Who says polls this far out aren’t good predictors?
August 13th, 2008
Is the idea of swingback just an anti-Tory fantasy?
Yesterday on one of the threads I got into an argument with a poster
who asserted “…But no-one seriously expects the actual election to mirror the current polls.”
Well this flies in the face of what has happened at the last three general elections. I know we have had this debate before but I thought it might be useful to set out the polling at exactly the same point - 20 months out from the formal campaigns starting assuming that the election is during May 2010 - and compare it with the real votes on election day. The only pollster that has carried out surveys in the same way over the past fourteen years is ICM.
Polling 20 months before the 1997 general election
Polling 20 months before the 2001 general election
Polling 20 months before the 2005 general election
The remarkable thing about each election is that ICM was pretty good with the Tory share; the Labour numbers were on the high side and, though not quite as clear cut, the Lib Dem poll shares were below what it got on election day.
The big difference this time is that there has been a step change in the Tory position and there might just be something about the polling that is not handling the new situation. My default assumption for decades has been that Labour’s position is being over-stated in almost all polls. Maybe that does not apply any more? Maybe it’s got worse. We shall see.
We cannot, of course, conclude that the same will happen in May 2010 but what numbers we have suggest that the Tories are heading for a 15% lead in the GB vote share with, possibly, a three figure majority.
Mike Smithson
Mike Smithson
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Hmmmm….let me get this right….if some polls are putting Labour on, say, 26%, but, Mike, you are saying that they overstate Labour’s position….
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!
Ave It 08 is probably safely tucked up in bed right now, so I’ll say it for him. Hehehe.
Labour is facing total annihilation!
Labour’s base is skint and staying at home. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, people urge Obama to take the Democrat base for granted and run with anyone-but-Hillary. Hmm.
Insomnia is a terrible thing.
Be that as it may, however, I don’t see any reason why there is a floor under Labour’s support. Most people feel fleeced under this government, and Tory criticisms have resonance. About the only tihng stopping the Socialists from collapsing completely, I think, is that people can’t be certain that the Conservatives will be better.
Of course, it is POSSIBLE that there will be a Falklands size event between now and May 2010 which upsets all our calculations, but if that is what Labour is relying on, they are clutching at straws.
(Especially if Argentina DID invade the Falklands again, a military friend of mine isn’t sure that we could repel them, given how much Gordon has screwed over the military, while over-using it shamelessly).
2. Con gain ENTIRE UK including NI
Seriously, I think the polls this time are pretty much correct. If anything, I’m surprised there are as many as 26% of Labour voters with this mind-numbing idiot in charge of our so-called ‘party’
Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report and the Herald have already reported on the YouGov poll showing a 19% Scottish National Party voting intention lead over Labour (44% to 25%) for the FPTP constituency vote at the next Scottish Parliament general election in 2011.
Now we have the full data sheets published by YouGov, so we can also see the previously unavailable Westminster voting intention figures (and the Holyrood PR regional list vote).
YouGov/SNP
Westminster voting intention
Fieldwork: 6-8 August 2008
Sample size: 1028
(% change from YouGov/Daily Telegraph 8-10 July 2008)
1. SNP 36% (+3%)
2. Lab 29% (n/c)
3. Con 18% (-2%)
4. LD 13% (-1%)
oth 5% (n/c)
Pump those numbers into Baxter’s Electoral Calculus Scottish Westminster seat predictor and you get:
1. SNP 26 seats (+20 seats)
2. Lab 21 seats (-19 seats)
3. LD 7 seats (-4 seats)
4. Con 4 seats (+3 seats)
5. Speaker (M Martin) 1 seat (n/c)
http://www.yougov.com/uk/archives/pdf/SNP_website.pdf
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1286
http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2423575.0.snp_claims_record_poll_lead_over_labour.php
Twirly to tell. “Events” and all that jazz.
The breakdown of the YouGov data is interesting. It shows why the Conservatives are doing so much better in Scottish Westminster voting intention compared to their continuing poor showing for Holyrood voting intention.
Of the respondents who said that they would be voting Conservative at the next UK GE, only 69% of those same people plan to vote Conservative at the next SP GE. 21% plan to switch to the SNP for the Holyrood constituency vote, 7% to the Lib Dems… and even 4% to Labour!
That is by far the poorest ‘retention-rate’ of all 4 parties. By comparison 96% of SNP Westminster voters intend to stick with the SNP for the Holyrood election, 85% of Labour voters will stay true, and 82% of Lib Dems.
Conversely, the Lib Dems have the poorest ‘retention-rate’ in regard to the next UK GE. Only 77% of Holyrood LD voters intend to vote for Clegg’s party at the next Westminster election.
Another tidbit is that the SNP are actually doing better among women than men! That is a reversal of the usual poll findings, and very welcome it is too. The Scottish Tories are also doing better with female Scottish voters, whereas Scottish Labour are struggling to persuade women to vote for them. Straw in the wind?
Spreadfair: current seat spreads - next UK GE
Con 340 - 342
Lab 238.5 - 241.5
LD 44.5 - 48
SNP 12 - 14.5
PC 3 - 6
Next HoC is 650 seats.
There is an ongoing error in that market, long overdue for correction, because punters betting on the main Lab/Con spreads are seriously underestimating the ‘Others’.
If you take the mid-point of the Lab/Con spreads (240 and 341) you get a combined Lab/Con total of 581 seats. Add in the 19 Northern Ireland seats and that takes you to 600 seats. So, according to the Spreadfair punters the ‘Others’ (Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Respect, Kidderminster, Speaker, Independents etc) are only going to win 60 seats. Even with a poor Lib Dem performance (as seems increasingly likely) only 60 seats for the ‘Others’ looks like a serious underestimate. 80+ looks more realistic.
typo - should be 50 not 60: “… ‘Others’ (Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Respect, Kidderminster, Speaker, Independents etc) are only going to win 50 seats. Even with a poor Lib Dem performance (as seems increasingly likely) only 50 seats for the ‘Others’ looks like a serious underestimate.”
Stuart, do you think that the discrepancy between Westminster and Holyrood figures for the Tories means that some SNP voters don’t support independence?
It looks like the South of England ought to be preparing for a an invasion of Northerners when Dave gets in.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/aug/13/conservatives.regeneration
‘It’s grim ooop North’ apparently.
Had you applied exactly the same methodology a year ago on a projected date of May 2009 for the General Election:
Tel 1005 20-22 Jul 07 Con 32 = Lab 38 = LD 20 = Oth 10 = Cons -6%
Tel 1016 22-23 Aug 07 Con 34 = Lab 39 = LD 18 = Oth 09 = Cons -5%
Tel 1005 13-16 Sep 07 Con 32 = Lab 40 = LD 20 = Oth 08 = Cons -8%
Tel 1008 03-04 Oct 07 Con 38 = Lab 38 = LD 16 = Oth 08 = Cons level
Tel 1011 26-28 Oct 07 Con 40 = Lab 35 = LD 18 = Oth 07 = Cons +5%
would you have been predicting a hung parliament?
No wonder these Northerners are in such a mess, look at what they get up too when they should be working!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044051/Office-workers-sent-home-disgrace-having-sex-window-onlookers-cheered.html
Wouldn’t be allowed in the, ‘Hard Working South.’
11. thomas
Of course there will be some SNP voters who do not back Scottish independence, but all the evidence points to those people being heavily outweighed by the vast numbers of Labour, Tory and LD voters who are pro-independence.
The last polling evidence I saw suggested that approx 40% of Labour voters in Scotland are pro-independence, about 15% of Con voters, and about 5-10% of LD voters (ie. LD voters are actually more staunchly Unionist than Scottish Tories!) Whereas less than 5% of SNP voters support the Union.
Apparently, according to canvass results, about 50% of Labour voters at the recent Glasgow East by-election were actually pro-independence, which is why the SNP could not believe their luck when the Labour campaign kept banging-on about John Mason being a “hardline nationalist”! That is exactly the message the SNP wanted to get across to Labour waverers, so the Lab campaign did a massive own-goal, simply because they do not know or understand the views of their own voters.
And don’t forget that the Scottish Greens and the minor far-left parties are pro-independence too.
This is why the Unionist parties dare not support the Scottish independence referendum: they know that they could very well lose it!
VP Market. About WARNER
Yesterday, Morus wrote about the Democratic Convention:
As Hillary is speaking Tuesday night she can’t be VP? They’d switch her to Weds if she was chosen. Michelle Obama is speaking in the keynote on Monday, Hillary Tuesday, VP Wednesday, Obama Thursday. If Hillary isn’t the VP, I don’t think it will be a woman - you balance your keynote speakers, and if the VP choice was a woman, but not Hillary, I don’t think they would have given Michelle Obama the slot.
But now we know that Warner Will Be Dems’ Keynoter on Tuesday, replacing Hillary.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/warner-will-be-dems-keynoter.html
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g-miqdE6QGLZKd0kdY66KfKY7hXQD92H6QV80
Should we infer from this that Warner cannot possibly be VP?
Erratum
Warner is not replacing the lady; he’s “being giving being given the plum position”… marginalizing her in the background…
When there’s a ’settled public mind’ about the government and the opposition, it’s reasonable to assume that the polls won’t be a million miles out in terms of predicting the result. There does now seem to be a settled judgement on the government and the Conservatives wouldn’t be scoring this highly were the electorate not at least prepared to give Cameron a chance, which is why I do now think that the Conservatives will win outright, and probably with a working majority.
By contrast, I’m not sure that there was ever quite that settled view in the run-up to 1992 about Labour, which always gave the Conservatives a chance if they got their own house in order (although the public probably wanted to vote Labour if they’d have had an acceptable alternative).
FWIW, I think it’s unlikely that the Tory share will be as high as the mid-40s a lot of the polls have recently shown. Unless events conspire to push Labour even lower and the Conservatives higher, there’ll be a swingback - even if it’s small - as the Lib Dems get more coverage in the run-up to the election, and as Conservative policies come under more scrutiny (once they’re announced in full) which will inevitably put some off.
You want to know who Obama’s running mate is going to be?
Keep your Eyes on Obama’s Plane.
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2M2NTNhYWMzZmNiYTE0ODA2MWJmNWU4Mjk0NWRhNjY=
14. 400 people employed using tax payers money by this Unity Partnership for economic regeneration. Sounds like new Labour unproductive job creationism at its worst. The couple probably were stuck in the office all day with nothing to do so just gave into the boredom.
‘Glasgow or Edinburgh face sell-off in airport competition crackdown’
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Glasgow-or-Edinburgh–face.4383568.jp
‘BAA airport monopoly at risk’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58767460-6806-11dd-8d3b-0000779fd18c.html
‘Commission opens way to BAA break-up’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/12/cnbaa112.xml
15. Interesting, thanks.
20
I would just like to make an offer, to any desperate Northerner.
When Dave gets in and he starts, to purge the North, (Didn’t William the Conqueror do something similar?) I’m prepared to offer accommodation, (tented) at an exp… (whoops sorry) reasonable rent.
Georgian War
–Russia has announced a ceasefire after achieving goals.
–Medvedev and Sarkozy documented Russia’s demands in return for the ceasefire
–Sarko dealing now with Saakashvili
The grim up north story has a grain of truth in it but only a grain.
Even a refugee from the Planet Vulcan as Tim Collins allegedly referred to John Redwood could see that Regional Development Agencies would become mighty quangos which would do nothing for economic regeneration.
In my own ward I could take you to a place where a messy but indiginous local business sits along side a major nice initiative which has received public money by the megabucketload. The local business has had nothing but trouble from the nice government backed initiative. Clean up your act. Funny then that the local business has people queuing up for their services. I admit they don’t charge enough. People come out of the nice buildings shaking their heads and saying WTF was that all about. Jeez
What Dave should do is (1) abolish RDAs and (2) make it illegal to offer inducements to companies to move to particular areas and (3) use the resultant savings to reduce employers NI Levy.
I recognise that some areas have less employment than others and I know that Regional Policy was designed to deal with this but the effect has been to move money from vibrant businesses to prop up no-hopers. Of course we do want businesses to move to poorer areas but that would be better achieved by having a differential NI Employer’s levy, dependent upon local unemployment.
If governments can back winners why isn’t it the sole shareholder of Google and eBay ?
I don’t really understand the swingback theory. It seems to be put forward on the basis “that’s just the way that polls move”. But that presupposes people’s minds move in the same way that salmon migrate. There is no reason to assume that any past swingbacks (and the evidence is mixed as to how often that actually happens) will recur.
Why might polls move back towards the last election result between now and the next election? Events occur in which the Government has a chance to shine, gaffes by the Tories, the Lib Dems might start to impress or the public may reflect on the choice ahead of them and decide “better the devil you know”. None of these seem intrinsically that much more likely than their opposites.
