Could Cameron get a majority with a lead of just 5 points?
February 8th, 2010
This is the second part of an examination by long-time PBer and statistician, Andy Cooke, into the level of Tory lead that the party will need at the general election in order to ensure a majority. If you have not read Part 1 then read that first before going onto this continuation
What lead do the Tories need - Part 2?
How to measure the probable unwind? The simplest thing to do would be to set the three effects as linear from the a zero-swing minimum to the full whack at a swing of about 10% - similar to the “full Blair”. This is feasible for points one and two, but not point three – it varies too much. What I assumed was that the potential magnitude of the third effect would vary from the minimum to 100% of potential linearly over the 0-10% swing range. The potential maximums were 4.9% (0-2.5% swing), 4.3% (2.5-5% swing), 4.2% (5-7.5% swing) and 2.7% (7.5-10% swing).
What’s the minimum? Well, even if Labour got to a zero-swing scenario, I’d expect an effective swing towards Cameron of at least 0.2% for a tactical voting unwind barely larger than in 2005, and 0.3% for an unwind of the Blair Effect to the tune of about a tenth of it’s magnitude, merely due to the “Brown vs Cameron” battle failing to capture the anti-Tory sentiment for Labour the way Blair could against Hague/Howard. The constituency effect would be unpredictable – arguably it could be at the maximum as the battleground is the one where the peak effect is found, but pessimistically, I’d start it at zero.
The modelling chosen goes as follows:
So, what does that give us?
The effects were modelled in a probabilistic calculator, with the Lib Dems held at 20% and the Tory/Labour scores swung around the 35/35 mark. The seat ranges are given in a +/- 1 standard deviation figure (so we’d expect the seats to be in the given range 68% of the time. To get a 95% confidence figure, double the size of the range whilst keeping the centre point unchanged)
Conclusions
The results look staggering. A lead of 5 points – according to these assumptions - could result in a Tory majority! Six points and it’s practically in the bag. Another notable feature is the dog that didn’t bark. Look at the Lib Dems. Bearing in mind that this model currently ignores any potential anti-Labour tactical voting in favour of the Lib Dems or Lib Dem overperformance in targeted seats, the score of high-forties to mid-fifties is a lot higher than many people expect. To be fair, the Con vs Lib Dem battle is not modelled, so over- or under-performance in these marginals could have a major effect on the Lib Dem seat total.
It looks too good to be true for the Conservatives. But the entire distortion currently in the system has accumulated due to factors that are going into reverse And the majority of that accumulated electoral advantage is in the seats with majorities between 0-15% - the very seats that will form the key battleground.
It’s a reflection of just how damn good Labour has been at maximising its vote where it’s needed. Unfortunately, when it lets go, it’s a double or triple whammy back. Every advantage that’s been cited is one more factor that can unravel. Since 2001, when Labour held a landslide despite the swing against them, they’ve been fighting the electoral gravity – and doing so with significant success, it must be said
What if you disagree with my assumptions? The solution is simple – if you totally disagree, stick with the UNS predictions – but I’d suggest that assuming zero tactical vote unwind, zero marginal targeting effect and zero constituency effect is even more controversial than what I’ve written.
You could take the UNS predictions as one extreme and the above as another extreme and plump for somewhere between them. Or you may decide that I’m being too cautious and that the effects won’t just unwind but wind up towards the Conservatives.
A net anti-Labour tactical vote overwhelming last times net anti-Tory vote. That Cameron vs Brown in the marginals will do more than reset the situation to the Major vs Kinnock level – in which case, the effects will be larger than laid out above. Over to you …
Andy Cooke
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Let’s hope so
Under VIPA, the Tories need a 7% lead if their vote is around 40%, above 41% it’s down to six.
Blimey
yes please.
FPT. 525. “Well if thats the will of the people then so be it. At least we’d get a resolution once and for all rather than this rather odd, neither in or out position we’re in now with the Conservative Party in particular constantly being rocked by the UKIP tendency.”
But the “will of the people” can’t be simply expressed as either the UKIP position, or the federalist position. The vast majority of people support something in between the two.
Thanks Andy for your articles, they’ve definitely enhanced my understanding further.
5, I’m going blind. I thought at first you were thanking Mr. Cooke for his particles
I wonder what the results of the last three elections would have been if ALL of the constituencies were the same size.
Anyone care to work this one out???
Well I hope this is true! A 1992 all over again, watching the Labour smiles turn to tears would be brilliant.
More days like today, when Brown is made to look a prat by Cmaeron can only help the tories.
I think 41-31-21 is the most likely outcome, which I thought would be tory maj 20-40. If it in fact means 100+ then happy days.
From that table, the one thing that stands out is how consistent the Lib Dems are regardless of whether it is a 17% Tory lead or a Labour lead of 3%
7:
Not much difference (Single digit seats changing hands I would guess)
I think that’s what they call a large three course meal for thought.
Thanks for your hard work Andy.
I think Mike is one of the few hosts who keeps trying new things and breaking new ground. Many bloggers are like journos and follow the pack.
Better be on the safe side and get a 15%+ lead.
RodCrosby
Helloooo?? Are you there??
A big ‘WOW’ from me and I only award those on a monthly basis.
Take your eyes off of the main event and focus instead on Lib Dem Seats.
Ignoring the Loony Toons, what Andy Cooke is saying is that they will receive between 44 and 55 Seats. This is very much in line with my own investigations.
What has impressed me most about betting on the Seat Bands is the wild instability for every Party EXCEPT for LD.
Thats the aperitif sorted; now for the main course.
I find this rather more compelling than Rod Crosby’s “splashback”…
Come on Rod Crosby, lets be having you.
