, have you nothing better to do than rant about immigrants on a Sunday morning?
9. How can you ‘negotiate’ independence?
“Well, we did our best in the negotiations, but the terms aren’t right so we’re staying in the Union.”
Independence has to be declared, not negotiated. Another example of questions being designed to achieve the desired answer.
Margin of error stuff?
It is NOT the job of Governments to interfere like this in what is supposed to be a commercial market. And the private financial institutions are NOT there to prop up Govts for their mistakes in making credit too easy over the years. I find this attempt to manipulate business to bail out Labour very sinister indeed.
I’m no fan of the Labour party but the blame for making credit too easy lies primarily with the banks. Of course Labour did nothing about it (despite Vince telling them every day for the last five year).
The government should ensure that bank shareholders are not bailed out… the only way they will learn.
15 — Of course it is the Bank’s job to intervene in the markets. Whether it is doing so wisely is another question.
Interesting article
15 Chancellor of the Exchequer try to order banks to pass on the BoE interest rate cut.
Labour and Zanu PF do not understand business.
Zanu PF ordered business to raise prices by a government rate while inflation is 200,000%. Of course the businesses close.
Zanu Labour and Zanu PF are as retarded as eachother.
19. The Labour Govt have been the instigators of easy credit and, conversely, did very little to encourage a savings culture.
20. I said the Gov’t not the Bank (by which I assume you mean the BoE). It is a very very dangerous situation when Govts try to manipulate the free market essentially to bail them out when they’ve screwed up.
16 Obviously you do not care about murder victims.
Perhaps you thing the British deserve more murders because of some “historical Imperialistic crime”.
People like cover up for Labour’s crimes. You are, in a way, aiding and abetting murder.
23 The principal damage to Britain’s savings culture was done by the Conservatives’ taxation of interest income - which has meant that for privative savings in excess of a certain sum real after tax interest rates are negative and have been for years.
I would be very interested to hear how the government instigated it - I think this is a wild allegation though I am prepared to be proven wrong.
The trouble is that what is required to rebalance the UKs economy is now so extraordinarily unpleasant nobody will do it on purpose, though it may yet be forced by the market.
It involves a fairly hefty contraction of demand, a fall in asset prices, much tighter fiscal policy, , lower gbp, and interest rates about where they are now. I suspect a lot of the jobs presently done by immigrants will have to be done by presently unemployed Britons. Have a look at gbppln if you wonder how the market is going to force that.
I note the Sunday press is awash with stories about City sackings… don’t think I will come into the office next week!
26. Well let’s start with the Pensions theft shall we?!
I think the withdrawal of PEP’s in 1999 was also a big mistake, and another (there’s a long list, believe me) of instances of the Labour attack on savings.
6. JohnLoony, the idea is that he would get kicked by his own party, not that he would die like John Smith
I was responding to the general discussion in the previous thread about the various different methods by which GB might not be leader of the Labour Party at the time of the general election. I answered the specific question (which some people had asked) about statistics of mortality of someone of his age.
11. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that a lot of immigrants are young single men?
26 There will be an adjustment. That is why I dont live in Britain currently - apart from not funding the Labour Cash Waste monster.
British people are being push to the back of housing, job and health queues. Labour cannot pack Britain with foreigners without a reaction.
What percentage of violent crimes are committed by young single men? How many times more likely are men to be criminals than women? (Look at prison populations for a good idea.) Lock ‘em all up and throw away the key, eh?
30 - Brit heads abroad as there are too many immigrants here. Don’t see the irony, do you EE?
29. Probably. Packing Britain with single male immigrants is very, very dangerous.
The British are very tolerant. It is why so many chose Britain.
But like the BBC & NHS, Labour took a good thing for use against the people.
19. As we will see in the future the Government (when it tightens up the various balance sheet ratios the Banks have to adhere to) could have in recent years had a massive influence on the extension of credit. It could also have dramatically reduced the money supply by not spending so heavily in recent years. Much of the blame for the present crises lies with the Government.
Darling conveniently ignores the fact that there is now a disconnect between the BOE base rate and inter bank rates, much of the bank’s borrowing costs do not go down when the BOE reduces interest rates. He also ignores the fact that it is imperative that some banks rebuild their balance sheets now by taking profits if they are to be well placed to lend as the crises gets deeeper. In short Darling is either a fool or/and is keen to be seen to manage the crises albeit in a misleading way.
32. There is no irony.
Skilled people are always welcome everywhere.