Georgian war
–Medvedev and Sarkozy documented Russia’s demands in return for the ceasefire
–Sarko dealing now with Saakashvili
-Gordon goes to a book fair…..
-Miliband applies factor 30
I thought it was supposed to be the French that disappeared into the Grande Vacance in August?
I am surprised that Mike Smithson rebuts the ‘Swingback’ myth without linking to Andy Cooke’s seminal PB.com article on that very topic. Anyone got that link?
O/T
The Scottish property market is not looking as dodgy as down south yet. If anybody out there has a spare 15 million then they can buy a hoose in East Lothian:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2547468/Scotlands-Yester-House-on-market-for-15-million.html
6. Stuart, why no regional list voting figures? According to the Herald, the question wasn’t asked.
re 13 A fair point. Things can change but When
16 - Or it could mean Warner is the choice, in that you could shuffle the agenda quite easily so Hillary becomes the main speaker on Tuesday. It is just impossible to know.
29 Alan J
I mistakenly assumed that the regional figures would be further down the data sheet, but I got so excited at finding some new Westminster numbers that I got carried away writing my post and forgot to scroll down and check!
The Herald is right: it wasn’t asked. I suppose that even with tons of new members and funds flowing in the SNP can’t just splash money about like water. Why doesn’t a newspaper commission a Scottish poll or two for a change? (That is a rhetorical question - we all know the answer.)
30 - I would answer 13 by noting that there were obvious reasons why the polls might be unreliable guides immediately after a change of Prime Minister. The reasons why the polls might be unreliable now are far less clear.
Sky: Georgia reporting 50 Russian tanks enter Gori….
whether Labour recover from -20pts+ largely depends on how the recession pans out. Increasing inflation, more people out of work, repossessions, there are so many bad things going to happen that will be negative for the incumbent Govt, and so much for the Tories to attack. It will be difficult for Labour to attack the Tories when they are on the back foot. Even if the economy starts to recover in mid 2009, voters are an unforgiving bunch.
I am nort even sure now that booting Brown will make much difference., but how much is the loathe factor worth?
14, happy workers are more productive, and their mechanism of happiness is also good exercise. They should be commended for their commitment to boosting productivity and enhancing workplace relationships.
Of course the reason Labour was overstated, was because it was way out in front, it maybe that the party in the lead may be overstated.
As a party’s support falls it becomes more compressed, till it hits bedrock. A political party that enjoys a large lead, could be attracting less committed voters, who on the day may not bother, even though they say they will.
36
You should be offering that as a defence, when their up in front of the boss: might work!!
38
Sorry they’re not their..
36 - Putting the O into Oldham. I don’t think many people on this site can be too critical of people who waste 20 minutes of their day on activities that are not strictly work-related. If my posting levels go down in the next few days, you’ll know that my flirtation with the post room lad has paid dividends.
New SUSA poll for North Carolina :
McCain 49% .. Obama 45%
Note - Underpoll of AA by 7 points !!
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=c12aadc7-2830-4be0-8e30-a647afe3277d
Re. 14, they were clearly on the job, just not one the one they were paid to do.
Re. the floor for Labour’s support, I agree. I think that’s one reason why the defeat this time could be worse than 1983. I’d say our core supporters are probably more fed up than then. Some are fed up over immigration, some are fed up over Vehicle Excise Duty and the abolition of the 10p rate of tax, and others are fed up with the ban on smoking in pubs.
re 37. Then how do you explain the polls before the 1992 general election?
BBC say the Labour MP for Glenrothes has died.
O/T, but did anyone else get a Vista service-patch last night?
Obviously I did, but was shocked when my laptop rebooted, launched WinMail, and appears to have scanned my LAN to find my ISP-provider details. How much more is MacroSoft doing that I am unaware off…?
15 Those are typical Stuart Dickson comments on the views of Scottish people to Independence which are just not backed up by any available facts .
Let us examine his claims
40% of Labour supporters are pro Independence
Latest figure for Labour support is circa 25% therefore that equates to 10% of Scottish vote
15% of Conservative supporters pro Ind equates to
around 2.5% of total Scottish vote
10% of LibDems pro Ind equates to around 1.5% of the total Scottish vote
90% of SNP supporters pro Ind equates to around 40% of total Scottish vote .
Total in favour of Independence 54% plus a few from Greens and smaller parties .
Last opinion poll Yougov July had a direct question resulting in just 36% who would vote yes and 48% who would vote no to Scottish Independence .
ERgo some at least of Stuart’s figures must be wrong .
Glenrothes 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/707.stm
SNP will fancy their chances after Glasgow East…
The BBC is reporting that the Labour MP for Glenrothes has died. He had 52% at the last GE with SNP 23%, LD 13% and Con 7%. A nightmare for Gordon - how can Labour possibly hold this seat?
34. Already denied.
These claims and denials are a daily occurence.
New Insider Advantage Poll for Florida :
McCain 47.8% .. Obama 44.2% .. Barr 2.4%
Note - Undersample of AA and Latino and McCain polls 16% AA. Mmhhh.
http://insideradvantagegeorgia.com/FL_Aug_Pres_Poll_Results(8-12-08).pdf
42
When looking at the odds for a fourth term government, always a good idea to look at this.
http://ubh.tripod.com/ub/courses/his435/uk20c01.htm
Not many are there!
#46
And oil is below $120 a barrel. This is the figure that recent research - partly funded by The Economist - suggested was required for Scotland to make a modest net-provision to the UK economy. I’d also hazard a guess that - sans independence - inflation will be higher in the less densely populated Caledonia, what with all that mileage between their wee little towns.
But fair-play Stuart, you are consistent in your views. Almost as predictable as backing which team will win the SPL…!
Beeb reporting that John MacDougall Labour MP for Glenrothes has died after a long illness.
the Lib Dem poll shares were below what it got on election day. - I think the 2005 one understates them by 0.5% doesn’t it.
44 - very sad indeed- he was a really nice man, I met him a few times. Condolences to his family.
The article is spot on with this I think.
Its sad about John MacDougall.
Poor Gordon, can anyone remember so many by-elections happening in just over a year? I make this the 6th and probably another one gone.
52 Very sad. A last link to Labour’s past.
Polls are supposed to be a reaction, aren’t they? They are not the determiner of the future. If nothing changes, the polls will stay the same. But if something was to change the perception of Brown or Cameron or both, the polls could potentially change. The mood is as the polls describe but the mood can alter, as we have seen with the Tory rise, rather quickly.
There is still plenty of time to alter that mood without need for a “big event” to bring the next election back towards a hung parliament result. My problem is that I don’t see Brown trying to alter anything but merely trying to hang on. Miliband was lording it over him just a couple of weeks ago and he got away with it. There’s the rest of 2008 and the whole of 2009 to chip away at the Tories. But the reason it’s unlikely to happen is not because the polls are a good predictor but because it’s in the interest of potential leaders to coast until Labour lose. So it’s up to Brown. If I were him, I’d forget the cabinet and go to the grassroots of the party directly. Appeal to them because they’ll be needed much more than the cabinet over the next 20 months.
52. Only a 14% swing needed for the SNP. Is the market up yet?
Negative real interest rates for the first time since the early 80’s recessions:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/13/cncpi113.xml
Repeat after us: “No return to boom and bust, No return to boom and bust!“
@58:
Provided the Nats don’t get complacent, they should walk Glenrothes comfortably, I would have thought.
52 - Terribly sad news.
44/47. Sad.
Looks like a nailed on SNP gain..
58 - I think that we can stop metaphorically dividing the spoils. The news broke less then a quarter of an hour ago. It is pretty undignified to be engaging in speculation over the by-election this soon.
11 You seem to be assuming (1) all Tory voters are Unionists and (2) even if they are, this is an overriding issue when deciding who to vote for.
Given that the SNP has offered a referendum before independence, maybe even unionists are prepared to vote for them in the SP on the basis of domestic policy, on the grounds that it has no bearing on the question of independence. Similarly, voters may feel that a Conservative vote is more effective in an election to the Imperial parliament, as it is a vote for a UK-wide party.
I suppose I am a unionist, but in the absence of a proper constitutional settlement for England in the current devolution setup, ie federalism, I could support English independance - even in the absencer of Scottish independence.
@63:
You must be new here.
65: Someone always like to pose…
57 . If I were him, I’d forget the cabinet and go to the grassroots of the party directly. Appeal to them because they’ll be needed much more than the cabinet over the next 20 months. - I’m not sure that’d work.
“Negative real interest rates for the first time since the early 80’s recessions”
Yes, it has not been this bad since the tories were in control, lets vote back in the only party to do worse than this!
67. Punter - do you think there’s been too much damage caused by Brown to the grassroots?
55. Historically, it’s fairly normal I think. There were eight by-elections in 2000.
Blair’s second term, and the first half of this parliament, were exceptional in this regard.
Morning all
First, condolences to the family of John McDougall.
Ok, title of the thread “swingback”. I think the “myth” derives from the 1960s and 1970s. We all know how badly Labour was routed in the 1968 local elections and in a string of by-elections yet an infamous NOP poll just before the 1970 election suggested a Labour win and in the end, while the Tories won by 30 seats, much of that was built on the collapse of the Liberals.
In the mid-70s, Labour and the Liberals took a pounding in local elections but the view was (and is often repeated) that had Callaghan gone to the country in October 1978, he might have won Labour a small majority.
Polling is much more sophisticated - no argument. It may well be that people have made up their minds and nothing will change that. I think there is a greater degree of volatility and while I think a Conservative overall majority is now the most likely outcome, I’m not bold enough to back a 15% Tory lead and a resulting 100+ majority. My view is more conservative (so to speak) but I can’t base that on empirical evidence but nor can I ignore the fact that sudden large shifts in public opinion can and do happen.
Final thought - the ludicrous Policy Exchange document (what is about right-wing thinkers and their understanding of how the world really works ?) is worth considering. If we move people out of certain northern towns and build walls round them we could solve the prison overcrowding problem at a stroke.
And what a movie…Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken in “Escape From Sunderland”
55. Also, according to Wikipedia, Glenrothes would be the fifth this year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_by-elections#54th_Parliament_.282005.E2.80.93present.29
Gordon’s constituency could soon be surrounded. SNP win.
Good battle for 3rd and 4th between the Cons and the Scottish Pensioners party looming too.
@68:
The difference is, no Tory would have the gut-scorchingly idiotic hubris to pretend they had abolished the economic cycle. “No more boom and bust”, indeed.
Fool.
The one thing every politician worth his salt learns is not to create hostages to fortune. Not Gordon.
65 - You know that I’m not, I just think that a reasonable amount of dignity costs nothing. There will be plenty of time to discuss this at a more appropriate time!
@74:
Objection noted.
68, Winter of Discontent?
Game. Set. Match. To Mike Smithson.
I think the oublic have now decided that they want and Conservative government next time, and the polls right now are pretty reflective of what will happen at the general election. Labour are heading for their worst result since 1923? And perhaps the worst ever election result for a governing party?
64. No I agree with you! (By the way, I don’t think ‘Imperial Parliament’ is a just phrase.) I just wondered what Stuart’s response was as he supports independence.
Game. Set. Match. To Mike Smithson.
I think the public have now decided that they want a Conservative government next time, and the polls right now are pretty reflective of what will happen at the general election. Labour are heading for their worst result since 1923? And perhaps the worst ever election result for a governing party?
64. The one thing missing from Scottish polls, as far as I can see, is where the voters put the Independence/Devolution constitutional issue as a priority against crime, health, education etc.
re 63. James - this is a problem we always face. The fact is that the death changes the political environment - another Scottish by election another possible humiliation for Labour.
It’s sad but everybody who goes into politics must be aware that this is what will happen if they are unfortunate to die while in office.
74 - Is it an appropriate time yet James?
How about now? etc.
..and to 63 - what were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown doing within hours of John Smith’s death being made known? Of course they were plotting.
81. Compare this event with the number of deaths in Georgia and Iraq - people seem happy to ponitificate about those at length real time. Ok I feel sorry for the family but I didn’t know the MP either “shrug”.
84 - Yes but they maintained a veneer of dignity and didn’t launch their campaigns within 15 minutes. I just think that it is appropriate to wait at least a few hours.
Was John Macdougall a former asbestos worker? Mesothelioma is almost unheard of except among those exposed to asbestos.
Unemployment up by 60,000. And this is only the start of the downturn…!
We should all now recite the lines of New Labour’s hymn: No more boom and bust, no more boom and bust…. What say you ed…?
@86:
James, as far as I know, none of us are launching campaigns. We’re just talking about what will happen.
It’s what we’re here for, you know.
Yes, it’s very sad, a man has died, I’m sure the family are distraught. But the universe carries on ticking along for the rest of us, and there’s betting opportunities to be had.
Money talks, bereavement walks?
15% swing to SNP required to take the seat.
Anyone know whether Gordon can postpone the by-election until after the conference?