FPT “My preferred choice would be to take over a tower block in Lambeth or Westminster and give each MP who needed London accommodation a flat rent-free.”
Ditto that but i think they should be posh flats for “respect the uniform” reasons.
Ooh, I’ve got the statisti-gush.
*swoon*
When will Rod be writing a similarly detailed set of articles explaining his splashback hypothesis?
This is an outstanding piece of work. Even if it is 100% wrong, it will have been wrong in interesting and instructive ways.
I do not wish to post too quickly on this, because the article deserves a lot of thought. My instinct is that it is too optimistic for the Tories, but not wildly so. More later, once I have digested it a bit more.
It’s a real mind bender this one, and boy am I pleased it has appeared after GB was cemented in place. Thanks Andy, sterling work young man.
19, I feel similarly. It sounds too good to be true, though I hope it’s accurate.
7. it’s been worth 12 or 13 seats to Labour at the last three elections or about 25 on their majority.
It was more in 1992, worth about 20 seats.
4. AndrewG
It was in 1975.
Well I predicted between 5.0% and 6.0% for a Con majority!
As previously posted it’s actually just basic common sense - based on the history of the last 80 years of GEs and the fact that we will be having a GE on the fairest ever boundaries.
Why should the votes suddenly stack up in a way that they never have before?
But congratulations to Andy Cooke for demonstrating this so well.
Blimey!
Andy Cooke knows his stuff, so this needs to be taken seriously.
I think we can safely assume he’s got the maths right, although as Andy points out he hasn’t modelled LibDem seats (and perhaps Scotland?), which might affect things a bit.
Clearly the big question, therefore, is whether the base assumptions about the reversal of the effects he describes are valid, and if so, whether he has calibrated the rate at which they would happen correctly.
Given the performance of the Tories in the local elections, and the polling evidence regarding differential swings that we do have from YouGov, MORI and the regional sub-sets which jsfl has tracked for us, I’d say the thrust of what Andy has said looks plausible, even if the size of the effect he describes looks a bit too good to be true.
More seriously, many thanks for this thread and yesterdays thread Andy.
Clearly a very detailed body of work here.
I’m nowhere near qualified enough to comment other than to say that I’ve always felt in my gut that people over-state the mountain the Tories have to climb to get a majority.
Yes, the Tories will need an historically big swing, but when the likes of RodCrosby pretend the climb is almost impossible and that basically all Conservatives and their supporters might as well just give up and go home, I just think thats a very closed minded attitude.
SPIN have suspended their seats market. News of a poll coming out?
So if 6% or lower is required for a hung parliament - when was the last poll that suggested one ? 2008 ?
25 Richard Nabavi. We can safely assume he has got the maths wrong as have Baxter&Wells and as has Robert Smithson and Rod Crosby.
I love the bit about the Lib Dems but the narrative in chief has my shaking my head in disbelief; even though I am on the same side.
27. The Populus poll for The Times should be turning up this evening.
Has this idea been checked by trying it with 1992 data?
Con majority up to 1.51 on betfair could relate to 27 ?
Maybe I have misunderstood (always found standard deviations a bit tricky) but is the stablity of the Lib Dems not a direct result of their results not being “modelled” in the same way? It seems very likely to me that Lib Dems would suffer at least as much as Labour on the points made since they have been the traditional home of the vote against voter.
Extrabet moved another 2 points to the Tories today
27 “SPIN have suspended their seats market. News of a poll coming out?”
We should have Populus tonight, I think.
A couple of posters have mentioned 1992. I have been thinking (insert joke) about this issue of Blair unwind, anti Tory tactical voting etc. in trying to second guess what will happen this time round. My solution - forget the Blair years. Use the 1992 result as the starting point. Look at swing from 1992, and apply UNS to determine the number of seats for each party.
This sounds way to easy to work - but is it? Please feel free to rubbish this idea as you see fit…
29 URW - In each case the maths of the models are no doubt right; it’s the assumptions behind the models that differ.
I agree that the results look head-shake inducing. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that UNS is necessarily right.
It’s fascinating stuff, but Andy is really only saying what “could” happen, not will happen - and there are 101 other different outcomes which could happen.
I have to go out, and will try to post further comments later…
Fascinating stuff. Really good work.
Intriguing stuff by Andy. It will be interesting to see if the mainstream press pick up on this.
A good article Andy , many thanks for your efforts .
Re the unwinding of the 1997 swings in the marginals , we should perhaps differentiate between the average marginal seat and those that have been moving demographically one way or the other ( it may be that the overall effect of the demographic changes over the country as a whole is neutral anyway ) .
There is no doubt that the 3 Brighton/Hove seats have moved demographically away from the Conservatives over the last 25 years . This effect may be not enough to stop the Conservatives gaining Hove and Kemptown this year although it was certainly enough to stop the Conservatives gaining Hove in 2005 . Pavilion of course used to be a very safe Conservative seat but IMO from the information I am receiving from friends who live there of all poltical persuasion this will not only be a Green gain but Caroline Lucas will win with a much larger majority than anyone is expecting .
My own opinion FWIW is that the Conservatives need a 6-7% lead over Labour for an overall majority .
38: Isn’t that the point of a forecast/prediction?
As he says it’s based on assumptions, but seems just as valid as other predictions/models.
WELL DONE ANDY !
Now stick this up those Labour Luvvie Journo’s
@42:
They’re a lot more valid than the gash that Rod spews on a daily basis, because unlike Rod, he’s actually bothered to STATE HIS ASSUMPTIONS.
37 Richard Nabavi- What I mean is that Andy Cooke is EXTREME. Robert Smithson is extreme as is Rod Crosby. Baxter and Wells are just WRONG.
My job is to chart a sane course away from W&B.