Even ILLEGAL immigrants are entitled to FREE NHS cover.
the human tragedy of someone being forced either through war, civil strife and dire economic need to leave their homes is one thing. Anyone who hasn’t been through that should pause before pontificating. Just how do you expect, for instance, people from a war zone to behave? Nobody seems concerned about the fact that immigrants (coming here for whatever reason) provide a pool of virtual “slave” labour at zero cost for many european producers. When you proudly buy your next “locally sourced” lettuce just remember it was probably picked by a “happy” East European being paid virtually nothing. Immigration has ALWAYS been the way that lazy, self-satisfied governments and industries have made themselves “more competitive”. My parents came here in the late 50s having been actively recruited by the ailing Lancashire cotton industry and I later learned that the Minister of Labour at the time was one Enoch Powell. I wonder whatever became of him?
34. Indeed. The Govt’s cavalier disregard for the PSBR and balance of payments has been astonishing. Borrowing when the economy is growing is all well and good, but the whole Govt deck of cards has been built on this credit-fuelled economy, which includes their own input on the money supply.
This Govt is at the heart of the credit boom.
Mugabe tactic Pt II.
There’s an economic crisis. Let’s blame immigrants.
Sigh.
34. The immediate cause of the current crisis was Americans lying to their mortgage lenders about their income. It is the inability to respond to the crisis that is the fault of the government. It was Labour who created the split in the financial institutions, so the FSA had the information but no money, and the BoE had the money but no information.
UK’s budget deficit is 3% of GDP, where e.g. Spain has budget surplus of 2%, and so Darling has no room to stimulate the economy. This is entirely down to Labour’s failure to tax the rich.
No wonder Labour are losing their core vote if they are siding with the better-off on the abolition of the 10% tax band while increasing the IHT threshold.
BTW the latest Mori poll was based on 600 (before filtering) sample size. The one last week was 1000.
39 - “UK’s budget deficit is 3% of GDP, where e.g. Spain has budget surplus of 2%, and so Darling has no room to stimulate the economy. This is entirely down to Labour’s failure to tax the rich.”
Lol. Even if it were true that Labour have missed out on income by not “taxing the rich” the idea that the solution is MORE spending is amusing.
Arguably one of the major problems for the future is that the natural safety net of a falling currency has been largely reduced by the decline in our manufacturing base. It was a dramatic decline in currency that started the economic recovery in the nineties.
40 - Which one last week
I take your point, but it is 600 over 4+ million voters, no one objects to 2000 over 43 million voters.
43 - Margin of error is based on the sample size not the population size.
38 There’s a crisis. Let’s blame the messenger.
86% of ALL public want immigration reduced and stopped.
Sigh.
38 In the face of Labour Spin, Accusations & Lies, here is a link to Channel 4’s Dispatches.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muXEpSbyqo8
It is presented by that famous “white, BNP supporting, racist”, Ragi Omar. Eh? That cant be right!
27 The pensions thing is a good point, although I don’t think it seriously affects the savings behaviour of private individuals. Punishing pensioners who have saved (care charges etc) is probably a better example would you agree?
34 The question again is why did the Tories not do this/call for it? The answer is because it is the very opposite of their philosophy. I would be prepared to eat a very large hat if the government forces a credit tightening anytime soom - they MIGHT just add to the one we already have!! As to the rest of your post that spread is essentially a credit phenomenon - if you believe as I do that credit should be properly priced it will not return to the ludicrously low levels of just a year ago.
“86% of ALL public want immigration reduced and stopped.”
Odd statement. What is the function of the word “ALL” there? “Reduced and stoppped”? Can’t do both. Perhaps you mean “Reduced or stopped?” So somebody who think there should be a small reduction (such as perhaps myself) would therefore be part of the 86%.
Does the country where you live have a public that want to reduces immigration? Or is it just because you are so damn skilled that they want to keep you?
Boris wants an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Is this soon to be Conservative party policy - and if not, why is Boris allowed to dissent?
39 Not really - the sub-prime thing is just one facet of the absurdly low levels to which risk premia in financial markets had become depressed - and the blame for that lies squarely on the shoulders of central banks (the Fed and the massive reserves mob China, Japan Taiwan, Saudi etc etc).
You can find examples of ludicrous pricing everywhere, not just mortgages - there are plenty more turds to be revealed once the tide is fully out believe me.
49 No it won’t be.
51 - are you disappointed that Boris has this as a policy?
Ed Balls has been trying to manoeuvre himself into position for next Labour Party leader. If Brown is a bad PM, Balls would be even worse. The man is totally amoral and would fry his own grandmother and turn her into breakfast sarnies if he thought it would advance his cause.
He’s far more dangerous than Mr Gordon Bean - there is about him an innate crookedness that I can’t quite put my finger on. Suffice to say, the man repulses me whenever I see or hear him speak, much the same way as a cockroach scuttling across a restaurant floor would repulse me. It’s not just the insect itself that is repulsive, it is the knowledge that it is carrying some foul disease that’s going to infect everything you touch or eat. Balls is a political cockroach of the highest order, and his wife, Yvette Cooper, isn’t much better
The illegal amnesty thing is a specific London issue, based on the belief that London councils are forced to pay for immigrants, illegal or otherwise, and until the numbers are acknowledged officially they won’t get given the central govt funding to pay for them.