BREAKING NEWS: John MacDougall MP has died.
http://www.order-order.com/2008/08/rip-john-macdougall-mp.html
On Mike’s piece, we should always be wary of selective use of data, and choosing one pollster over three elections can’t be described as anything other than selective.
If you’d include the previous FOURTEEN general elections, the picture would be entirely different.
We know that the period 1992 to 2003 was exceptional in our political history. It was the most uncompetitive period since records began, with the Tories exhibiting a seeming death-wish.
On the other hand, since 2005 the lead appears to have changed 5 times….
@90:
Do keep up, Morus.
@91:
Rod, let it go. You got *served*, man.
87 - boilermaker; probably exposed to asbestos insulation as part of this, I should think.
89 - “Money talks, bereavement walks?”
You see that is the kind of heartlessnes that I am against!
GB must be asking himself if he hasn’t failed Napoleon’s first requirement of a general, ‘Are you lucky?’ To lose one by-election to the SNP is bad, to lose two………..?
93. !
And perhaps the worst ever election result for a governing party?
by GIN August 13th, 2008 at 9:38 am
- They’d have to go some to beat the Canadan Tories in 1993 possibly.
73
No Tory would say what?? oooH! how often would I hear Ted Heath saying, ‘The only problems we have, are the problems of success’
93. The kids would say pwned
69 No I mean even at grassroots level there is huge disillusionment. Were he a real left winger he could probably ride on the support of Surrey CLPs etc where only true believers reside. But after the Thatcher photos amongst other things he can’t. We know he’s already at war with the Blairites and the Center ground is terrified at potentially massive Tory victory. I don’t where any GB grassroots support exists.
90 - http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2424054.0.John_MacDougall_leading_Scottish_Labour_MP_dies.php
He was MP for Glenrothes (next door to G Brown’s constituency), with a 2005 Lab majority 10,664.
78 It was a phrase I picked up from one of my Northern Ireland colleagues at my work (no I’m not sure which tradition he is from). It seems a reasonable phrase to me, especially given the position on English national determination - which seems to be one of those issues that is not allowed to be discussed, along with drugs policy.
100 - I’m not sure, leet-speak is beginning to sound a little dated.
G, Ed, what are you kids using these days?
91 - In a period when parties are neck and neck, you would expect the lead to change regularly (indeed, I recall the analogy of a boatrace being used for a while at the end of last year). That does not mean that 2005-2007 was a particularly volatile period, it just means that the Tories and Labour were close.
There is nothing inconsistent in saying that the period from the last election to late 2007 was neck and neck and saying that since that period there has been a decisive switch to the Tories. Particularly following the March 2008 budget, there has been a sharp drop in Labour support and a sharp rise in Tory support. It is as though a section of the country simultaneously collectively lost patience with the Government. Is there any reason to expect Labour to recover a large part of that loss of support? At present, no particular reason - though it could of course happen.
92 - Sorry, didn’t have time to read thread as it popped into my inbox alerts.
@104:
Either way, it’s definitely on.
Was Gordon Brown plotting so immediately after John Smith’s death as Tony Blair evidently was? Perhaps he was but then made sure that the he was seen to be in the ‘genuine mourning crowd’ so that it couldn’t be said of him that he was was plotting with undue haste.
Governments have the levers of power and can occasionally use these to their advantage in the lead up to an election.
In past times a combination of interest rate cuts and a giveaway budget 18 months out from the election has been worth 5 points or so - enough to preserve the Governments majority on more than one occasion.
However the compbination of BoE independence, the sagging exchange rate and the rapidly deteriorating public finances mean that anything too drastic this Autumn could derail what is left of our economy *before* the election not after it.
Nonethless this is the only route available and it might help them a bit.
109. Gordon’s best policy would be to come out and say the economy was looking grim and he was going to tighten the nation’s belt. Stating he was more interested in the long term future of the country than his popularity - the country more important than his future. He’d win a lot of kudos for that sort of honesty.
Never happen in a million years tho.
My point in 108 was in response to 84.
gordo..honesty lol
67. There’s a discussion in one of the Yes, Prime Minister episodes about whether upsetting parliament or the electorate was more damaging. Hacker responds that the electorate can’t vote against him until the next election, whereas parliament can vote against him at six o’clock. It’s the same with Brown and his cabinet / grassroots.
FWIW, a Glasgow East swing in Glenrothes would produce an SNP majority of 5,000+…
Unemployment rises another 20,000 in July, and up 60,000 in the last three months on the ILO measure. Employment growth also slowed dramatically and looks set to turn negative in the next few quarters.
A recession in the second half of the year now looks a hot favourite. Labour’s ratings are going to plunge even further.
114. Perhaps Labour will decline to put up a candidate in such a hopeless seat.
-46. Error probably biggest in the 90% SNP supporting independence. Be surprised if its over 50%. Sure their membership shouts very loudly, but its all of about 11,000, and only costs a fiver! Have to be carefull generalising from a personal position, but for what it is worth I have voted SNP and certainly do not support independence.
Sky reporter confirming 40+ tanks now in Gori.
It was clear from Newsnight last night that there was ethnic strife around Gori…
The Georgian president is a pillock…
#39
Coldstone, I’d take it you are blogging from outside Gori. Nust be the other side of the town, as Sky are reporting - live - of 40+ Russian tanks firing on the civilian population.
Have to admire the left-wingers. They will never allow the truth to get in the way of their worship of dictatorial Russia (soon to be new-and-improved by the EU)!
#118
Nust = Must. D’oh!
116. They could always try putting up the local MSP, oops, no they can’t - Fife Central is held by the SNP.
117 - The BBC aren’t carrying this story.
Taking into account the poll above on Scottish Westminster voting intentions, assuming a uniform swing from the last GE (SNP +18.3%, Labour -10.5%) would give a result on Glenrothes of SNP 15,569, Labour 15,472, Lib Dem 3,009, Conservatives 1,605, Others 1,712 giving the SNP a majority of 127. Another too close to call by-election which no doubt Labour will lose by a bigger margin than the polls suggest, giving credence to the Smithson argument that the polls always overstate Labour.
Maybe Gordon should tell us the real inflation figures, apply them to the GDP calculations and admit we are in a recession.
121, must be true then:p
Really interesting piece of analysis. My only concern is that the Labour Party is so volatile right now, as is our economy, that it’s difficult to see a few weeks ahead - let alone a few months and years.
The Conservatives can still screw it up as well.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Morning all, courtesy of my friend Maggie Thatcher Fan I have just heard about Glenrothes.
Firstly let me say all I have heard about John MacDougall is that he was a fine traditional Scottish Labour MP from a typically solid hard-working background and indeed it appears his years of toil as a young man in heavy industry have caused his untimely death at 60. To his family, friends and any Scottish Labour supporters on PB I extend my sincere sympathies.
as to the by-election, if anyone cares to look backa couple of months ago to when I first started talking about Glenrothes, I expect the SNP to overturn Labours 10,660 majority of 28% and creat an SNP majority of 5,000.
folks this is Gordon Brown’s back door. He is a neighbouring MP. Everyone will be out to hammer Labour.
Remember last year at Holyrood, the SNP’s Tricia Marwick took Central fife from Labour and this is the backbone of the Glenrothes seat.
the only other real interest is in 3rd place. This is also next door to the Libdem’s last big success in Dunfermline where Willie Rennie scored a huge victory over Labour.
In 2005 the Libdems were a distant 3rd but with almost 5,000 votes or more than 12%, they had almost double the vote of the tory candidate, just as in Glasgow East. I would be surprised if the Tories overhaul the Libdems here but if they do and move into 3rd place then as I have predicted for other parts of Scotland (and which Mike can confirm) 2010 is not looking good for the Scottish LibDems.
However this by-election is unlikely before October so with a new leader in place, the Scottish Libdems may get a bounce and hold 3rd place comfortably. Now I must wait and see the odds the bookies offer.
Incidentally if Labour strategists have any sense, they will hold the Motherwell Holyrood by-election on the same day. that way they ahve the chance of dilluting the SNP pool of workers and if, as I expect, they lose both seats, they will get them over with all at once. Otherwise the drip drip will continue when they lose Motherwell next Spring.
My sympathies go out to John MacDougall’s family - didn’t realise that he was a former bookmaker. I echo what Easterross says above.
Any odds on Gordon losing his seat at the next GE ?
125. The economy isn’t volatile - it is going clearly in one direction.
127 - boilermaker, not bookmaker. Too early in the morning!
@129:
Volatile in the organic chemistry sense, i.e. rapidly evaporating?
126 Not unlikely. It can’t occur until Parliament returns in October and the writ is moved by the holding party. It could then be nearly Christmas.
128
If Gordon lost his seat at the GE, Labour would be down to a couple of dozen MP’s…
How long can a party delay before calling a by election, Is there a legal timescale by which time it must be called?
Easterross, who are the likely candidates in the by election.
101 (Punter): I can see how there is no grassroots support for him personally but these people are part of the same party, from Brown to the activists. Even party members who dislike Brown (so that’s all of them, basically) must want to at least attempt a comeback. If not, they must change leader right away lest they waste the next 20 months of their party’s life.
131. Very good
At this rate Labour won’t have enough MPs to get 42-day internment through, even with the homophobic help of the DUP, when the Lords rightly send the measure back to the Commons.
9. Stuart Dickson makes a very important betting point here. He projects 99+ seats for the “Other” parties at the next GE. “Other” = anyone but Labour or Tory. If he is correct and we round it up to 100, then that leaves 550 seats Total Labour + Tory. Stuart points out that currently the midspread total is 581.
If Stuart is right about the “Other” parties projected total of 100 seats then there is a serious anomaly in the spreads. Between them Labour and Tory seats are 30 seats too high. I know where I think the anomaly lies.
Do PBers agree with Stuart’s analysis?
122. “giving credence to the Smithson argument that the polls always overstate Labour.”, which is debateable anyhow. 2005, 1983, 1979, Feb 1974, 1964, 1955, 1951, 1950 and 1945 are the er… “exceptions”
while the Crosby thesis is that by-elections always underestimate the government, to which there are NO exceptions….
138. Ah well at least you agree on Jeremy Vine..
138 - So in the last 25 years of elections, 1 poll has understated Labour and the rest have overstated them? You seem to be unwittingly agreeing with me.
Swingback: the new holocaust denial?
134. That’s what I mean’t. Your idea that GB appeal to the grassroots could well see jim given the bird and finished immediately.
133 Only convention that a writ is moved within three months. Technically there are no legal requirements.
138 - So my recollection from 1979 of an eve of poll headline in the Daily Mail of “Labour in the Lead” is a false memory?
133 There’s nothing stopping the SNP moving the writ.
Of course there will be a swing back to Labour. It’s obvious there will be one…. when Labour hit bottom.
When labour poll under 20%, then they are near or at bottom.
Till then, the economy will do it’s job.
PS: Gordon did say “No return to Tory boom and bust” and of course he was and is exactly correct.. This is “Labour boom and bust” spiced with arrogance and hubris on their behalf..
I see I’m too slow with the bad news. Surely Labour won’t repeat the mistakes of a very short campaign again.
145
It’s ? Doh its…
138. The last 3 polls prior to 2005 GE had Labour at 38%, 38% and 3%. Outcome 36.2%. ME or overstatement?
Labour defeat denalists: the new John Junors.
148 Ooops last figure should have been 37%
@145:
Saying “of course” doesn’t make it true. As Mike has to point out time and time again, the evidence for swingback is specious and largely in Rod’s mind. Labour have always been overstated in polls. How do we know they’re not still being?
148 3%?
143. I have no record of it. All the 1979 final polls showed a Tory lead, although Gallup had it considerably tighter than the rest.
OT. Sterling crashing through the floor after the latest BoE inflation report.
154 - yep, nice 170 pip move down! Now finding some support round 1.8830 USD
137. Continuing with this theme. If there is currently an overestimate of Total [Labour + Tory] seats of 30 and if the anomaly is shared equally between the two parties, then the corrected midpoint for Labour seats becomes 225 and Tory seats 327.5, based on current Spreadfair midpoint prices. A tiny overall Tory majority!
So either a hung parliament is better value than currently priced up or Labour seats are too high or Stuart’s projection is wrong. SNP spread ticked up slightly on the news of the death of the John MacDougall. Now 13.0-14.5.
144 Yes there is the writ has to be unopposed or it goes to a vote where the Government has a majority. It is possibly the last convention any whip in any party would break. A Labour whip showed how far they prepared to intervene to persuade a Northern Irish MP not to bject to the Bobby Sands writ moving in 1981. Ergo the SNP won’t. Why do they need to anyway.
The sad news of an MP’s inevitably brings talk of a by-election, I would just like to look at this in another way. Brown by universal acclaim is heading for the rocks, will the coming by-election mean that any challange is deffered? For two reasons; the first is that this by-election being so closly linked to Brown would finish Brown if and when Labour lose. The second is if Labour oust Brown - the new leader has to fight a by-election they are likely to lose anyway due to SNP assecendency in Scotland.