So if the Tories can just get their traditional late swing to them, and Smithson’s law applies vis-a-vis Angus Reid, and the Brown Epiphany comes into play, we’re looking at about 90 Labour MPs? [I've had to extrapolate since your table doesn't show 22 point leads].
Top work, Andy.
Another fascinating piece by Andy and one that surprised me too. I hadn’t really thought that if there had been no change at all in the relative Labour lead that they would lose 10-20 seats and a modest 1% swing from Lab to Con would have pushed us well into hung parliament territory. Neither had I truly considered the potential enormity of the damage to Labour if the Conservative position improves and they get a big win.
Looking at UKPR other than the odd poll and the height of the Brown bounce Labour lost their majority when Cameron won the Conservative leadership in 2005 and have basically being fighting a losing battle ever since.
On these figures Brown was right to bottle the Election that never was because he could well have lost it outright and of course since then there has been barely a poll that hasn’t suggested that Brown was in trouble. All that ramping by Labour for nothing….
So potentially the biggest factor in this election story might well be the choice of replacements of the two main political leaders.
POGWAS
OT (sorry)
orders from above ?
glenoglaza tweets
Won’t be tweeting Jack Straw after all: Have to do a piece for TV about Cameron being beastly to Brown, but will listen & tweet when I can
Is Andy predicting that Labour lose seats in Scotland if the present poll lead shrinks to 5?
“As he says it’s based on assumptions”
Extreme assumptions at that. In 1997 Labour managed to net about 14 seats for each unit of swing. Andy seems to be suggesting the Tories will virtually double that conversion rate.
Believe that if you will…
Andy, this is tremendous stuff you’ve been giving us. Serious food for thought - as a non-better, that’s what I come here for. Thanks to you and to Mike.
One of the important things about this, will be that studio projections made on the basis of the exit poll would underestimate the change of seats. Assuming the exit poll is accurate the disparity will be large, and will surprise most of the pundits…
44. You obviously weren’t paying attention…
“but Andy is really only saying what “could” happen, not will happen ”
Like you.
I would love some feedback on labour private polling, as the blub feat with Piers will give a blip to Brown and make him appear less of an ogre.
Still a liar, Ecclestone money confirms that, but less of an ogre.
May I say that one thing I especially like about this article is that it is constructive about how to use it if you disagree with Andy Cooke’s analysis.
49. Whats that got to do with anything?
I’ll digest the two articles when I’ve time, but one thing that did concern me in 2005 when reviewing the results was that the Tories possibly had an artificially enhanced position as a result of Labour voters switching to the LDs over Iraq, the Tories not necessarily moving forward in terms of switchers, but improving their share in certain seats nevertheless. I felt that many key marginals, certainly in the north (eg, Pendle), came within Tory grasp for 2010 simply because of this, and not because northern voters suddenly warmed to Michael Howard. I thought that rather than needing “one final push” in 2010, it would be one step back and two forward in order to achieve victory.
Ironically, with Chilcott now in the news the Iraq sores have been reopened, so the Tories may still benefit from hardened anti-Iraq/Blair Labour voters sitting on their hands or backing the LDs instead.
But I do still have a nagging doubt that the 2005 results give the appearance of the Tories being stronger than they actually were, and that the “gains” made in 2005 are by no means “in the bag” to be built on this time.
I reckon that momentum in the polls is still with Labour at the moment but that is different to what will happen during the GE campaign.
There was talk on here yesterday of a March 25th date for the election.I still think its a good possibility.
52. Including on the night/morning after - we could have accurate exit polls of a 9% lead and the narrative goes from hung parliament to healthy majority over an 18 hr slice of humble pie.
So for what its worth i think you could see a narrowing to a 5% lead at some point this month.
Does the custom of the prime minister having a weekly chat with HMQ still hold?
- I was just wondering how those chats were going with Gordon Brown.
44 A fair point, Mark. Examples of seats going in the other direction would be Welwyn Hatfield, and Forest of Dean.
52. The exit poll is designed to get the seat totals right, so it should be pretty accurate in terms of seat projections.
48 Beggar’s belief.
As far as the markets are concerned, it could be coming from here.
Looking through some threads I missed, it seems there is form for Andy’s articles affecting the markets. This artilce has been flagged up for a couple of days.
Possible of course, that Mr Smithson’s or URW’S huge packets are moving around and causing ripples.
54. Absolutely, but I could come up with a mathematically justified way of showing how Labour “could” increase its majority, or the Tories “could” win by a landslide, or the LibDems “could” win over 100 seats.
Showing the detailed working-out wouldn’t make any of those scenarios any more likely to happen…
You have to also consider points like the one made @50…
I see your calculator arrived while I was posting on previous thread.
I thank you for such a well researched analysis and for the table itself.
Personally I believe (and as you mention), we could actually see overperformance from the Conservatives. I think 6% lead may just be enough for an overall majority.
However I have always believed it would be harder for Tories to gain LibDem seats compared to Labour ones.
For what its worth I am inclined to think the LibDems may remain around 63 seats.
59. I still favour March 25th timmo. Given the fact that Brown has been deliberately vague about his economic policies, I don’t see him giving the Conservatives a concrete budget in black and white to aim at.
Five points is bullish even by my standards. I’m on a train but will look at the details tonight. thanks Andy.
54 - No, no, David, you haven’t been paying attention. Rod’s is the only model that predicts what will happen. It has all the force of an iron law, IIRC. Everything else is just projecting based on flawed, over-optimistic assumptions.
67 - but why lose a GE on 25th March when he doesn’t have to lose a GE until May 6th - or at a desperate push, early June even?
Mr Procrastinator-Brown will surely subscribe to the “something will turn up, surely” school of thought won’t he?