53 but I’m sure his mum loves him.
52 I disagree with it, and wouldn’t have proposed it in his position.
It is not a case of “favoring” illegal immigrants, but a pragmatic response to the failure of the Govt to remove them.
I think that the London candidates are also all pushing it as a sort of “opening negotiating stance”. They need to get the issue of paying for illegal immigration officially acknowledged by central Govt. The aim is probably NOT actually to have an illegal amnesty, but simply to force the Govt into providing more money.
48 .oes the country where you live have a public that want to reduces immigration? Or is it just because you are so damn skilled that they want to keep you?
Curb your aggression SBS.
You attack the messenger.
Every country would welcome someone if they are a contributor, come from a stable country, are law abiding - AND THEY DONT COME ILLEGALLY IN HUGE WAVES.
57 Immigrants are given preferential treatment above British.
For example, while British must join school waiting lists, Immigrants MUST be taken immediately.
86% are unhappy with that. You should acknowledge that.
59 - So what do you actually want? An end to immigration, or an end to illegal immigration? Something doesn’t become illegal just because you declare it so.
“For example, while British must join school waiting lists, Immigrants MUST be taken immediately.”
Eh? What are “School waiting lists”?
59 Eastern Eye
What does this have to do with betting?
Or the thread?
63 - I think he’s saying that the polling is missing a huge BNP surge. Might be right too
Charles Clarke lines up southern ’stalking horses’ to challenge Brown’s leadership
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/charles-clarke-lines-up-southern-stalking-horses-to-challenge-browns-leadership-808465.html
64 And how might we take advantage of this priceless information in placing our bets?
The Mayoral race still seems too close to call. If YouGov is correct, the Tories have had a particularly good month and Labour a particularly bad one: despite that, the two candidates are still essentially tied. If you bet on Boris at current prices, you’re relying on people feeling the same nationally on May 1 as they apparently do now AND on differential turnout. I do think Boris is the favourite, but anything worse than 4-6 is not worth taking up at this point. A poll in a week or so showing Boris say 6% ahead is what you really need for that.
35: Eastern Eye, an immigrant comes to Britain to do a job that we can’t otherwise fill, while Creatures leave the country and have to spend their days ranting impotently on pb.com. A win-win for Britain.
60 - Your statement that immigrants are given school places wshereas British kids are not, is not true.
What is true is this. If anyone moves from one part of the country to another, or from one London borough to another, or from outside the UK (and are entitled to free British education and they have children between the ages of 5 and 7, the school class can be increased above 30 if there are no other vacancies at a school within a reasonable distance. Reasonable distance is open to interpretation, but this is generally accepted to be 2 miles.
All places are offered on the admissions criteria. In the case of non voluntary aided schools, this will be the children whio live nearest to the school. It has nothing to do with ethnicity.
64 - I dont think that polling will ever show a surge in support for the BNP, because a lot of people that vote for the far right do not like admitting to it. Having just done a survey in a ward where their names and addresses were not on the survey (but they were coded, so I know where they came from), the number of people admitting to supporting the BNP was far higher than in a similar ward, where their names and addresses were on the survey.
A “must read” for Nulabour supporters to discover what has gone wrong for Gordenron.
In 10 years, Labour has spent about £1trillion - that’s £1,000,000,000,000 - more than would have been the case, inflation adjusted, if government spending had been held at 1997-98 levels. That’s about £50,000 for every household. Education has received an extra £185bn, health an additional £269bn and welfare, ie, social security benefits, £343bn more.
And what do we have to show for it? A state-school system that is so poor, there is a stampede into private education, and our best universities are being bullied by Ed Balls and his henchmen to abandon the quest for excellence in order to accommodate pupils from under-performing comprehensives.
Russell Group universities - Oxbridge, Bristol, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Warwick and 14 other elite institutions - spend fortunes trawling the country in search of state-educated youngsters and yet remain under intense pressure to debase standards in order to meet Government entry “targets”.
In a 2007 poll of 3,000 doctors, more than 70pc did not believe the extra money for the NHS had been well spent and the same percentage felt there had been no meaningful improvement in care. The fact that 55pc of senior doctors have medical insurance tells us that even insiders want out.
Brown likes to boast about economic growth and rising employment, so why in 2007-08 is the Government doling out £156bn to 30m recipients in 40 types of social security payments and tax credits? That’s nearly five times the defence budget. Benefits are gobbling up about 30pc of state spending. This is not an accident, it’s how Labour has expensively purchased a client class.