To me this is a blow to Labour in a way that some other seats would not be, added to which i don’t think the writ can be forwarded in a recess?
142 (Punter): “Your idea that GB appeal to the grassroots could well see jim given the bird and finished immediately.”
The image of the members standing on the conference floor and literally and in unison giving Brown the bird made me laugh.
I really think it’s his only route, even though it risks rejection. Otherwise he’s just hanging on for the sake of being Prime Minister a bit longer.
BoE predicting recession
The Bank of England says it expects the UK economy will not grow at all over the next year or so.
In the Bank’s gloomiest assessment yet, governor Mervyn King said that he expected growth “to be flat” and did not rule out a recession.
“I think with broadly flat output, it’s bound to be the case that there is a possibility of a quarter or two of negative growth,” Mr King said.
138 On most occasions though the Government was the Tories yes.
137 Yes, StJohn, I do agree.
The obvious lead for us punters to take from Stuart’s excellent post is that the greater value must be on the sell side. Of course, you still have to figure out which Party is the best sell options but at least you know that if you get that right, you should be on a well priced winner.
It will not surprise you to know that at current levels, I think the best value is in selling Labour but that’s one that can be argued about. It’s almost indisputable that there has to be value in the sell prices somewhere.
156 - I think an SNP spread of 13-14.5 is probably around what they will get in a General Election. It would represent a doubling of their seat tally and I cannot see that they would be able to do significantly better than that when issues other than SNP touchstones would dominate.
160 - Mervyn going about as close as he dares to tell the real truth. Guessing that he is feeling somewhat emboldened having secrued the 2nd term, and the desperate weakness of GB’s position. Well done Mervyn!
148. YouGov and NOP, which are usually included in the list of “finals”, had Labour on 36%. You will certainly not be able to rule out chance in 2005 for the negligible apparent overstatement in Labour.
151. “the evidence for swingback is specious and largely in Rod’s mind.”
OK, tell me any Opposition that has ever gone on to improve (or equal) its by-election performance. Just one will do….
ONE ?
Anyone?
165. Whats your current GE 2010 prediction Rod out of interests ?
104. pwned will do fine
By the way this is hillarious:
http://www.destructoid.com/local-news-pwns-1337-kids-parentz-rofl–28287.phtml
Rod Crosby: the new John Junor.
@165:
We’re not talking by elections, Rod, as well you know. By their nature, they massively exaggerate trends and swings.
What we’re talking about is polling.
@167:
Though l33t is more a geek phenomenon than the native tongue of da yoot.
155. Hunchman, how low do you think it will go? I’ve never tried spread betting until last week, having avoided the commons seats markets, but seeing the state of the economy thought that Sterling at 1.90+ was the nearest thing to a sure bet and dipped my toe in the water. Please tell me it isn’t this easy normally?
166. I expect a hung parliament…
169. “What we’re talking about is polling.”
And I’ve amply demonstrated that your slavish echoing of Mike’s nostrums is misplaced…
172 lol
172. Wow - thats optimistic for Labour : you can get 2.6/1 on that on betfair - fill your boots/free money.
O/T:Northern cities ‘beyond revival’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7556937.stm
This is completly mad! You go round any of the Northern cities such as Leeds and Manchester and they have been significantly rejuvinated. Bradford is not that much of a shit hole - it’s problem is they demolished half the city centre and left it vaccant for 4 years! It will now in all likelyhood stay like that for another 4 years due to credit crunch and recession but rise from the ashes i have no doubt it will.
The housing stock, people, infrastructure etc is not something you can just leave in a small island like this! They are finite resources and integral to the economy.
These areas should be made into ’supe - enterprise’ zones with zero business taxes and incentives to regenerate.
137 - 650 MPs in the UK Parliament; Labour held 356 MPs and the Tories held 196 MPs at the last election (out of 646) - ie 554 MPs. The extra 4 are, I believe, all attributed to either Labour or the Tories.
From the 650 MPs,
- 18 in Northern Ireland (unchanged).
- of the 59 in Scotland, the SNP are likely to gain some beyond their 7, but the Lib Dems are also likely to lose some of their 12.
- of the 40 in Wales, Lib Dems currently hold 4, Plaid Cymru hold 3 and one independent.
There may be net gains in Scotland and Wales for Others of 5 (though this is hardly cast iron).
That leaves the English seats, comprising 1 Wyre Forest Hospital man, 1 Respect and 47 Lib Dems.
For the current assumed midpoint to be correct, the Lib Dems would be facing carnage in England beyond even Martin Day’s wildest dreams.
153 - I have done a bit of research, and found this link. It also casts doubt on your inclusion of 1979 as an exception to Mr Smithson’s rule:
http://www.matthewturner.co.uk/Blog/2004/05/thatcher-6-last-opinion-polls-before.html
171 - as above, even in light of the BoE report, I was expecting 1.8830 support to hold, 1.8760’s - wow! Starting to get into oversold territory now, be wary of a countertrend rally, before we resume downwards to 1.85 and even 1.80 before the end of the year.
176
That report is just muppetry.
We live near Stoke On Trent.
20 years ago: a dump : dead mines, pottery factories clsoing.
Now with EC money and private investment, rejuvenated.
Why Stoke City are even in the Premier League (if only for a year).
Mind you we do have lots of mixed industry and private enterprise plus one big private company Phones4U.
Proves what can be done..
(But on industry towns may be a different issue)
John MacDougall - apparently Gordon spent some time with him in hospital on his visit to Scotland last week - credit to him for that.
Georgia against Russia beach volleyball now on the Beeb - the irony of it all!
180 - and a leading bookmaker
181 - the guy was already ill - I think Gordon can only claim an “assist” on this one.
182 - Shades of Hungary V USSR in the waterpolo at the Melbourne games
182 - Reminiscent of the 1956 Olympics “Blood in the Pool” waterpolo match between Hungary and the USSR.
re 138. Rod - over the past two decades the polls have always overstated Labour. In every single general election, by election where there has been polling and in every London mayoral race this has been the case.
You will be denying the holocaust next!
179 hunchman EU zone inflation is thought to be well over 4% and the figures tomorrow may well show higher than expected as did the UK.
The Euro has been falling against the dollar but not as fast as the Pound, perhaps because of all the cash that has rushed into the Euro in the last year or so has enough inertia to keep it up?
A truly excellent Hopi Sen blog about the tories commitment to the anti-poverty agenda and how labour could/should challenge it:
http://hopisen.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/nudge-try-a-ruddy-great-shove/#more-414
At the moment, I think Hopi is wearing the best leftwing blog hat.
183 - yep, and I refuse to do any business with bet365 as a result of Peter Coates. The fewer words said about Mr Coates the better, given my loathing of all that is the Joke aka Stoke City!
Madasafish - where abouts in Stoke are you from? My parents live the other side of Keele University
176 - There are some places in the south of the country (Thames Estuary perhaps?)that fit into the description of this report, so what should they do? Move north?
178. Those figures do not accord with those in “British Political Facts 1900-94″ (D.Butler & G.Butler), and don’t include Marplan, which was nearly spot on…
@189:
A leftie that doesn’t belive we Tories are all pure, unreconstructed evil?
I pity the fool. Muhahahahahaha.
180. I went to UNI in the mid 1990’s and Stoke was a major part of my life. If anything i would say that it was worse than Bradford! I have not been there for at least 9 years and only passed through on the train so don’t know what it is like now! Liverpool has some real dodgy areas but it is not that bad either.
I think the people writing the report have probably never really been out of the south! It was a bit like me saying Glasgow was full of people nutting each other and bodies floating down canals. When i looked into it as a whole it was not like that.
Forget the beach volleyball - there is a judo semi final between a Georgian and a Russian coming up on BBCi right now. Expect sparks to fly.
187….and relying on bye-election data for the thesis if swingback is fatally flawed since it depends upon the pure chance of the sorts of seats that become available to be contested.
191. Very true some of the med-way towns are shit holes: Indeed some places in Kent and Essex are F*cking ugly & horrible places! They usually have Labour councils for large periods of time…….
191. And why send all those orrible lazy Northerners to Cambridge ? We’d rather have Poles thank you very much..
188 - looking for the US retail sales out this afternoon to be weaker than the market consensus, so some small reversal in EURUSD to 1.5080 area, even 1.52? seems to be the indication technically wise, before we resume downwards to the 1.44/1.45 area in the short term. However, I think EUR will rally from there as the market is pricing in about 150 basis points US interest rates rise. Personally I just don’t see that given the utter weakness of the US economy, Cramer / Kudlow et al keep calling the bottom in financials, I just don’t see it with all the Alt-A mortgages about to blow up in a big way, about double sub-prime. So I’m looking for a move long term back to 1.60 and possibly beyond, although the double top in the last 4-5 months at that level well and truly set the ceiling for now.
190
North.
Biddulph.
199 hunchman if you are right then that will be the death knell of the non-germanic area economy, and that will knock on to Germany itself as they have captured so much of the internal market.
Won’t that have an effect on the Euro value?
And if Trichet is forced into a retreat ( as I think he will be ) that too must have an effect. No?
Stoke is of course reconstructed mainly old Labour. The BNP are doing well in Council elections largely because Labour are doing what any party with a monolpoly does…
One of the clever little tests I had to do when I was being considered for the Conservative Candidates list was an assessment of whether you could separate the strength of an argument from the strength of your *feelings* about an argument.
In politics it is very important to be able to evaluate whether the other side has a strong point, if you disagree with it passionately this can be very hard to do.
There were great questions (A classic one I remember was ‘do you agree or disagree, nationalised industries protected the jobs of thousands of workers’. Lots of Tory candidates said ‘disagree’ because they disagreed with the policy although the fact is true - the nationalised industries did protect thousands of jobs).
Rod Crosby is another of those once very rational posters who since Labour have dropped off a cliff seems to have lost the ability to see reason.
The argument at the top of the page is very strong, I’d say alomst incontrovertable, but because it contrasts so passionately with what Rod believes he just cannot see it.
I am certain that is how you can make lots and lots of money gambling on politics.
Haven’t many of these Northern cities been losing population rapidly for many years anyway - despite endless provision of regional aid and regeneration wheezes?
187. I note your contraction from “always” to “always over the past two decades.” Still wrong. The polls did not overstate Labour at the last general election, beyond the realms of chance.
Since you have decided to break your own ordinance on discussion of “Holocaust issues” in a cheap shot at me, might I point out that there are also a few Jews who “deny” the “Holocaust”…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_zdhH6dEo&feature=related
200 - know that area well, have a very good friend who lives on Biddulph Moor. Some great views from up there, especially when you can see Manchester Airport on a really clear day.
182. And Czechoslovakia v Russia in the ice hockey in 1968.
206
Bit cold in winter: southern softies shiver sitting surrounded by slivers of silken sleet..:-)
204 - Some have. But regeneration isn’t purely about preventing population from declining. It is about ensuring people who want to stay have reasonable job opportunities and a pleasant standard of living.
The auther confirmed my opinion he had not been t the relevant cities town’s!
210 - quite right. Dreadful places.
205 — Well they must be stupid and/or far-rightist Jews then, like the former Chief Rabbi who argued that gay foetuses should be aborted.
I understand Queen Victoria was passionately against women getting the vote. So?
209. It’s difficult to stand in the way of massive shifts in the economic balance of power.
Remember most of these cities were tiny places before the industrial revolution, and once the reason that brought people there is gone, it’s only natural that the population will shrink. Policy should aim at facilitating this adjustment, not standing in its way.
It’s really the same sort of argument we had about propping up loss-making nationalised industries years ago.
BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial) - Industrial output in the euro zone was unchanged in June from May and was down 0.5 percent year-on-year, EU statistics agency Eurostat said.
Economists polled by Thomson Financial News had forecast a month-on-month rise of 0.1 percent and no change year-on-year.
213. I would be opposed to picking winners, what i would say though is tax breaks etc are a beneficial thing to the whole economy. Everybody living in London would be horrible.
I also question what a few extra grand a year would get many folk living in the north moving south. For instance i have my own flat here in the north: If i lived in London i would have to share a horrible little flat with other people in all likelyhood. It’s a false wealth affect. I have lived in London and i have lived up here in the North with divurgent rates of pay. I would plump for the North anytime and i will not move south again even though nobody takes the piss out of my accent in the south! Just to expensive and their is no sense of community - unless you live in some nice home county place.
OBAMA/McCAIN — WIN PERCENTAGE
intrade (last trade): 60.4 / 36.9 %
betfair (last trade): 65.79 / 31.25 %
538.com (e-projection): 65.4 / 34.7 %
205. David Cole recanted his views in the late 1990s.
212. You have as much chance of converting Rod from Holocaust Denial as you do of convincing JohnLoony that the deaths under Mao and Stalin were deliberate. Some people’s confirmation bias is just too strong.