FPT SO If you know Witney as well as you claim, I am surprised that you would describe a house in Queen Emmas Dyke as a “normal middle class home”. I can only assume that you have a different view of what constitutes “normal middle class”.
Middle class is defined as social groups ABC1. The median middle class person is roughly on the boundary between B and C1. For a “normal middle class home” I would therefore look at houses in areas where the occupants are predominantly B and C1. My experience of Queen Emmas Dyke is that it is C1 and C2.
That’s my last word on this subject. I need to get back to work!
62. I bet HM is privately relishing the thought of having someone else to talk to in a couple of month’s time.
3 years listening to Brown every week would be enough to drive anyone insane (even more so than 10 years of Blair and 11 of Thatcher!)
Ugh. Alastair Campbell on R5 trying to defend his performance on Marr.
Paramedic claims Lib Dem AM Mick Bates assaulted him
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8503542.stm
The real nasty party politics,I keep telling you
VOTE YELLOW GET BROWN.
Seems fiery angry Dave was a bit soporific.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:242d6ffb-ab7b-436a-8a22-9023d844d386
This model starts from the observable and measurable fact that in 1997 Blair was particularly successful where he needed to be and maintained most, if not all of that advantage in 2001 and 2005. The premise is that this advantage is in some way artificial and will unwind this time. But what if the advantage arises because Blair/Brown/Mandelson/Campbell were very successful in building up an effective ground operation in marginal seats and simply campaigned there better than the Tories getting their vote out? That advantage might still be there. I have seen very few signs that the Tories have managed to improve their campaigning at ground level despite Ashcroft’s money. The best they can point to is some polls which do support the idea the Tories might be doing better in these marginal seats but these are vulnerable to turnout. The key, as London showed all too clearly, is always GOTV. If Labour can achieve this in marginals in the same way as the past I fear that this analysis may prove optimistic.
70. I am of the view that the “something turning up” has already turned turned up, as we are seeing in the recent polls. History shows that Brown bounces have a very limited life-span and that the current bounce is pretty unlikely to last for another three months. A very possible negative 2010 Q1 figure would be disastrous.
It’s very difficult to think of something that might turn up which would turn the polls even more towards Labour than they are at the moment.
Since when has Brogan become a Cameroon?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100025405/david-camerons-politics-of-steel/
Andy, that is a very well argued piece which will take to digest. You have taken the baseline AIUI as being the 1992-1997 changes. My question would be what if we looked at it from 1987-1997? Remember the % vote moved very little yet the seat swing was dramatic in 1992. Did the tactical voting actually begin then (whilst not actually resulting in a Labour victory) and then accelerate?
75,What a weak piss poor post
Tim must do better,try again tim.
75. And who is the non-entity that wrote that piece (Rachel Young????)? Are Sky dragging them off the street (or out of the classroom per chance) these days?
Rod you might get attacked less if you stopped rubbishing everyone else’s models whilst considering yours to be akin to Holy Writ
Spectator thinks going hard on lobbyists might backfire.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5760118/a-note-of-caution-over-camerons-welcome-attack-on-lobbyists.thtml
78. I love this bit of the Brogan piece.
but his description of politics under Labour as a “demented spin-off of the entertainment industry” brilliantly captures so much of what has gone wrong in the past 13 years.
It says so much about so many of the Labour posters here as well (demented spin-offs)!
Is Plato here?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/andrew_montford_interview/
Sandy one major problem with applying the swing straight from 1992 is that we don’t have the 1992 results based on the 2009 boundaries.
Just done very detailed YouGov political survey with some very strange questions about policies and which would make you support parties and which wouldn’t. Some of the questions very difficult to answer with the answers they were allowing.
If asked I would say it was by a left leaning publication and was trying to mould the answers to want it wanted
As an avid lurker here I would just like to thank you for these two articles. They support the feeling I’m getting in my constituency (which turned Labour in 1997)
If I was Gordon Brown reading this Nokias would be flying.
Just for you Tim.
Jeremy Hunt has joined twitter.
http://twitter.com/Jeremy_Hunt
Not sure if anyone is watching but Straw is struggling today.
82. I don’t “rubbish” any model, and have never claimed mine is Holy Writ.
How about a model that predicts Labour will be the largest party in a hung parliament. There is at least one out there that I know of…
As for “attacks”, well they are no more than “chaff” thrown up by people with poor debating skills…
87
Some focus-group-derived attack points being explored?
Straw now struggling at Iraq Enquiry.
Excellent article
Well, this definitely gives miles to my theory that old GB is watching these polls very closely, and this theory in particular will sway his decision.
And based on this, i’m still not convinced that he won’t jump ship at the last moment.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services reckon Brown has got his figures wrong again. This time in his announcement on social care:
The government has placed the overall cost of the bill at £670m a year, but a recent Adass survey put the possible cost at over £1bn a year.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/02/08/113755/Gordon-Brown-fails-to-satisfy-Adass-on-free-care-costs.htm
87 - I’ve not had a yougov for months now, least it feels that way.
paulwaugh
Rod Lyne cuts through the cr*p. Says Straw was ‘misrepresenting the Govt’s position” on regime change to Dick Cheney
76 My experience is quite the opposite. Labour campaigning at local level seems to have pretty much died out in quite a lot of the areas they did well in in 1997 and 2001. In this region Labour were outcampaigning the Tories by miles in places like Milton Keynes, Reading and Swindon. Now it is the other way round. Seats Labour lost lat time, like Reading East and Milton Keynes North are seeing no Labour activity at all. Seats they held onto last time like Reading West and MK South are now seeing strong Tory campaigns.
(And I’m not a Tory - just reporting what I’ve heard from all sides in these places.)
Are the BBC doing a live feed of the inquiry as i cant find it and the link from the actual inquiry wont play om my desktop.