Our Armed Forces are betrayed, private pensions are plundered, violent crimes are rising, quangos proliferate, immigration is out of control and Britain will receive less back per capita from the European Union’s 2007-13 budget than any other member. Read this book and prepare to weep.
* Squandered - How Gordon Brown is wasting over one trillion pounds of our money, by David Craig. Publisher: Constable. Price: £8.99
66 - Back the BNP, obviously.
53 - Balls wont/cant get far, he’s even less adept a political performer* than Brown… and while he’s bound to manoeuvre so that he’s better positioned for the leadership (he could well emerge as a ‘Brownite’ candidate for the leadership at some point in the future) I cant see the Labour Party being so daft as to make him leader.
In fact, one of the main reasons I don’t buy there being any kind of serious threat to Brown before the next election, no matter how bad things get – beyond the institutional strength of simply being PM – is the dearth of talent in the PLP at the moment which is, if any thing, even more the case within the government where there is a total absence of genuinely credible potential leaders… of course the likes of Denham, Johnson and Miliband (D) are competent enough, but its tough comparing them to their Conservative and LibDem opposite numbers, let alone the kind of leadership contenders who have dominated previous governments (Heseltine, Jenkins, Healey, Portillo, Whitelaw, Butler etc…).
Where I would disagree with you is on Yvette Cooper, for me she’s perhaps the most accomplished media performer the government has and certainly one of their most credible spokespersons… her great tragedy is that she was ostracised under Blair and has been forced to work in her husbands shadow since Brown’s accession.
*I should stress the term ‘performer’ …I don’t doubt Brown or for that matter Ball’s intellect, but in order to be a credible politician you have to be able to communicate and that is even more the case the further up the greasy pole you go.
I suspect the BNP are doing far better than we anticipate. Barnbrook has a certain appeal. I think he will be pushing double figures.
My current projections for first round - totally unscientific - arefor the mayoralty:-
Labour 32%
Tory 33%
LD - 14%
BNP - 9%
Green - 4%
Others - 8%
The odds offered here the other day on both larger parties being in the 30-35% range look attractive.
67 - Er, Nick this mayoral poll is a Mori one, not a YouGov one.
73 - and if this was the result I would expect a narrow Ken win. The lower the LD vote, the fewer Tory second preferences you will find in it.
67, there are 5 million people of working age not in work (due to either laziness, disability or scamming the system by feigning illness) and 687,000 vacancies.
It’s a rather hilarious piece of spin for Labour to try and pretend its ridiculous open door policy (which has seen immigrants take more new jobs in the last 10 years than Britons) was essential and that without it the universe would’ve ground to a halt.
Some controls on the EU accession countries would’ve been good for both us and them. Polish wokers can undercut their British counterparts significantly, and manage to simultaneously create a vacuum of workers in Poland. Result: Britons out of work and prices spiralling upwards in Poland. What a triumph.
Then you have the educational implications. The negative effects of having to teach primary school kids in multiple languages are hardly an advert for unfettered immigration.
We need more tightly controlled immigration, and renaming immigration officials “Border police” isn’t going to cut it.
71 Alex - They are not generally quoted, so it’s difficult to see how one might take advantage of any value. Can you, or Eastern Eye, assist?
76 - One concern about immigration is the NHS. We have robbed many third world countries of their best medical staff.
73 - I think that as the squeeze continues, the LD vote will drop. 14% would be high. One thing there is in London is an anti-Livingstone vote. People are saying that they will vote in the London Mayoral Election, who ever they think will get rid of Ken. The London Assembly Election will, as last time, produce different results. Last time, the Conservatives did much better in the Assembly elections than Norris polled against Livingstone.
47 - Jon - “The pensions thing is a good point, although I don’t think it seriously affects the savings behaviour of private individuals”
But taking £15,000,000 a DAY out of the investment potential of pension funds - a total of £60,000,000,000 in the 4,000 days since Labour came to power - has made a significant difference to the ABILITY and WILLINGNESS of people to save.
In the last 4,000 days of the Maggie/Major regime, Retail Price inflation ran at a fairly high average level of 4.4% compound per annum, totalling 60% over the period - BUT the value of our top 100 companies, as measured by the FTSE100, rose at three times the rate of inflation, from 1592 to 4456 - 180%. So it was worth investing in shares, either directly or through a pensions plan, endowment mortgage or whatever.
In the first 4,000 days of Blair/Brown rule, Retail Price inflation has been running at an average 2.9% compound per annum, totalling 37% over the period, BUT the value of our top 100 companies has risen at only 60% of the rate of inflation, from 4456 to 5895 - 22%. So investing money in shares for the longer term - by whatever means - is actually LOSING money, not saving it! Hence the “shortfalls” being experienced by people whose endowment policies are still to mature.