217 — Or me to sign up for an ID card…
210
Ther are some former mining towns and villages that no-one in their right minds would want to live in given a choice.. both in Scotland and ENgland. From the look of them - and the people in pubs and clubs all day , well over 60% of the population of working age must be on benefits.
In those cases, regenration IS a lost cause..
201 - that’s a really interesting question. I always dislike it when my body politic comes up against the general perception within the foreign exchange market!
Personally I believe that the founders of the Euro knew in the late 1990’s that sooner or later there was going to be a big crisis within the Euro area, particularly as far as I am aware, no common currency area has ever existed in modern times without a government transferring / taxing large amounts of money at its centre. Given a crisis, I think the response of the EU mandarins to it will be harmonisation of taxes, and a government of sorts established in Brussels, crucially with tax raising / fiscal transfer powers. The response to people on the periphery will be ‘if you want support to help you out, then concede a role for central government from Brussels’.
Given my euroscepticism, I’d naturally say that that would lead to a de-facto collapse of the Euro area at some point - widening spreads over the German bund / big bank collapses on the periphery I think would be the trigger, but who knows? - we’re nowhere near that remotely now. In the past I always thought that Italy would prove to be the weak link in the Euro area, but I think Spain and Ireland are very much the weak links now.
Presumably at some point the ECB / Trichet (or the next governor) would do everything possible to try to keep the Euro down. Another complicating factor is ECB bank bailouts, was reading about a week ago that the ECB has given about 47bn Euros in short term loans to Spanish banks according to an Ambrose Evans-Prichard article in the Telegraph - that cannot continue under EU law, although I’m a big Ambrose fan, I’m wary of some of his articles.
So in conclusion, I lean towards the collapse scenario at some point, but not t any point in the forseeable future, and how the economic / political dynamics of it all play out is anyones guess!
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 (BUTT) poll of polls that indicates :
McCain 45% .. Obama 51% .. Others 4%
The PISSED Jack W Index with added SOAMES BIG MAC weighting shows :
McCain 154 .. Obama 247 .. Toss Up 137
Changes Since Last Projection - Alaska moves from Likely McCain to Toss Up McCain.
Toss Up - Up to 5% .. Likely - 5%-10% .. Safe - Over 10%
Eliminate Toss Up States - 270 required for an Electoral College majority.
McCain 202 .. Obama 336.
Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America
……………………
Sources :
WIND ….. Whimsical Independent News Division.
JNN ………..Jacobite News Network.
ARSE …… Anonymous Random Selection of Electors.
BUTT …… British Underpinned Tracking Totals
PISSED … Political Intelligence Seat Selector Election Determinator
SOAMES …System Of Amending Measured Election Scores
BIG MAC ..Ballot Indicies Grid Manifesting America’s Choice
I always thought that the swingback theory was based on by-elections and not polls anyway.
If Brown holds on for the full five years and he suffers more Crewe-style by-election meltdowns, then I would expect the prediction from the swingback theory to come into line with the polls.
Rod’s analysis was always for all the by-elections in a Parliament, so it makes little sense to use the partial set we currently have to contradict the opinion polls, particularly when you can see such a strong trend in the by-election swings.
219. True, but in the greater scheme of things if people are suseptible to being forced off welfare into work then this could change. People should never be written off- Never!
Incidentally, does anyone deny that 10m people were killed in the Congo Free State?
177. antifrank. In fact the Tories got 198 at the last election.
The simplest way that I look at it is this. There were 554 [Labour+Tory] Seats at the last GE. Now 4 more seats allocated to their pile so baseline total [Labour+Tory] = 558. Baseline “Others” = 92. Currently the spreads have [Labour+Tory]= 582.5 leaving “Others” = 67.5, a net loss of 24.5 seats compared with the next GE.
How and where will this net loss of “Others” seats happen? Obviously LDs are going to lose some and their midspread position at 46.25 projects a loss of 15.75 seats. But SNP will gain seats and their midspread position projects a gain of 7.75 seats. So only 8 lost “Others” seats accounted for there.
Another way of looking at it is to add up the midspread seats positions of all the parties quoted on Spreadfair at the moment.
Labour 240 Tory 342.5 LDs 46.25 SNP 13.75 PC 4.5. Total 647. Which leaves only 3 seats left for the 18 NI MPs and the 3 Also Rans. I think someone spotted this anomaly before but I didn’t get the significance before now. The market appears to have discounted all 18 Northern Ireland seats!
****BY-ELECTION ALERT**** ****BY-ELECTION ALERT**** ****BY-ELECTION ALERT****
Scottish Labour MP John MacDougall has died after a long illness.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7557933.stm
RIP. Commisserations to the family.
However, callous though it is, betting implications?
Labour will almost certainly *lose* Glenrothes and - especially being next door to Browns Kircaldy seat - this will make a challenge almost inevitable.
[203] - You make a good point, but Mike’s data doesn’t actually contradict Rod’s, it just appears that Rod is misusing an incomplete set of data in an attempt to contradict the current polls (which is silly).
224 — Noam Chomsky? Just a wild guess, given how long it took him to concede 2m died in Cambodia.
137 - Stuart Dickson is right, but it is a big risk game to play at those estimations.
The overestimation of Labour+Tory seats by 30-40 is true if you accept that ‘Other’ will win about 100 seats. I actually agree with that, but I’m not confident enough to bet, because in a tight race, many of those expected Lib Dem and SNP seats might not break through.
I’ve been suggesting a smaller but safer variant on this for a few weeks - take the sum of the Buy and Sell prices for Labour/Tory/LibDem/SNP/Plaid, and see how you can make up the numbers.
Last time I checked, the sum of these Sell values was 635 implying only 15 seats for the rest - consider 18 in NI, and a couple of Independents, and this is certain value.
Essentially, this is a smaller but safer opportunity thatn Stuart recommends, because I think the barrier between the top 5 parties and the Rest is less fluid than the barrier between Labour/Tory and the Rest (inc LibDem/PC/SNP).
POLITICO: 7 worrisome signs for Obama
“This election is about Barack Obama — not John McCain — it’s about whether Barack Obama passes muster. Every poll shows that people want a Democratic president, the problem is they’re not sure they want Barack Obama.”
– Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown
1. Race
“Obama is running nearly neck-and-neck with McCain among white voters in most polls, a major cause for optimism considering that John Kerry lost the white vote by 17 points and that Al Gore lost it by 12 points.”
…
“A huge challenge for Obama, insiders say, is simply determining how much skin color will matter in November. Race is nearly impossible to poll — no one ever says “I’m a racist” — and no campaign wants it revealed they are even asking questions on the issue.”
“It’s the uncertainty that kills me — we know it’s going to be factor, but how big a factor?” asks a Democratic operative with ties to the Obama camp. “How do you even measure such a thing?
2. “Obama’s strength in Virginia may be overhyped.”
3. “Michigan’s in play for McCain.”
“Obama should be killing [McCain] there, but there’s a lot more racial tension in Michigan than in other states.”
4. “Bad times could be good for McCain”.
…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12433_Page2.html
**** MANY HOURS LATE ALERT **** MANY HOURS LATE ALERT **** MANY HOURS LATE ALERT
In other news Casino Royale reports on the results of the 1964 general election !!
225 - You made my point just before I repeated it!
225 - That will teach me not to fact-check at speed on wikipedia.
Your general point is incontrovertible. Almost for certain, either the Tories are overstated in the spreads or Labour is overstated or both. My view is that the Tories at present are still understated in the spreads and that Labour are massively overstated - but I might of course be wrong. If I am right, it means that there is better value in selling Labour than in buying Conservative.
230 Philippe. I refer you to the answer at 231 !!
Reported here on PB two days back !!
Is this National Time Warp Day ??
217. “David Cole recanted his views in the late 1990s…” LOL
Under the type of pressure he was put under, including death threats to him and his family, many people would “recant.”
I notice there were no fresh facts which persuaded him to “change his mind”…
****
Alert! **** 
Alert! **** 
Alert! ****
Jack W blows a raspberry at Casino Royal!
Scary thoughts for punters:
In 1976, Carter led Gerald Ford in the summer by about 20 percentage points in some polls. Ford closed in by Election Day. Carter barely pulled out a victory.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12503_Page2.html
231. Oi!! Now, stop that!!
I looked up the thread - and couldn’t see any other comments on it!
Did I miss something?
I’m curious, and I know someone here will know the answer… when was the last time we had to have a by-election because the sitting MP was declared bankrupt?
233 - I would say it is highly probable that the Labour+Tory combination is overstated, it is almost certain that the Labour+Tory+LibDem+SNP+PC are overstated.
238. Indeed!
234. Can we get your antennae twitching on Swansea West at some point perhaps.
234. Really?!
Then, how come:
(1) The BBC only reported it today
(2) There has been no article on it!
@238:
We’re still waiting for the all-clear from Mr Burdett.
244. Can’t we at least speculate about another failed Lib Dem byelection campaign?
240 - It’s no fun when you don’t allow exaggeration. Could we have a standardised (metric?) sliding scale of probability?
Wait, is JackW saying he reported the Glenrothes vacancy two days ago?
That kind of clairvoyance will make you a fortune.
Just noticed that, if the SNP win Glenrothes, then GB will be surrounded by William Rennie in Dunfermline & West Fife, the SNP victor, and Gordon Banks in Ochil / South Perthshire, who won his seat with lowest % vote of any UK seat in 2005, just 31.4%.
OT- Man United are presently 3 (2/1) on betfair to win the premier league, good value I’d say. Looks like they’ll finally be signing Berbatov.
Someone yesterday, I think it was antifrank, remarked that he’d rather live in an unequal capitalist western country than a subsistence economy whereveryone was equally poor. This contains a factual inaccuracy, capitalist western countries are generally more equal than those subsistence economies. Here’s some of the Gini Coefficients (a measure of income inequalities, the lower the more equal) for a few countries:
Sweden 23, France 28, Pakistan 30.6, EU* 30.7, Ireland 32,UK 34, US 45, China 46.9, Venezuela 48.2, Zimbabwe 56.8, Sierra Leone 62.9.
Capitalism can actually help make a country more equal. But as you can see with the US it’s neccessary but not sufficient.
*I know it’s not a country.
239. John Stonehouse resigned but I think that was due to his Reggie Perrin moment rather than his impending Bankruptcy.
Archer was threatened with it in the early 1970’s but stood down in 1970 or 1974 and wrote his books and never became bankrupt. I think the parties tend to help people until the next election like Tories 1992-1997 (Many rumours about Llyods list names in trouble!
243 Casino. See posts 44,47,52 etc ….
213 - Firstly, although the argument for subsidy without end was always nonsense, it is far from obvious that managed decline was absurd.
Secondly, industries aren’t the same as communities and the arguments don’t apply. Clearly there is no future in producing cathode ray tubes on a large scale (demand has fallen off a cliff) and no future to mining tin in significant quantities in the UK (comparative advantage has decisively shifted). But are Liverpool and Bradford fundamentally incapable of producing anything or providing services for reasons of geography or climate? Of course not.
137 He [Stuart] projects 99+ seats for the “Other” parties at the next GE.
Do PBers agree with Stuart’s analysis?
stjohn - I think Stuart is probably a little on the high side, although I haven’t seen a breakdown of his figures. My own expectation of “Others” would be for a maximum 95 and a minimum of 67 MPs comprising:
Max Min Mid point
LibDems 45 33 39
SNP 26 10 18
NI MPs 18 18 18
Plaid 4 6 5
Other 2 0 1
Total 95 67 81
234 —
I did not see it, obviously — probably coze the vegan diet and the crazy yoga I’m following to get rid of all my abdominal fat is softening my muscular brain, and probably also coze I was kind of trans-fixed by the Caucasus conflict, two days ago, Mista Jack…
It seems, from reports, that the EU council is thoroughly divided about what to do about Georgia.
Meanwhile South Ossetian and Abkhazian forces are torching villiages in Georgia proper. Could it that these forces are preparing new Russian/Geogian borders for when the bargaining starts. By the way; Good Afternoon
Post 234 is to Phillipe reporting a two day old “Politico” story !!
Standards are slipping …. bring back Andrea !!
251 - cheers, Martin. I had a feeling it would be quite a rare thing, and maybe rarer still now that fewer MPs have outside business interests and get paid fairly well.
253. As you can see from this map, the northern western countries and australia are generally more equal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Report_2007-2008.png
The way these by-elections are coming we’ll end up with a con maj before the general election!
255. Ah! Fair enough
Skipped straight over those as I saw the BBC story was timed at 11:30-ish.
I assumed we wouldn’t know until the BBC published it!