85 Father Finton Stack - many thanks, very good review.
98 - I’m watching Sky via tvcatchup it’s on there.
OT Ali Dizaei finally nailed - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/08/ali-dizaei-guilty-metropolitan-politce
“…The case was investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). After the verdict its chair, Nick Hardwick, branded Dizaei a “criminal in uniform” who had behaved like a “bully”.
Dizaei is president of the National Black Police Association and was suspended over the incident in September 2008 at the height of a race row that convulsed the force.
The trial was the second time in seven years Dizaei had faced criminal charges. In 2003 he was cleared by a jury and later returned to duty. He is believed to be the most senior officer in recent times to stand trial…”
86. I just stuck the 92 result into the Wells’ seat calculator and it gave the Tories over 20 less seats than they actually achieved - hung parliament. This may in part be the result of boundary changes, but I suspect is due to the reverse swing (to get back to the 1992 starting point) being handled differently to the real swings that got us to where we are now. I imagine most of us believe the the 2010 result (in terms of vote share will be closer to 92 than to anything since then.
86. There is also the small detail of people born in 1992 voting in this election.
glenoglaza
Straw looking through his own notes to quote Goldsmith - but can’t find his own note! Doesn’t look terribly competent. Struggling
And here’s something else for you.
Someone earlier mentioned that in democracies there is a deep wisdom.
I 100% agree. And one of the things which has become abundantly clear recently is how downright impossible it is to remove an unpopular Labour Prime Minister, but conversely, re Margaret Thatcher, how relatively easy it is to get rid of an unpopular Conservative Prime Minister.
These facts are now permanently embossed on the nations subconscious, and the country will not vote for 5 more years of Gordon Brown, but they might chance their arm with David Cameron, because they know that the Tory Party does not suffer unpopular leaders, and also that if he’s not up to the job, he can be got rid of.
Basically with the Tory Party, the country feels as though it’s in charge, but with Labour now it feels oppressed.
OT From Iain Dale - T”he Daily Telegraph always used to be considered the ‘House Journal’ of the Conservative Party. But according to a ConservativeHome blogpost today, Tim Montgomerie reckons his blog has now taken over that position - at least among Conservative Party candidates. He surveyed 150 PPCs to find out which media they read regularly.” PB is very high on the list at 40%.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z5hT1P0X79c/S2_lKdTirfI/AAAAAAAAFrQ/VkSO9nxJiII/s1600-h/conhome.gif
@105:
There’s never been a Conservative PM elected under the party’s current rules. Hague was the first Tory leader elected under the current arrangements.
Straw on the edge,Blair recalled later this week.
No wonder Cambell broke down.
He knows they are f***e*
105, I agree with that assessment regarding axing leaders, but wonder how strong that awareness is amongst the electorate.
Whilst the forthcoming election will be fascinating (divergent polls, huge doubt over what points lead the Tories need and how it will play out) I wish it were dull. I’d prefer a straightforward 20 point lead, Labour fcked for decades, Balls loses Morley & Outwood. The end.
105 Interesting observation.
On topic - I’m having trouble believing that the Tories could possibly do so well on just over 5%. If it’s true - CRIKEY.
Many thanks to Andy for a cracking bit of analysis on both threads - it certainly makes a Tory landslide a possibility big time.
I wouldn’t fancy being in Labour HQ this afternoon!
103 - given the recent attitude survey showing a shift to the right, and that the only government they have any experience is a Labour one, what makes you think they won’t vote Conservative ?
Birmingham Selly Oak: Labour campaigning in this constituency, quite active hitherto, died two years ago from shame/embarrassment (gosh, NOT the end of boom and bust). Labour councillors also decliminated hereabouts.
97 well I am a tory, if a cautious one, so I hope you are right. One other factor is that in 1997 in particular the Tories were at an unusually low ebb in local Government while now Labour have that cross to bear. I have always found local councillors in their own wards particularly effective campaigners. Nevertheless, albeit more selectively (and your observations are perhaps indicative of withdrawal from hopeless seats) I am still twitchy about the respective strengths of the campaiging machines.
Shame less spin from Campbell?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100025408/was-alastair-campbell-at-breaking-point-no-just-re-read-the-transcript/
101, and not before time Plato
If this is correct then expect Labour to just fall to bits at the end of April.
101. I’m sure it’s all a racist conspiracy.
117, aye. On that note some Sikh chap wants the right for Sikhs to have a dagger (kirpan) wherever they go as it it’s an article of faith. Good point on Have Your Say by a Scotsman asking if he gets to wear a dirk with his kilt.
106 - It’s appalling that more Conservative PPCs read the Spectator Coffee House than read the Sun. How on earth do they think they are going to be able to connect with their prospective electorate if they don’t try to understand what’s on their minds?
Straw all over the shop.
109. I agree MD. I don’t want to live in interesting times. I just want to be sure Cameron will win.
107 - True, but the Tories have never been slow to get rid of any leader that they see as a liability. Just ask Maggie Thatcher or IDS - as Dave will discover in a few years.
Superb piece of work! Breaks new ground and will reset the argument!
re antifrank @1453, my consultant colleague and the doctors’ mess here reads and subscribes to The Sun for that very reason
I wonder if at some stage the LP will change the rules for electing their leader, they’ve certainly got good cause too ? All this loyalty cr@p when it’s against the party’s interest is bizarre.
119 antifrank - You have misunderstood. More PPCs claim to read CoffeeHouse than The Sun.
Not according to BBC R5
125 - Which leaves only one question: which PPC is Martin Day?
117. Did he not drag Michael Mansfield out of retirement to defend him ?
Happy Days.