I think that the savings behaviour of younger private individuals has been very much affected by the raid on pensions funds. They’ve seen what happened to their parents’ “savings”.
‘Spend it now, while it’s still worth something’ seems to be the motto these days.
77 - Stop being so silly PtP! Put some prices up on Betfair and see if you can get anyone to match you.
All you asked was what it had to do with the thread or betting. I gave you an answer that fulfilled BOTH criteria!
79 - you say the squeeze continues. But this squeeze has not applied to Paddick’s vote that has gone up in polls from 10 to 14%.
78, whilst managing at the same time to leave many of our own doctors out of work.
Guido’s piece about Brown’s incompetence being comparable to quantum physics and Schrodinger’s cat is right.
82 - That is still lower than the 15% that Hughes acheieved.
76 - I dont disagree with most of what you have said. However, on the education front, children learn English very quickly, much quicker than their parents. Most Eastern Europeans that come to the UK speak English and it was taught in schools even in the communist days, you could learn English - so long as you learnt Russian too!
What is the problem in Education is that schools are full. It is not uncommon to find that the nearest primary school with a vacancy is 3 miles away - and I am talking about London, not rural somerset!
BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS
The breaking news is that WIND is reporting to JNN the contents of a new ARSE poll of polls that comprises ICM, Populus, YouGov, CR and MORI that gives :
Con 40.8% .. Lab 31.8% .. LibDem 17.4% .. Others 10%.
The PISSED Wells/Baxter Index with added SOAMES weighting shows :
Con 318 seats .. Lab 255 .. LibDem 45 .. Others 32.
Con 8 seats short of a majority.
……………………..
Sources :
WIND ….. Whimsical Independent News Division.
JNN …… Jacobite News Network.
ARSE ….. Anonymous Random Selection of Electors.
PISSED … Political Intelligence Seat Selector Election Determinator
SOAMES …System Of Amending Measured Election Scores
55 - “but I’m sure his mum loves him (i.e. Balls)”
by Jimbo April 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Do you have any evidence to support this extraordinary rumour?
82/84 - While people were seeeing polls with big leads, they had the “luxury” of voting for someone who might not win. Now they are seen to be closer (which again is debateable, depending on which poll you believe), the squeeze will continue. People who want to get rid of Livingstone will switch. The Lib Dems may have claimed to invented the squeeze two horse race, but they dont have the monopoly on it !
85 - “it was taught in schools even in the communist days, you could learn English - so long as you learnt Russian too!”
Not true!
As somebody who spent two years teaching in a small Czech town, I can vouch that under Communism, very little English was taught in school. For much of Eastern Europe, if a second language was taught, it was German. And most people I met on a daily basis had never learnt ANY English.
BUT… most who come here are under 30 and therefore were only 11 in 1989 and learnt a few years of English at school. Generally their “English teacher” would have had very poor English (as a former Russian teacher) and would be struggling with page 5 of the book while the students were on page 2.
The ‘Scotsman on Sunday’ reports that Gore and Carter are looking to endorse Obama in an co-ordinated action :
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/It39s-Obama-stupid-Carter-and.3976738.jp
[67] Nick Palmer MP writes an immigrant comes to Britain to do a job that we can’t otherwise fill - is this the first admission by a Labour MP that the million people his government intend to throw off Incapacity Benefit won’t find jobs and will be forced to rely on charity to feed themselves?
Will we be having another YouGov/Standard poll this week?
89 - Well that is what they did in Romania. You could learn English along side Russian. Since 1989, Russian has been dropped and all school kids learn English.
The ‘Slate’ looks at the 76 add-on delegates and how they have and might break :
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/
81 LOL Alex! You know as well as I do that my teasing had more to do winding up Myopic Eye than any desire to sniff out value in a bet on the BNP. I may not know everything there is to know about betting but I doubt there is much the Eye can teach me.
Any sense of guilt is however assauged by the thought that anybody who comes onto a betting site and expects his bar room rants to be taken seriously, despite the most tenuous of links to the main theme of the Site or indeed the thread, is asking to be shot at.
Bit off topic but 3 of the old red london routemasters have been placed on a route by me. They’ve been called the twenty, the old name for the 58 route they are covering, and are being run by a small independant company. Went on one yesterday, was quite full.
Anyhoo, good poll showings. Labour once again proving they haven’t got a clue what to do to become popular again. That plus anyone considering Ed Balls for PM must have psychological problems, the man is useless. Rubbish public speaker, Cameron would batter him in PMQ’s and everywhere else. he would be a disaster for the labour party.
72 - Not sure if the point has been made before but it seems to me that Balls is Labour’s equivalent of Portillo pre-1997 among chattering conservatives - not sure whether there is a wider national feeling for this though that would translate into a ‘were you up for Balls (!)’ moment where he ever to face defeat at an election.