How foolish I was…
250. JackW doesn’t just exist in this world you know. He shifts through dimensions.
258. Phillipe - thanks for the “solidarity”!
At least now I don’t feel like a TOTAL retard
245 Punter. I shall cast the leeks over my election divining table and report back.
258 Phillipe. Miserable excuse. Seven days detention in ConHome or Hillaryis44.Org !!
233. There is no evidence the Bradley effect is still working. McCain needsMichigan to be in play because he’s almost certainly lost without it. As for the rest of the points, bear in mind politico is right-leaning.
263. Surely the actual living standard of the poorest is more important than equality.
261. Re: 265. Strewth. I’ve done it again. Not awake today..
Anyway, Glenrothes; 14% swing should do it - and the SNP will.
Ergo, Brown is toast.
What’s Labours majority down to now?? Shortly to drop by another two.
re “bankruptcy”.
That was the famous “rockets” by-election at Ashton-under-Lyne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton-under-Lyne_by-election%2C_1928
267 Socrates. There was more evidence of Yeldarb in the primaries than Bradley.
Interesting blog from Al Jazeera this morning:
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Tbilisi, said that the war had been “jam-packed with disinformation from both sides”.
“The Russian have behaved, without question, in an atrocious way with utterly disproprtionate force. They have caused civilian deaths and destroyed civilan property,” he said.
“But there needs to be some accounting at some point for what the Georgians have done in all this, effectively starting the war in the first place … with the monumental barrage of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital.
“I stood there for eight hours on Friday, there was nothing but brief cessations in the enormous artillery barrage pounding a town no bigger that a large suburb of London, the destruction and damage caused there, which we believe could have accounted for 2,000 lives, was not done by
So we have a western eye-witness of the initial Geogian assault on Tskhinvali.
267 - Sea Shanty Irish doesn’t think it’ll be a big deal nationally, but I don’t see how there is any other story in Michigan beyond the Kwame Kilpatrick episode see here
I wonder what Cameron thinks of this report on Northern Cities…..he is here in the North-West today and tomorrow…..
today: Carlisle; Westmorland & Lonsdale; Barrow
tomorrow: Morecambe & Lunesdale; Lancaster & Fleetwood; Southport; and Warrington South
………..looking at that list I can only see Lancaster & Fleetwood in the “win” column next time.
268. Yes. But I was simply pointing out a factual inaccuracy that the wealthy countries are more unequal. That’s actually the opposite of the truth. Both dogmatic socialists and thatcherites could do with remembering it.
Jack W —
Anyway, repetition can be salutary, when the matter is relevant to big-betting…
Repetition can lead to difference.
Political thinking and forecasting cannot afford to be tyrannised by the stress of actuality.
Sometimes, it can be good to rethink ‘old’ matters, to allow our taught variations on similar ideas.
176. You “expect” a hung parliament or you “hope” theres a hung parliament? Given the way you showed yourself up over the David Davis affair, your “analysis” is clearly biased again the Conservatives.
Some good economic news for Gord and I predict a steady improvement in the opinion polls for Labour.
With lower interest rates and crude oil tumbling ,David Cameron will be hard pressed to attack the government on the economy.
Global Confidence Climbs From 10-Month Low as Crude Oil Slides
By Fergal O’Brien and Shobhana Chandra
Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — Confidence in the global economy rose from a 10-month low in August as record oil prices retreated, a survey of Bloomberg users on five continents showed.
The Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index climbed to 14.1, from 10.3 in July, which was the lowest reading since the survey began in November. This increase was led by a 5.5-point increase to 18.2 among U.S. respondents, while the Western European measure rose 3.4 points to 12.9. A reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment.
The $30 drop in crude-oil prices in the past month is easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and leaving Americans with more cash just as the impact of tax rebates fades. But the outlook for the global economy remains bleak as expansions in Europe and Japan stall.
“Lower oil prices are usually good news for the U.S., relative to the European economy,” said Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING Group in Amsterdam, who took part in the survey. In Europe, “the numbers have taken a turn for the worse recently; in the U.S., the economic news has been bad for a while.”
The survey, conducted between Aug. 4 and Aug. 8, collated the responses of about 3,000 Bloomberg users around the world. It included questions about the outlook for participants’ own economies and their regions, as well as for bonds, currencies, stocks and interest rates over the next six months.
250 - It was me, and you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I said: “Would you rather live in a subsistence economy where everyone is equal but on the brink of starvation or in a western capitalist economy where even the poorest own TVs?”
At no point did I mention third world economies or suggest that are more equal - indeed, anyone who spends any time in them will soon realise that is not so. They are not subsistence economies. What I had in mind was more akin to the stone age hunter-gatherer society where members of that society had very little saved capital of any kind (and thus were very equal). The point I was trying to illustrate was that inequality is far from the only useful measure of how well a society is doing.
To take a concrete example, by standard (60% of median) based definitions of poverty, there is more child poverty in Britain than in Hungary. However, even poor children in Britain will be doing at least as well as median children in Hungary in material terms.
274. I have heard that Cameron has already disowned this report; and what a stupid report from a political standpoint it is.
@275:
That map does seem to suggest that Britain’s Gini coefficient is a little on the low side.
273. Yeah, it doesn’t help. I sometimes wonder if Obama’s Kenyan roots mildly insulate him from racial prejudice. His East African look is different from most African Americans, who are descended from West African slaves, and thus the subconscious revulsion some white Americans have to a stereotypical “black” face applies less.
(I say this because I was watching TV with a white American friend when the Kilpatrick story broke and he said “he looks scary”)
278. I apologise for misunderstanding you. I however still think it is a false choice between absolute and relative poverty, we can tackle both and I think tackling one will have positive feedback on the other.
Couple of points re Glenrothes and the Lib Dems. Firstly, it looks a similar sort of challenge to Glasgow East - can they (a) finish third, ahead of the Tories, and (b) hold their deposit. I’d have thought it’s unlikely on the first question, and could be closer than they’d like on the second.
Also, if the Lib Dems lose (and that seems pretty certain), it will nine by-elections since a win - the worst run they’ve had since the early 1990s.
New Franklin Marshall poll for Pennsylvania :
McCain 36% .. Obama 44%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/FM_Aug2008Poll.pdf
Socrates: “bear in mind politico is right-leaning”.
I did not know notice it. I’ll look for signs, though.
I did notice, however, that RCP had an unambiguously anti-Russia stance…
282. What sort of policies would cause both to improve?
276. I “expect”, in that is what I believe will happen…
Remind me, how did I “show myself up” over Davis?
266. Thanks. If you could add Newport East to your shopping basket as well that would be appreciated. I am in dispute with Morus over the yellow chances in that seat as well. BTW On Lembit I believe you will be correct but would say I don’t think his majority will be unaffected. On Ceredigion I agree I think they could well hold. It is a seat that likes surprises 4th to 1sts in one election in 1992 for instance. What seat(s) can match that.
277. You’re full of hope being a Proper Herbert; but your so called report is bulls–t.
Alas I’ve got to return to work, see you all tonight.
281. Drew Western has an excellent section in his book The Political Brain about that. When presented with a face which was considered to have more “African features” voters where much more quicker to categorise a negative word as negative and slower to categorise a positive word as positive, than a control group. Supposedly an indicater of latent prejudice.
New Quinnipiac poll for New Jersey :
McCain 41% .. Obama 51%
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1299.xml?ReleaseID=1201
286. Better vocational training, for example. Or the minimum wage and generally making work pay.
285. The CEO of politico was a former assistant to Reagan. It does its best to be impartial though, and is a very good website, just the views of the writers sometimes shine through (its near impossible not to.)
As for RCP, I can’t tell if its biased or not. I get the feeling that it is right-wing, but I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a Democrat so I take notice of the stuff I disagree with more. The fact its a news aggregator also makes it harder: It’s possible that links I agree with I attribute to the news site, where links I disagree with (often strongly so!) I think badly of RCP for including.
288. “it is a seat that likes surprises 4th to 1sts in one election in 1992 for instance. What seat(s) can match that.”
Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, 1997, gained by Labour…
And of course seats where the winner had not even stood at all previously: Blaenau G, Bethnal Grn, Tatton, etc…
Miscellaneous U.S. troops train at Indian jungle war school
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/12/stories/2008081259621100.htm
Sky: Russian tanks heading for Tbilisi….
289.
Care to have a wager of a cut in Uk base rates before the end of the year?
If you wish to broaden your outlook on world economis affairs you really should read Bloomberg.com articles.
Be Lucky
122 - I thought the right were supporting the ultra-capitalist and neo-liberal Russia? This is all very confusing.
Sky: US calls a meeting of NATO….
292. Training I would agree with you. How would a higher minimum wage improve growth? The third one is an aim, not a policy!
282 - No need to apologise, I could have been clearer. For me, the poverty in the UK that bothers me is poverty of ambition, poverty of knowledge, poverty of hope, poverty of sympathy and poverty of imagination. If we could improve each of those substantially, we would have very little to worry about.
297 - Personally I think a rate cut is unlikley, much more likely that the MPC will hold at least until January and keep a weather eye on the pay data. Most payrises seem to occur in Jan-Apr.
287. I seem to remember a complete over-reaction from yourself on the day Davis resigned. Something about how the Conservative Party could forget the next election now their devisions had opened up for all to see and the general glee with which you seized on the Davis episode as evidence that Labour would soon be on their way back clearly blew away any illusion that your analysis was independent and unbiased.
300. I think it would have a neutral (or marginally negative) effect on growth, but would improve both absolute and relative poverty.
Anyway, must dash off now. The important thing is that both Tyson and Casino Royale are wrong about capitalism. Fairness and income equality are compatible with economic growth and a free market economy.
268. The actual standard of living of the poorest is important, but to my mind the most important thing is providing a ladder out of poverty.
263 - That map seems to show that Japan is the most equal society on Earth. I though it was supposed to be those self-righteous Scandinavians.
293 Socrates. RCP is a GOP leaning site but broadly tries to offer an element of balance in articles.
However their reporting of polls has favoured McCain. They recently have not included Obama national poll leads from Research 2000, Economist YouGov and others. Accordingly this has depressed the average lead for Obama. There have included R2000 state polls favouring McCain !!
282 — Deeply interesting taught.
Would be worth a couple of millions dollars to study it methodically.
Deleuze and Guattari called this ‘field’ “Faciality” — at least that’s how Massumi translated it the word “Visagéité”…
274-It would have to be a pretty poor Conservative showing to have only one of these as a win.
When was the last time the Conservatives won Carlisle? Did I read somewhere 1935? Must be a possible.
298-Some on the right are!!
234 - “This election is about Barack Obama — not John McCain — it’s about whether Barack Obama passes muster.”
Anyone who writes that renders the rest of their article worthless.
Why bother reading the rest when they think an election isn’t about who would be the best candidate.
The only people who are saying that are those on the right who are scared of the sheer ineptitude of McCain and those who haven’t yet cottoned on to the media bias trying to keep the race close.
Quite, quite barmy.
309-Last won 1959 per wikipedia!
303. Being opinionated or vocal doesn’t necessarily imply bias. I hate Labour just as much…
Anyhow, there’s plenty of time for Davis (and other Tory loons) to “act out” again..
234 - Any more news on McCain’s ties to Georgia and how the US may have advertently, or inadvertently, encouraged Georgia to make their recent dangerous decisions?
McCain is the Cheney plus candidate, look at his announcements on Georgia, he was like a man spoiling for a fight. The man is dangerous, if you think Bush/Cheney was bad then just you wait.
This is one area where age is a real problem, there is less need to think about the future and what may be left. It is easier to fight past battles in the knowledge that you aren’t sticking around long enough to face the consequences.
Rod — I taught the Georgian conflict was neutralised,. deactivated…
What’s going on?
280. How on EARTH is Japan so “equal”?!?!
311 - Conservatives will never have had it so good if they win Carlisle in 2010.
312. Hmmmmm…. I’ve not seen much evidence fromm you of Labour Hate yet…. But when I see it, I’ll retract my above accusation of bias.
Early voting, same day registration in Ohio may appear to help Obama, especially with the states almost half million students :
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OHIO_EARLY_VOTING?SITE=FLMYR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Let me ask this question of Jack, ukpaul and other Obama supporters; I’ve asked it before but always it seems right before a new thread went up.
Can you comment on the fact referred to in the Politico article, namely that Obama doesn’t match or come close to generic party advantage of Dem over R?
The polls show a huge generic preference for a Democrat, but Obama is in a race that’s quite tight, a five percent race.
The Democratic nominee ought to be running away with it. Why is Obama so far behind preference for his own party? His weakness as a candidate, McCain’s strength, racism, or what other factor?
I’m sure he’ll win in November because the Democrat nominee should win easily in November. But he seems to be a Brown, not a Cameron in relation to his own popularity vs. his party’s.
test
“People are fleeing, there is a mood of absolute panic. The idea there is a ceasefire is ridiculous”
–Luke Harding, the Guardian’s correspondent.
antifrank
277. “Some good economic news for Gord and I predict a steady improvement in the opinion polls for Labour.”