Don’t know if many others on here are members of this initiative, for those who may be interested in sign
“Dear Plato,
The response to our last email was incredible. As a result of your collective efforts, we now know that:
Some people in Ashford want the Eurostar to stop there more often
The funding of the air ambulance is an issue in Dwyfor Meirionnydd
There’s a feeling in South Derbyshire that there aren’t enough allotments
… plus nearly 700 other issues, with at least one in a third of all UK constituencies.
Our next target is ambitious - we want 2000 local political statements, covering at least half the country, by the end of the week. We will use these 2000 statements to pin candidates down, so we all get to find out which side of key local issues they lie on.
Can you help us reach 2000 local statements? Or do you know someone who could? if we get this right, perhaps the next bunch of MPs won’t have to be charged by the police…
Thanks,
Seb, Tim, Francis, Tom and the Democracy Club team
PS If you’re interested in holding a local Democracy Club meetup, just hit reply and we’ll help bring people near you together
http://www.democracyclub.org.uk
http://www.twitter.com/democlub
Chilcot: “The Line” looks to be unravelling with Straw today. I’ve never seen him so rattled.
If Blair was nervous the first time around, then he has good cause to be bricking it on the re-call….
126 was to 120.
Straw may not even be questioned over the difference between his and Hans Blix’s recollections
117 I don’t think that this particular conviction will be displeasing to the majority of police officers.
OT Weird story of the day
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7188738/Man-breached-Asbo-by-dressing-as-a-schoolgirl.html
And the chappy in question is…60
131 - odd that Blix wasn’t asked to appear.
o/t. hasn’t this bloody woman heard of hotels? and who is she accountable to?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23803234-anger-at-pound-431-taxi-ride-for-head-of-arts-council.do
nice work, if you can get it.
must be some very happy cabbies in Stratford Upon Avon. I had that Liz Forgan in the back of my cab guv, paid for a week’s holiday….Another shameless Guardian luvvie.
132 There will be numerous Met Police officers going out tonight for a big drink on the strength of todays result. The force can do without people like Dizaei.
The Lib Dems have outlined a three-point charge sheet against Straw, claiming that he:
• Knowingly misled parliament on the legality of the war. On 17 March, a day before MPs voted to authorise British involvement in the war, Straw told them: “There is no question about the legality of the action that we propose to take.” The inquiry has heard that the two most senior Foreign Office legal advisers, Sir Michael Wood and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmhurst, believed the war was illegal.
• Breached the ministerial code by preventing the cabinet from seeing Goldsmith’s full legal advice. At paragraph 2.12 the code says: “When advice from the law officers is included in correspondence between ministers, or in papers for the cabinet or ministerial committees, the conclusions may if necessary be summarised but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached.”
• Abused his powers and failed to declare a confict of interest when he vetoed a freedom of information request to release the minutes of the cabinet discussion about Iraq on 17 March 2003. The Lib Dems believe Straw gave a misleading account when, as justice secretary, he vetoed the FoI request last year. He described the cabinet as “the forum in which debates on the issues of greatest significance and complexity are conducted”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/07/jack-straw-iraq-lib-dems
O/T Redwood on carbon “paw” prints - is he talking about Lord Stern here ?
” Will someone come forward with the idea that we should start to wean our furry friends off meat, and try and breed vegan pets with special low carbon impacts?”
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2010/02/06/im-even-greener-than-i-realised/
Nick Robinson goes to Cardiff
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/02/taking_pulse.html
Interesting to note that Conservatives and Labour get the same number of seats when the lead for the former is just 2%. Perhaps FPTP is fairer than we thought!
Being lectured on truth by Campbell is a bit like being lectured on good taste by Peter Andre. His raging paranoia has rather blinded him to the fact that throughout the Iraq episode it is the Government, not the media, that has been persistently economical with the truth. It’s time he piped down
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100025393/its-time-alastair-campbell-piped-down/
127 - post of the day so far! I LMAO!!!
Without doing any maths, this seems like a scenario with much more common sense than a UNS based projection.
Two reasons for me - firstly low swing in very safe seats distorts, secondly I suspect FTP has a “winners bonus”, whoever the winner is, in marginal seats
After the 1992 results, the narrative seemed to be that there had been plenty of tactical voiting against the Tories, and that the boundaries had to be redrawn as they under represented the Tories by about 20 odd seats.
Could it just be that the first election after a review favours the Tories rather than the last before one. Makes sense, there always seem to be more new Tory seats created after each.
137 Scott - The first two points look pretty uncomfortable for Straw. He can brush off the third.
139.
Toenails claims the following - is he sure about the need for a meteor ?
” Note: The Conservatives currently have three Welsh seats: Monmouth, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Clwyd West. Election experts calculate they need five more to gain a majority: Cardiff North, Vale of Glamorgan, Aberconwy, Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South, Brecon and Radnorshire. They also have hopes of gaining Bridgend and Delyn and Montgomery - if a political asteroid hits the Lib Dem Lembit Opik. “
Clothing retailer Ethel Austin goes into administration - has 276 stores.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8504086.stm
FOUR YEARS.
If Britain wants a manufacturing industry, it should get rid of the hated and counter-productive Industrial Tribunals - http://tinyurl.com/yj89xpb
134
very parochial,
but unsurprising.
WOW Ali gets FOUR YEARS!!!
Andy Hayman will be delighted!!
As ever, the Daily Mash provides the most cogent analysis of the day’s news
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/dimwitted-mediocrities-%27not-above-the-law%27-201002082450/
147. Sad, a fine old Liverpool firm…
Very interesting article, thanks Andy. Judgement day will come soon enough!
For anyone who is interested, paddypower have a reasonable price of 2.75 for the conservative seat band 351-400. They only let me have 60 quid on it, but still better than nowt.