Ed Balls has about as much chance of being Labour’s next leader as John Moore did of being the successor to Thatcher.
Some interesting comments this morning (except Eastern Eye, get a life you BNP bigot)
JohnLoony:
How did you calculate all those minor party estimates? Based on council/ward results or something? Why do you think eg Left List will do so well, how does Labour gain +3 seats, why does Alan Craig beat UKIP (which only gets double One London) etc. The minor’s market is what interests me at the moment since it’s hardly been mentioned in the press.
Phillippe Morgan/Sean Fear:
London Muslims only 6-7%? Yes perhaps but look at how they’re concentrated, 30%+ in my borough tower hamlets, I know the election is effectively PR but FPTP does matter in Assembly seats gained. Would the MCB favor the Respect coalition or it’s splinter or what? I have been looking at my local (Assembly) candidates and it’s an interesting range of characters:
Labour - a generic machine politician/Labour association kind of guy
Conservative - a long-time committed local councillor, small businessman
Respect - an activist type idealistic young ethnic councillor
Lib Dem - an old-hand Bengali community activist (Bangladesh Youth Movement), recently defected from Labour (caused some controversy)
Far right - National Front competing with the BNP (also English Democrats)
UKIP - a card-holding party loyalist, never held office that I can see
97 - point was made before and is a fair one. We tended to agree that whilst Portillo was very widely known in the UK, most people don’t have a clue who Balls is - apart from the anoraks such as us.
97, I do hope so. To see him be defeated, especially in my constituency, would make watching an all-night election special worthwhile.
88. As voters have a second vote if their first preference goes out, they still have the ‘luxury’ of voting for someone who might not win. The only exception being Livingstone
.
97. If Ed Balls loses his seat, it might not match Portillo for media-worthiness, but the result will match or pass that of 1997 for spectacularness. If Balls goes, I’d have thought that at least two-thirds of the PLP will be out as well - probably including Brown himself. Balls will be one of the survivors.
From the same link as 94 (thanks to Jack W for keeping us up to date on interesting Us links), a funny one:
Best Spin of the Day
By Christopher Beam
So a Clinton campaign office in Terre Haute, Ind., goes up in flames last night, and reporters ask Bill Clinton, fresh off his Bosnia revival tour, whether he thinks it’s a bad omen. He was ready for it:
“No, I think this is a good omen. We’ll rise from the ashes like the Phoenix.”
99 - Thanks SBS, I take an odd comfort in knowing my ‘original’ thoughts have been previously endorsed!
I guess the difference is that Portillo became the news on account of his leadership challenge (and thus cemented and elevated an already dubious public perception of him) whereas Balls is still very much a servant and not a challenger - perhaps if that were to change, then Balls profile among the non-anoraks would also rise.
101, the majority of Morley and Outwood was Colin Challen’s constituency, where he got over 50% of the vote last time. It would be a big shock, but if Balls goes campaigning I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to turn off a large number of the electorate.
101 - Labour were truly routed in 1983. A totemic moment was Tony Benn losing his seat - a lot was due to boundary changes. Who will be the Benn in 2010?
I remember the glee my primary teachers had at Shirley Williams (the Sec State for Education) losing in 1979 too.
103 - when Portillo lost, commentators and politicians across the spectrum said it was a bad loss for the Tories as he was one who could be expected to challenge for the leadership and the Tories had been robbed of him.
I suspect that if Balls loses, and he won’t, it will matter to a few journos, but otherwise he would just be another Cabinet minister who lost his seat… like in 1997 when Lang, Freeman (along with some better remember names) etc were swept aside.
41 alex the disturbing thing is that the BoE last week seemed to believe that easing the cost of credit was the way to deal with the excess of debt already in the system which is causing the inflation it is meant to control.
91 Innocent Abroad “is this the first admission by a Labour MP that the million people his government intend to throw off Incapacity Benefit won’t find jobs and will be forced to rely on charity to feed themselves?”
No its a shameful continuation of Labour’s spin that there are people that just don’t want to work. Hence the unlimited immigration which has forced down wages for everybody(starting with the lowest paid). Oh well, lovely authoritarian Nick Palmer will be joining the labour market in the next couple of years surely there must be a much better Polish Cat carer available and probably at half the price. Meanwhile nick can take his specimen ID card off to the unemployment office.
107. I think we’re going to see a lot less credit in the system. The correction is likely to be much too sudden. A quarter point cut won’t do much. But to be honest there’s not much that anyone can do right now.
And inflation is being driven by commodity prices. Increased global population plus increased wealth means increased demand for everything and prices going up.