Remind me. Which piece of good economic news is that?
Is it yesterdays record jump in monthly inflation?
The BoE prediction of zero growth over the next year?
Or is it the rise in unemployment figures?
321. Good point.
Russian tanks move into Georgian town…
Georgian villages burned and looted…
Mike or Morus, I have a comment in moderation, a question for JackW/ukpaul, be grateful if it could be released. I tried substituting one possible candidate for bad word but it still shows up as in moderation.
296. Rod - SERIOUSLY?
Are Russia actually moving on Tbilisi?
326. Why wouldn’t they? Honestly, WTF is the EU or NATO going to do? Nothing.
317. Do you believe me when I say I’ve never voted Labour and never will? Hate is probably too strong a word. “Visceral contempt” is probably more accurate…
Hmmm listening to Jeremy Vine, the plan by the, ‘Friends of Dave’ to shut down the North to solve the domestic servant problem in the South, (You can’t get ‘em y’know) hasn’t gorn down well.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23531609-details/Expand+London+to+house+a+million+northerners%2C+says+Tory+think+tank/article.do
Londoners are none to thrilled either.
325 - OK, how about twenty questions to find out what it is - Question 1 - is it about polling?
326. That is what Sky have been saying for the past half-hour. No pictures yet…
331. Sky are quoting AP as the source…
326. Because they have no possible legal justification for doing so.
In terms of “doing something”, no, we cannot intervene military.
But Russia are not an island. They need the outside world to survive.
There are serious diplomatic, economic and cooperation penalties which would be made. In addition, new energy alliances could be formed to try and reduce dependency on Russia.
I also think the US should seriously consider shipping a few extra divisions to Europe. Maybe even stationing some troops in Latvia and the Ukraine.
This would send a very strong message.
BBC: AFP (?) say Russian armoured column heading for Tbilisi…
Saakashvili accuses Russia of “destroying” Gori…
By the way, the Georgian Beach Volleyball team are actually Brazilian. Don’t ask.
In other Georgian sporting news they just won a gold in Judo, their second gold of the games and doubling their all time tally.
Clearly there’s nothing like being in a war to spur you on in the field of play.
@329:
Why is something somebody else, not a member of his party, said ‘certain’ to embarass Mr Cameron?
329 - coldstone purposely ignoring Cameron’s reponse.
He said the idea was ‘insane’.
I think he might have been holding back though.
333. In a post Iraq world nobody needs ‘legal justification’ to do anything. The domestic gains for Putin for grinding Georgia into the dust far outweigh any foreign policy losses. So that’s what he’ll do.
336. Because the BBC (aka the Labour Party) says so
334. Christ.
What is Russias f**king problem?
313-A few threads back there was a piece on Wes Clark. He who illegally invaded another country, etc, but more importantly actually wanted to start a shooting war with Russian troops in Kosovo. Refer to the ex-British commander’s memoirs. Or does the fact he is a Demmie now make these actions acceptable?
333-Maybe even stationing some troops in Latvia and the Ukraine.
Jeesus! Is this a joke?
340. Deep seated insecurity about their place in the world and concomitant paranoia and violent conduct.
Afternoon all
My current thoughts on the Georgian crisis:
http://aloadofoldstodge.blogspot.com/2008/08/on-midnight-train-to-world-war-iii.html
Once again, as in 1918,1947 and elsewhen the consequences of de-constructing large imperial structures tend not to be pretty and tend not to be easy to resolve.
One consequence of totalitarianism is the suppression of nationalism and nationalist rivalries. To completely fly a kite here, would anyone like to guess how violent and chaotic China might be if the Communist Government collapsed ?
338-I think the “legal” (such as they were) justifications were thrown out in 1999.
@340:
I reckon Medvedev’s done a ‘compare and contrast’ with Putin in the Kremlin urinals, and now thinks he has something to prove.
342 - that notwithstanding, unless this is the endgame to a particularly cunning and well-concealed stratagem, this is just completely barking on Putin’s part.
@346:
That said, we still don’t know what’s really going on. The truth has been particularly unfortunate casualty of the last few days, and both Russia and Georgia are playing no small part in her wounding.
343. I agree with most of that.
341. “333-Maybe even stationing some troops in Latvia and the Ukraine.
Jeesus! Is this a joke?”
No. It’s not. I’m deadly serious.
Russia will do sh*t all if the US and the West stand-up to them.
It’s time we in the West grew some balls.
Russia always back down from direct confrontation. They always have in the past and they will again.
Troops in Baltic states/Ukraine = no prospect of military interference from Russia in those countries.
342. I think it’s made of win for Vovka Putin. He looks like the big шланг on the home front. Ukraine will only ever get voicemail from now on every time they call NATA HQ in Brussels as Old Europe will be far too chicken to ever let them join now.
349. What does ‘backing down’ mean in that context?
161 A bit klate but I’ve been shopping…
Simple, force a vote, if you lose then make political capital out of Labour being willing to leave the electors of Glenrothes unrepresented in the pursuit of petty party advantage. After all, they were happy to have quick bye-elections in the case of Crewe & Nantwich and the last Scottish one whose name I forget.
Why would SNP do it? Simple, to keep up the momentum against the Government. To my mind, the Tories should be prepared to do it as well - I just assumed they would feel more bound by convention than the SNP, and have less to win. In any case, I don’t think it needs a whip - surely any MP can move a writ?
Why is this “possibly the last convention any whip in any party would break”? It seems purely a matter of Commons administration, nothing constutional. Electors should not be left without representation. My view is that the writ for bye-elections should be moved automatically the day after the previous MP is buried.
@350:
You think? I reckon we’ll see a sudden acceleration of NATO membership proceedings for various Eastern European and Caucasus states now.
349. “It’s time the West grew some balls.” Get real. We in the West are a decadent and dying culture with debased currencies and a fatal addiction to taxation and immigrants. We had our century and now we’re done.
@354:
When did you last renew your Pravda susbcription?
353. What’s the incentive for NATO to admit any state that is on Putin’s sh!t list? The voters aren’t going to richly reward politicians that get us into a shooting war with the Russians or get the gas cut off. Why would they do that? Because it’s the right thing to do? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
O/T - The print version of the ES is good for a laugh today, they referred to someone being “the MP for Kemp Town”.
353. Angela Merkel will have something to say about that.
349 - On a linguistic note, analysis is useful of posts like this, in that ‘balls’ are apparently needed as opposed to the attitude of ‘girls’ (from our resident Canadian) who want thought to precede action.
Why do these people persist in giving the impression that they are a bunch of bigoted thugs who would be more at home glassing someone in a pub car park?
359. I believe the American expression for such people is chicken-hawks.
@356:
Because Russia’s not going to get into a shooting war with NATO. Russia are bullies.
Somewhat inclined it may be to push around countries muchs maller than itself, but it will shrink back when invited to try its luck with 26 of the most heavily armed states on the planet.
Why the hell do you think Russia are so terrified of Georgian and Ukrainian NATO membership in the first place? Because they know they’ll lose foolproof bullying opportunities.
If the Russians were serious about taking Tbilisi, they’d use the same tactics as in Prague, there’d be airborne forces at the airport by now.
Russia is in a much more poweful position now than she was during the Soviet era. Russia has economic leverage with the West which didn’t exist then.
As for the fact Russia always backs down, its true that the Soviet Union fought the Cold War by proxy, only once, ‘Cuba’ putting herself in the firing line. However the West proved it was powerless when the Soviet Union supressed uprisings in its own backyard, until the collapse of the Soviet system.
Putin, is a different sort of politician than the West faced then, he’s not a man to ‘misread.’
@359:
CULLIONS, please.
322.
Ah Casino Royale,my apologies is taking so long to reply but I am working flat out with connctions to ensure that Kaka will sign for Chelsea Football Club by the end of this month.
Whilst accepting your points lower interest and fuel prices are on their way before the year is out.
Another quote
BNP Paribas SA economist Alan Clarke said the Bank of England may reduce its benchmark rate in November, not in the first quarter of 2009 as he previously predicted.
In conclusion being a born and bred “Gooner” I confess to having backed Chelsea to win the forthcoming Premiership title
348. Genau. Was wir wirklich brauchen ist, ein reich, ein volk, ein….[aaargh]
The Glenrothes by-election is surely a gain for the SNP. Brown to call after his conference (tricky time) and before his reshuffle? How about the middle of the Tory conference? That’d be read as a cheap trick now though I think.
361 - not to mention the fact that their military tech is now mostly a whole generation behind US/NATO kit. Any shooting war short of nuclear exchange will get Russia’s head handed to them.
361. Why the hell do you think Russia are so terrified of Georgian and Ukrainian NATO membership in the first place?
Because they are worried about their own territorial integrity. Don’t forget that Russia is a federation containing different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. They think that the West’s Endlösung for Russia is to split it into smaller states - Muscovy etc - in order to end Russian power in the world.
361. That still doesn’t tell me why France, Germany, etc. would want or even tolerate Ukraine in NATO. It’s all risk with no reward. There is nothing in it for to admit them.
35-The big garden hose?
I think there is no NATO membership for anyone not already in, though the Baltics slipped in early.
Ukraine? No way! At best only a bare majority, if that, support NATO membership in Ukraine.
From over here:
-Georgia invaded South Ossetia while the Olympics were opening hoping it could present a fait-accompli;
-Georgia badly miscalculated both Russia’s reaction and its own miltary prowess;
-as its army flees it desperately calls for ceasefires (it broke by invading in the first place)
I guess the lessons that come out will be that the West will not interfere in Russia’s backyard, Russia’s neighbours will know that expressions of support from the West will not materialize. And Millepede is an eejit.
Any markets on Saakashvili still being presidente by the end of the month?
But it has echoes of the Falklands:
-initial success and mass public support
-bewilderment as a response takes place
-calls for ceasefires as the military situation changes
-fall of the regime
[You'll be happy to know I did not cheer the fall of the Argentinian junta even though it was inevitable once military defeat took place.]
362 - In part I agree, but frankly the West is hamstrung by far too many squeamish people who are terrified of imagined consequences and prefer to accomadate tyrants and bullies rather than confront them. The price of acquiescence is often a lot higher than early confrontation.
343
So much for those, who thought the collapse of communism would bring in an era of international understanding.
Any one know any good wall builders?
327 - test, I’ve released your question for Jack and deleted the duplicate. sorry for delay - I’m at work and was in a meeting.
@369:
Russia has just *amply* demonstrated why we need Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. They are erratic, and left to their own devices, dangerous. NATO membership of border states can be used as a way to contain Russia’s urges somewhat.
This has to done as part of a programme to ensure Europe’s complete energy independence from Russia.
369 - Given that there are large chunks of Germany that until 19 years ago were part of a de facto empire under the control of Moscow, the risks of allowing a continuing rolling forward of Russian influence would be, I hope, obvious to Germany.
373. Of course. The people and politicians will happily throw Georgia and anyone else under the Russian juggernaut as long as the gas and oil keep flowing.
377. Given that the current Chancellor of Germany grew up under that regime I think she has some credibility on the subject.
378 - I think that there is at least as much economic damage that we can do to Russia that Russia can do to us. Frankly the Putin trajectory has been clear from almost the beginning, and leaders in the West have been slow to wake up to the threat.
Re; 349 - CR, I just want to be sure I understand what you are proposing. If President Yuschenko petitions to join NATO, we should not only invite the Ukraine in without delay but immediately garrison his country with whatever NATO troops we can scrape together beyond Afghanistan.
Yuschenko doesn’t do this for three reasons:
1) There’s a good chance the eastern part of Ukraine will go up in flames as the pro-Russian population are unlikely to welcome NATO troops as guarantors of their status since they probably want to be part of Russia anyway.
2) Even if we can get NATO troops on the ground without Russian protest, the Ukraine will have committed itself to being the battlefield of World War III much as West Germany did. What saved the Germans then was the Berlin Wall which did so much to ease tension in Europe.
3) The Russians would be in Kiev and would install a pro-Moscow President before the first NATO soldier is even in the country.
Countries like Latvia and Estonia have significant pro-Russian minorities and a clear move to the west would be internally destabilising for these Governments and would provoke the very conflicts we are trying to prevent.
I don’t like what the Russians have done though the Georgians are hardly blameless either.
376-et al.
I’ll bet anyone who wants that neither Ukraine or Georgia will be in NATO any time soon. Irrespective if we “need them in NATO” or not.
Georgia wil have a new government soon, and Ukraine will realise it will get no more than empty words from the West if it keeps on goading Russian on their behalf.
Had to laugh at that report today suggesting all the northern towns and cities empty and everyone move to london.
Northern towns and cities? Manchester isn’t even within 100 miles of the middle of the country. I live 400 miles north of Manchester and there is still another 70 miles north of me on the mainland.