148 - 4 years indeed
Bye Bye Ali Dizaei
He will, of course, be kept in a segregated wing - for his own safety
Is he the highest ranking officer ever to be jailed?
It is certainly a massive fall from grace (not that he ever seemed to display any grace in recent years)
Search on for MP Jim Devine’s mystery whip
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Search-on-for-MP-Jim.6051662.jp
I wonder if their internal inquiry has taken the radical step of, I don’t know, ASKING HIM?
Sky News on Ali Desai.. yes its 4 years and he MIGHT lose his job….
Still if the Lib Dems get their way he can at least vote from prison.
137. Hmmm you’d think the Lib Dems had it in for Straw for some reason. I wonder what that could be.
146-Surprised he missed out Newport west and Gower. Long shots yes, but why not? If they miss out on Bridgend will he be spinning about a disppointing result? They should gain 5+ seats but will it be the difference between a majority and not? Methinks not. Who are these experts anyway?
COmpare, ConHome reckons the bookies make them favourite for 11 gains in West Yorks. How come that’s not mentioned? Lancashire has 9.
I see Mr Blanc is complaining he has been moderated for criticising this series:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2447
Brown in HOC on SKy … on Ireland.
Hmmm
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2844478/Harman-fave-for-Rear-of-the-Year.html
162 - Ladbrokes make the Conservatives joint favourites with Labour at 5/6 in Newport West. In Gower, they are second favourites, but are only 11/10. For Nick Robinson to overlook those seats is very surprising indeed and suggests he needs to broaden his sphere of election experts. For Delyn and Bridgend, which he does mention, Ladbrokes have the Conservatives at 6/5 and 11/4 respectively, making them both a longer shot than either of the seats that you named.
140. Hmm. Depends on your definition of ‘fair’ - if the Lib Dems get 20% of the vote (as this model assumes) should they not get 20% of the seats (there or there abouts) rather than less than 10%?
Meanwhile - it’s good to see that in here in Groupthink Towers, an article that supports the theory that the Tories are going to win gets the ceremonial nod of approval.
Out of interest - there is seemingly a fair level of support for the idea of a hung parliament and coalition government in the real world. http://www.charter2010.co.uk/
162,166.
I suspect we’ll see a lot more of this guff in the election run up - pick individual seat - claim Con must win for majority - claim Cons wont win this seat due to X and Y - extrapolate that Cons wont win majority.
Lazy ? Its what we do..
@163:
It seems that 90% of those posting on UKPR are idiots.
Why don’t they come here to be ‘corrected’?
@167:
Yes, I can imagine hung parliaments being attractive to mediocre dipshits, terminally dim gobshites and the gut-scorchingly average.
169. We’ve enough jokers already
170 - Martin - so now we get the true Conservative view of the British public, that 89% of them are “mediocre dipshits, terminally dim gobshites and the gut-scorchingly average”.
Best to be upfront about it, I suppose!
EricPickles: “Interesting visit to the news floor of the Daily Telegraph - watch tomorrow’s paper being prepared - definitely worth buying tomorrow” 4 minutes ago from UberTwitter
Hmmm
http://twitter.com/EricPickles/status/8813578253
173/4 Why? has it got fish and chips in it?
@172:
Don’t be dense. The interpretation given by whichever dullard wrote that laughable blog post bears no relationship to the question asked, nor does it tell anything useful about what the people think of hung parliaments.
I’m fairly certain I could draft my own leading question that would show 90%+ opposition to hung parliaments, so let’s not play this trite Yellow Peril game. We’re not stupid.
In order to think that coalition government held hostage by sandal wearers is desirable you either have to be rankly stupid or utterly devoid of any imagination.
The nice thing about such opinions is how easy they are to ignore.
173/174.
A bit early for editorial backing for GE ?
176. Or own a sandal shop ?
176 - Bravo Sir -
176, yep, I was right. You really are such a charmer
Please, PLEASE come and canvass soon!
Cameron forces Brown into suspending MPs charged with expenses fraud
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249361/MPs-expenses-Labour-members-charged-fiddling-claims-thrown-party.html
175 - I laughed
180 Tabman - Genuine question: Do you view the risk of a sterling crisis and huge increase in borrowing costs for the government - which both Reuters and Bloomberg have discussed as a likely consequence of a hung parliament - with equanimity?
@180:
The people of Britain don’t want Lib Dems in government.
See if you can guess how I know. Go on, JUST GUESS.
108. Less than a quarter of Tory candidates read the FT while more than two thirds get their news from Guido? And this is the party I judge to be the most economically literate…
I worry about the state of our democracy sometimes. Where have all the intellectuals gone?
185 Socrates - True, that is a disturbingly high number of FT readers.
Thread picked up by Tim Montgomerie
TimMontgomerie
Could the Tories win a majority with a lead in the popular vote of just 5%? Perhaps says PoliticalBetting
John Rentoul must be working through it, he’s normally quicker off the mark
184 - I couldn’t give a t@ss what opinion you hold on “the people of Britain” - its just that, an opinion. And not a very well-informed one at that.
paulwaugh
The snow falls softly over the QEII. Jack Straw’s soporific evidence adds to the feeling of slow death..
Yes, he’s that bad.
SPIN back up again:
Con 342-347
Lab 218-223
LD 53-56
183 - Given that the Tories are now pledged to stick to Darlings spending plans (give or take a couple of hundred million) why would that be the effect?
@188:
You’ll no doubt be going back to your constituency and preparing for government then?
I tell you what, when you win a general election, then you can start holding governments hostage.
Until then, don’t be surprised if real politicians treat you as a cross between an occasionally-obedient, sometimes badly behaved pet (Labour) and comic relief (everyone else).