108 It also does not account for the numbers of “dependents” entering the UK from Asia on the grounds that there is no one to look after them. Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but are they not suppose to be supported by their family and not be a “burden on the sate”. However, after a while they seem to be able to claim benefits and certainly many live in social housing, which is subsidised by the state.
105. Labour were routed-ish in 1983. They suffered a very bad loss, but only had 60 net losses which wasn’t too bad compared with the Conservatives in 1997. The total they ended up with was better too.
The Benn result was of similar historical importance to Portillo through. Had Benn kept his seat, he would surely have been a leading challenger for the leadership, as Portillo no doubt would have had he been in parliament in June 1997. Balls, whether he keeps he seat or not (and I firmly believe he will), is just not leadership material in the same way. That said, I’m coming to the view that David Miliband is probably the only real option Labour will have, whenever the next Labour leadership election is and under whatever circumstances.
112 - If Brown hangs on for a couple of years after losing, could Stephen Twigg come back into the equation?
91 “Nick Palmer MP writes an immigrant comes to Britain to do a job that we can’t otherwise fill - is this the first admission by a Labour MP that the million people his government intend to throw off Incapacity Benefit won’t find jobs and will be forced to rely on charity to feed themselves?”
What a silly comment. People ‘thrown off’ Invalidity will receive jobseekers allowance (the dole) and have to meet the criteria of actively seeking work - They will not have to rely on charity
67
Nick,controlled immigration is of course good for any country,I wish we had had that in the UK instead of the uncontrolled / free for all policy that your government has presided over for the past 11 years.
I would really like to know the real motive for your government allowing this to happen:
-Unwilling or unable to have a proper policy?
-Or perhaps unwilling to upset some of your core supporters by stopping benefits for those that are either too lazy to work or have no intention of working?
-We keep on hearing that we have so many unskilled job vacancies in London and yet at the same time we have 200,000 people in London between the ages of 16 to 25 years of age, not in school,or secondary education or working,clearly the benefits are too generous.
-We have approx. 670,000 vacancies in the UK at present with unemployed (registered and not registered) around 1.5 million and a further 2.5 million claiming incapacity benefit,with your own Guru bought in by Brown advising that at least 50% of these people are capable of working.
Finally,the worst aspect of this entire issue has been the constant stream of deceit coming from your government about the enormous benefits to this country of your immigration policy;which whether it be the House of Lords stating there is no economic benefits,the chief constable of Kent commenting on the immigrant crime wave,the massive increases in council tax to help pay for it or indeed Jacqui Smith advising that it was impossible to verify benefits paid to East European migrants.
Difficult to imagine how you could have given more support to the BNP if you had tried.
113 - Is Twigg certain to win his seat?
73 I’d go with that… the BNP share might even be more shocking than that. Trying to estimate what the BNP are really going to get must be a task for which no polling method is adequate.
“Nick,controlled immigration is of course good for any country,I wish we had had that in the UK instead of the uncontrolled / free for all policy that your government has presided over for the past 11 years.
I would really like to know the real motive for your government allowing this to happen”
I think it’s a mixture of incompetence and short-sightedness (blindly believing studies claiming immigration is a stimulant without looking at context and secondary effects). Like the economy in general Labour doesn’t know how to manage an economy so it doesn’t try, hands-off approach, obfuscate if things go wrong and claim credit if things go well. Another factor is that Labour party supporters tended to believe in the multiculturalism is an asset idea, it used relatively modern and popular especially in contrast with the image the Tories had before the consequences sunk in.
67 Nick Palmer when you say “an immigrant comes to Britain to do a job that we can’t otherwise fill” you must always ask the question, “Why can we not fill it from the millions of economically inactive on the benefits payroll?”
Mass unskilled and semi-skilled immigration has been camouflage for government failure to set up a social security system which is not in itself a disincentive to work. This is especially bothersome as members of your own party and one time members of your own government have issued warnings and proffered solutions - and been sacked for their pains.
Uncontrolled mass immigration meets two government needs at once: cheap labour and cheap camouflage for failures elsewhere.
116 I believe it’s Liverpool West Derby. Close contender for the Labour equivalent to K&C if this party had only one seat left it would be this title I think
Oh yes, and that HMRC poll thats been published in the papers showing low morale etc. Its about accurate.
117. It is fortunate that the BNP is something of a shambles and is caught in a bit of a catch-22 in that they will find it hard to expand beyond their current base without hundreds of people who are capable of handling elected office effectively, but they will struggle to recruit these people while much of their activist base remains of the old school, but without that activist base, they won’t win elections. Their leadership, whilst a good deal more competent than under the previous management (and indeed, more interested in winning), is still nowhere near the levels of ability of the mainstream parties.