Better idea, highly skilled, well educated and hard working people are welcome to Scotland. We have a decent health service, most of our kids can read, write and spell when they leave school, council tax has been frozen, prescription charges are falling and we have some of the best scenery in the world.
We even accept Labour voters (though preferably you should be SNP, Tory or LibDem and therefore an asset to society)
369
What sort of losses would you prepared to take in an exchange, ‘conventional’ with Russia over Georgia.
Can you honestly see NATO, with its varied attitudes to foreign affairs really committing itself to military action over Georgia!
(I often used to wonder, if there was a Soviet push how Greece and Turkey would have responded)
Iraq and Afghanistan have both proved there is a very limited appetite for military action in the West, where no direct threat can be proved.
380. If we really wanted to hurt Russia economically we would unilaterally lift visa restrictions on our side and offer work permits to anyone with a degree who wanted one. London is maybe starting to lose some of its economic lustre but the West in general is still a very attractive choice for educated Russians, many of whom are currently frustrated by our entry rules.
A brain drain would be more effective than putting tanks in the Baltic states.
381-Good to see old fashioned Realpolitik is still alive! Bravo!
The Ukrainin government has a tiny parliamentary majority, there will be no official request to join NATO. I foresee a rapprochment between Moscow and Kiev as Yushenko realises the real value of Western support. I don’t discard him sacking Timoshenko and getting a pro-Russian PM (Yanukovich) into government either.
382 - The new Neoliberal Russia is clearly confusing the apparent neoliberals in the west, leading them to be in denial of the changes in Russia, still fighting the cold war regardless.
Or maybe it’s just that seeing the reflection of their unthinking gung ho nationalism they can’t bring themselves to admit that they are seeing themselves. Cheney/Putin, what’s the difference?
Troops in Baltic states/Ukraine = no prospect of military interference from Russia in those countries.
by Casino Royale August 13th, 2008 at 1:36 pm -351 They don’t need to directly. Almost half the Ukraine is in the Pro-Russian camp. One word and there’ll be serious issues there. Your idea risks Nato involvement in at best serious internal crisis with a good possibility of Civil war.
384 - Yes that is largely because in the game of diplomatic chess most of Europe are only worried about the next move. We are being outmanouevred because others are seeing the endgame.
119.
“Perhaps Labour will decline to put up a candidate in such a hopeless seat.”
Talking of hopeless seats, I see that Mr Chameleon is going on a trip to what Tory think tanks think is the ‘hopeless’ North to visit ‘target seats’.
He is including Warrington, Westmoreland and Sefton in his iteinerary, in all of which the Lib Dems have been piddling on the Tories in local elections, contrary to the polls and progress elsewhere. Perhaps he is ‘targeting’ them for a bit of arial attention from his good Tory friend Mr Putin?
ukpaul, could you see my post to you at 320? It was put in moderation - love to get your thoughts as a big Obama supporter.
Sky: Georgian Deputy Minister says column is NOT advancing on Tbilisi..
The Georgian FO has confirmed that Russian Tanks are NOT, repeat NOT advancing on Tbilisi.
383 - You are considering the north by reference to physical geography. Consider it by reference to population. We can use the Parliamentary seats as a proxy for population units, and Baxter’s electoral calculus has a very handy map for this purpose:
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usermap.pl
From this, you will see that Manchester is very definitely in the north. The central point is somewhere between Nuneaton and Derby I’d guess by eye. That sounds far more sensible than any silly idea that Preston or some such place is the centre of Britain.
388-The territtorial integrity of Ukraine was only maintained because Crimea was given wide ranging autonomy (including Russian as the official language). There is also the Sevastopol Black Sea port, perhaps NATO troops could relive the Crimean War and storm it?
Looking at election returns from some Ukrainian regions the % voting for avowedly pro-Russian parties is absolutely huge. I think peaking at 97% in Lugansk, and massive all the way round to Odessa.
BarackRoll!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65I0HNvTDH4
351.
Russia always back down from direct confrontation.”
Like they did on the Amur River? At Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow in WW2?
Maybe Casino Royale really thinks he is James Bond and should be parachuted directly into Vladivostock attached to a bunch of self-detonating handgrenades?
@388:
Why do you assume that being a member of NATO necessarily means open hostility to Russia? Nothing of the sort.
What it does offer is a way for those countries in Russia’s sphere of influence to be able to exert their independence, with a reduced fear of retaliatory Russian bullying.
Russia may be undergoing an existential crisis, but we are not its therapist.
398 I don’t but they do. I am not sure what point you are making. It is still the case as 395 shows that Ukraine is split down the middle. Any Nato application would spark a serious internal crisis.
398 - Your last line is both pithy and correct.
357 Huh? Or did you mean someone else?
389. But what is the endgame? Surely our goal, the goal of several generations of politicians across Europe is to build a continent where borders are almost immaterial to people’s lives. There’s a mounting possibility that Belgium will break up and to most people it’s just a curiosity. People would pay tax to a different government but otherwise life would go on as before.
Russia will never be a member of the EU but we should strive to increase trade and links with Russia at every level. Border states are worried about Russian influence but if you scratch the surface you will find similar feelings in the neighbouring countries of all the major European powers. We have proven that such historical mistrust is no barrier to building an open, modern continent.
Our goal should be to reach a situation in which it doesn’t matter where the border is drawn. In such a situation it might be possible to imagine the Crimea being handed back to Russia in return for Russia accepting EU membership for Ukraine.
We need to stop imagining that it’s entirely up to Russia to come to us, and realise that there’s a lot we can do to help build better relations.
“Russia may be undergoing an existential crisis, but we are not its therapist”
Good line, although a good therapist can charge high fees of its clients.
320 - Two main reasons - firstly because Southern (and other) Democrats are often way to the right (Blue Dogs) and will gain support where Obama couldn’t. This means that generic support is a best case scenario with voters imagining their own type of candidate. The GOP has some ideological differences by area but they are not as pronounced.
Secondly becaused McCain used to be someone with loose ties to his party.
That is disappearing however, because of the inescapable fact that he cannot be a non-party politician running as a party nominee.
This is why his flip flopping to support generic GOP positions and his co-opting of the Bush/Rove tactics are so short sighted. He is moving away from what people expect McCain to be, as long as he claims the election isn’t about him he will get away with it but come the convention and the debates this will be found out.
397
Mention of Stalingrad, I can recommend this!
http://staxinternational.com/film_details.php?film_id=161&genre=specialinterest&page=12
398 “What it does offer is a way for those countries in Russia’s sphere of influence to be able to exert their independence, with a reduced fear of retaliatory Russian bullying.”
Russians are overwhelmingly the majority in the Crimea. It is historically and ethnically part of Russia. It was allocated to the Ukraine by Stalin as a ruse to dilute Ukrainian nationalism.
So, the people in the Crimea have no fear of Russain bullying because they are Russian.
404 - Well test my reply is now awaiting moderation, clearly something is tripping the filter.
Hopefully someone will be along soon to release it.
398. But who would provide the NATO troops to garrison e.g. the Baltic states? The problem with NATO is that most of its members do not pull their weight.
399 Ukraine has already applied to join NATO - it was agreed in April that it would eventually become one and progress towards that will be reviewed at December NATO meeting (as will Georgia’s).
[351] - Well, Latvia is a NATO member, so sending US troops there is hardly outrageous, but Ukraine might be seen a bit differently.
O/T - Police to ‘work to rule’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7558746.stm
@405:
Why did Crimea agree to remain part of Ukraine and retract its declaration of independence?
407 - UKpaul - your reply to Test is now released at post 404.
For anyone who might be interested, here are the official rules about by elections during a recess.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rosa_prince/blog/2008/08/13/official_rules_on_byelections_during_recess
Sky’s Alex Rossi: Russians now well into Georgian territory, armoured Georgian forces moving up to the “front line”..
@399:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
Ukraine and Georgia have already taken several steps towards membership, and are expected to publish a detailed ‘Membership Action Plan’ in December.
409-I think that was the problem. Ukraine and Georgia expected to be formally invited to join last November but the French and Germans upset the applecart and this was put on hold. There were no guarantees given as to eventual membership.
406. The Crimean Tatars certainly have cause to fear Russian bullying - and much worse, given their history.
Test - the word apparently tripping up the filter is g-e-n-e-r-i-c.
419 - that would make a lot of sense.
“Russia always back down from direct confrontation.”
Like they did on the Amur River? At Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow in WW2?”
The Russian people aren’t facing a murderous attack on their homeland, at this point, so the comparison isn’t relevant. Like anyone else, their government will weigh up the likely consequences when deciding to whether or not to embark on a campaign of aggression.
@420:
Yes, we only want specifics in this place, THANKS.
Re: 408 and others - The Ukraine situation is complex. My understanding is that there is due to be a national referendum on NATO membership and that while there is a commitment to joining NATO, its status, rather like that of Georgia, is probably one of intent at this time.
I suspect we will see NATO cool on the idea of Ukraine and Georgia joining in the near future and it may be that quite apart from the South Ossetia/Abkhazia questions, one of the aims of the military intervention in Georgia was, from a Russian perspective, to send a clear message to the West about the consequences of getting too close to Georgia and the Ukraine.
As far as the Baltics are concerned, these are NATO members and therefore under the collective security umbrella. That doesn’t mean that the pro-Russian groups in these countries don’t have the potential to cause trouble and of course it doesn’t mean they should be discriminated against and I’m sure everyone watches that closely.
**** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD **** NEW THREAD ****
Should “Test” be held in moderation permanently ??
New thread - Should Gord dump any Glenrothes hopes here?
422 - Very good!
Back on thread, the three years’ figures which Mike heads this thread up with prove the point I made on here yesterday. There is every possibility that there will be some co-incidental relationship between polls 20 months out (I reckon more likely to be 21) from a GE and the eventual result, but this is a function of a statistical distribution which, with 3 party politics, is also not neccessarily going to be reflected in seat share changes anyway. It is difficult to extrapolate any ‘trend’ or correlation seriously from only three events. But the variation in the Tory-Labour gap in 2001 speaks for itself. The difference between a 9 per cent gap and an 18 per cent gap in the vote shares, especially in terms of translation to seats, is pretty monumental. Even the 1997 variation would be highly significant if the figures for the two largest parties were closer to each other. The 100 per cent understatement of ‘others’ in the pre-1997 polls is something which the pollsters have obviously managed to deal with in later years but there have only been two events so who can say that it isn’t just a fluke.
171 I’ve never tried spread betting until last week, having avoided the commons seats markets
Caveman - why the aversion? I made a five figure profit in ‘97 and good four figure profits in ‘01 and ‘05. Provided one doesn’t go in too big and become over-exposed, it’s not too difficult to make money in my experience. Ahead of the next GE, I’ve already realised profits of around £2400, small beer compared with our genial host who I recall made over £3000 in one afternoon a few months ago (little wonder he’s always on holiday), but very welcome all the same. 1997 was exceptional because Labour kept going further and further ahead and the spreads continually lagged the polls by a wide margin (arguably rather like now). Consequently, as election day approached, I knew I was set to win thousands, no doubt, and as a result felt sufficiently confident to build my position to levels I would not normally even contemplate. Having gone to bed on the night at around 2.00 am a very happy boy (from a financial if not a political perspective), I woke up six hours later to discover that approximately £1000 of my supposed profit had “vanished” during the early hours as the Shire votes came in and proved slightly better for the Tories than originally projected from the first 250 or so results - taught me not to be too greedy, always a good maxim when betting, especially spreadbetting.
When my three cheques arrived a few days later, I photocopied and framed them - my best ever result!
421.
“The Russian people aren’t facing a murderous attack on their homeland,”
Come again? The people of South Ossetia are an awful lot more ‘Russian’ than a lot of the population of present-day ‘Russia’. The first ’softening-up’ rocket attacks from Georgians into Ossetia seem to have killed a sizeable number of ‘Russian’ civilians which were all over Moscow TV, handily displacing the Chinese beating the Russians at the olympics.
The middle-class population of Moscow are used to decamping en-mass for Georgian seaside resorts in July/August each year under the old Soviet Union and consider the whole of Georgia to be theirs, not just the two ethnic enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Why not take the tank, it’s cheaper than the train?
The boundaries between Georgia and Russia have always been blurred. Russians are used to having Georgians running their country too, Stalin and Sheverdnadze being the two we know best over here.
221. You have as much chance of converting Rod from Holocaust Denial as you do of convincing JohnLoony that the deaths under Mao and Stalin were deliberate.
Of course a lot of them were deliberate. Many of them were executions. Reactionary and unscientific historians try to pretend that any death, for any reason (execution, war, famine or whatever) counts as “murder” just because it happens in a Communist country. A similar fallacy is that all such deaths are the responsibility of the government and not of other agents such as invaders, traitors, saboteurs and so on.