Even so, with the levels of immigration as they are, and with the prospect of a serious economic downturn, the conditions are as good as they could be for a far-right breakthrough, especially with both main parties heading for the centre, so leaving the social right and economic left flanks uncovered. The one factor missing is an effective, charismatic leader. Were the BNP to recruit a Moseley-type figure, I’d put their chances of forming a government in the next ten years at about 3/1.
On topic, my betting remains with Boris.
120 - The ex-MP is standing as an independent.
An aide said the party was expecting Labour losses on May 1 to be heavy. “We are expecting a 200-seat loss. In the South and pockets of the North there will be losses to the Tories. In the North and Wales there will be losses to the Libs.” - Truth or spin…….
Were the BNP to recruit a Moseley-type figure, I’d put their chances of forming a government in the next ten years at about 3/1.
David, normally you’re the voice of reason, but this really is a ridiculous assertion, IMO.
125. Really? Why?
[114] Jobseekers’ allowance? Well, possibly. But it still means that people who are unemployable (because employers only want young, fit, immigrants to whom they need feel no loyalty) and who can’t jobs no matter how hard they try will lose £30+/week. Half a million people on incapacity benefit are on it because of mental illness. How many employers do you know who want to employ mentally ill people? Makes axing the 10% tax band look like small beer.
[115] Do you have a source for your claim that there are 2.5m on Incapacity Benefit? The figure I saw was 1.5m.
124 - In recent years Labour have been extremely bad at downplaying expectations. Not because they haven’t successfully managed to get their predictions adopted as the media narrative, but because they’ve tended to so badly that even the seemingly extreme scenarios that they’ve been putting out haven’t been sufficient!
james F I agree but if so what is the point of the BoE looking soft on inflation and pushing the pound down further when that quarter point cut will do nothing to ease liquidity?
123 I really don’t think it’ll matter. He was hugely divisive in his own party. Even if he got 10% wouldn’t matter
3/1? To form a Govt?
124 standard expectation management, so they can claim 2It could have been worse”
The fact that the main parties are occupying the centre is because it is from there that you gain the support needed to form a Govt. The fact that this has unpalatable consequences with extreme elements having the field free to pick up candidates doesn’t change the basic electoral arithmetic.
126 - Well, we could start by reminding ourselves that Moseley himself was a spectacular political failure in almost every respect, wasn’t he?
*field free to pick up support
Actually the bit merging IR and customs is incredibly accurate, the two have virtually no work that crosses over and no savings have been made. The staff can’t swap over as they have different skill sets.
[126] No, 3-1 is too short. The BNP would also need a name change and a big-hitting media supporter (which its economic policies would preclude, methinks).
The only way it could happen is if it won enough seats to sacre the other parties into co-alition, and still managed to keep its nose clean in opposition. To get all these ducks in a row within ten years is more likely a 15-1 shot.
Its basic appeal is to authoritarian personality types, and I think those are in the 17%-25% range of the population. However, I do expect BNP/UKIP together to outpoll Labour at some stage of the next Parliament.
127
2.7 on Incap. cost to taxpayer £12bn pa. 40% claim for mental health problems, such as ’stress’.
There are not enough jobs to go around, Brown’s economic miracle is in fact a mirage as the claim that all migrants are great workers, 80% of UK S0malis are umemployed.
[137] “to sacre” = “to scare”
James F as Brown said two days before the MPC meeting that rates would be cut and they were, despite all the logic, is the cut more to do with pleasing the government and meeting its political needs than anything else?
Their remit is, after all, as the bank says itself, “the Bank’s objectives in relation to monetary policy are to maintain price stability and, subject to that, to support the Government’s economic policies, including its objectives for growth and employment.”
Have they simply tipped too far towards the support objective. The ECB on the other hand have no such distractions in their remit and it shows.
134 - On reflection, I’ll delete the ‘almost’.
113 On the subject of Stephen Twigg,I have heard from a reliable source that he is set to succeed the veteran MP Robert Waering in Liverpool West Derby at the next GE-confirmation,please?
131. Yes - but only if they can find someone who is capable of leading them as a united party and bringing in effective political performers. I would rate the chances of that as a good deal lower - and obviously the chances of the combination of them both finding such a leader AND forming a government at a quarter of those second set of odds.
Some political changes happen very quickly; some don’t. Generally speaking, those which take place as a result of societal change happen slowly, but where there is a reaction to events, the change happens much faster. Where far-right parties have won, they have tended to rise rapidly, in response to events.
Those events include:
- severe economic downturns
- an embarrassment to national pride
- a loss of national identity
- the perception of threats from aliens, both without and within
- the failure of mainstream parties to deal with the above, of the assignment of blame to them for the creation of the problems.
The majority of the usual conditions in which far-right parties thrive are either in place, or may be before too long. I find it a very worrying time, and while I hope I am worrying needlessly, I am not at all sure that I am.