183 - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2afc9278-140b-11df-8847-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
191 tim - Don’t be absurd.
On-topic - I think my first point would be, if the baseline is pre-1997, why did the Tories only just barely win a majority in 1992 on a lead of almost eight points? It does seem likely that there’ll be a slightly higher swing in the marginals, but not enough to give them victory on a five or six-point lead. Additional points - a) the Lib Dems are going to be much more resilient against the Tories than Labour are (ie. the Tories won’t be regaining quite a number of seats they held in 1992), b) the Tories are going nowhere in Scotland (where they won eleven seats in 1992), and c) the minor parties may well pick off one or two Tory targets, eg. Brighton Pavilion.
185. I’m relieved to see so few waste their time reading the rag that is the FT.
194 - I don’t think he knows how to be anything other
192 - touched a nerve, did I?
You really do have a lot of anger - have you thought about therapy?
@194:
We wouldn’t have him any other way, surely?
When is a suspension not a suspension? When it’s announced by Gordon Brown and applies to a Labour MP accused of dodgy expenses, it seems.
On May 14 last year, just a day or so after the Daily Telegraph began unleashing its avalanche of disclosures about MPs’ expenses, the Prime Minister said this at a Labour Party elections campaign launch:
“Where standards are transgressed and mistakes are made, we have got to take action.
“That is why we have suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party Elliot Morley because of the allegations, which are serious, which have been made against him. Where there is irregularity, it has got to be dealt with immediately.”
Immediately?
Now call me old fashioned. But you would have thought the Prime Minister meant that Morley had had the Labour whip withdrawn, wouldn’t you?
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:ce3e15a3-7561-4d11-a8ab-454fd2ac4cdb
@198:
It’s not anger, so much as an agitating disdain. The Lib Dems are a wasted opportunity, and that makes me sad.
185. To be fair the doom p0rm on Guido is a better to the state the country is in than the soft wet lefty stance of the FT on financial matters
http://order-order.com/tag/boom-to-bust/
Coxall bringing the righteous gospel today. \o/ Preach it, brother!
194 - Last I heard there was a billion difference, but the IFS pointed out Osborne got his tax credit figures wrong reducing the difference to about 600 Million.
Unless you think Osborne is telling fibs.
@203:
Inane talk of coalitions and PR as /good things/ really cocks my shit. Grrr.
Will Hill has upped the ante : Con Overall Majority now at 1/2, from 4/9 and 2/5…
Unfortunately, they did not allow me to place a bet…. (^_^)
OT kind of:
Is there any country in which PR is used where the party winning most votes regularly goes into opposition because the next two biggest parties agree a coalition? If you see what I mean.
186. True! Plus, I somewhat undermined my point by describing 64% as being “more than” two thirds.
Still, those are shocking numbers. Forty percent read the Mail! Twenty percent the Sun! I really hope that is just PPCs trying to sound good to the “man on the street”. If they’re views are being shaped by such trash I do worry.
All I want from MPs is for them to be intelligent, well-informed and mostly free from demagoguery. Beneath all the spin and the jokes, I had assumed most of them were actually fairly smart - it was just a few imbeciles that attract attention. But actually, they’re all idiots spoon-fed by shoddy media outlets. Perhaps we can update Churchill’s quote: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average MP.
204. fibs eh ?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/02/gordon-brown-really-can-be-very-annoying-pphe-basically-lies-about-the-policies-of-other-parties-then-attacks-the-lie-he.html
Listening to Dave on lobbyists being the next scandal is funny.
Given how many Tory PPCs work for lobbyists.
185-Where have all the intellectuals gone?
Is that a serious post? I thought only the French thought “intellectual” was a noble profession and not a term of insult.
165 Harman “rear of the year”?
Are you sure they didn’t just ask people to nominate an arse?
@207:
Israel. Though I accept that Israel’s approach to PR is particularly retarded even by PR’s standards.
Interesting model and shows that small effects can have large results. Personally I think it is a touch generous to the tories and I think they need a 7%ish lead to get a bare majority.
211. Actually some of us prefer not to be governed by the Sarah Palin’s of this world…
204 tim - If and when Labour ditch Brown, stop pretending that money grows on trees, explain the figures in their PBR, stop adding new spending commitments each week, cancel the nonsensical public spending programmes on things like ID cards, then the markets might begin to believe that they are serious, although with their record even that is doubtful.
No-one in the markets believes a hung parliament would be in a good position to get spending back to sane levels:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE60D1M220100128
Andy, give the Tory propaganda a rest. Have you got your house on them or something?
207. Fianna Fail has always been the largest party in Ireland, so whenever they’ve been in opposition it’s because Fine Gael have done a deal with Labour and sometimes others. In Germany, most SPD-led governments were formed when the CDU/CSU were the largest bloc. So it’s not that unusual (or necessarily undesirable).
196 runnymede re FT
agreed, I’m surprised 25% of candidates want to read Ed Balls’ old rag, unless it’s for a source of light entertainment.
The FT no longer reflects what the people who run businesses think, it’s the in-house paper for those who regulate them
207-In Spain in regional elections it’s quite common. In Germany in 1976 the CDU/CSU got 49% of the vote. Think also applies to Scandinavian countries where the SDs are invariably the biggest party but may or may not form a government. Quite dificult to say all in all though as quite foten coalitions are known before the election.
215. But would instead prefer to be governed by the Rajenda Pachauris…
207 - The largest party in Sweden, the Social Democrats, are currently in opposition. They won 130 seats at the 2006 election, while the next largest party, the Moderate Party, won only 97.
210 tim
even funnier how many Labour MPs are married to them ?
mmm
glenoglaza
Straw basically accusing Hans Blix of behaving dishonestly and, lying to him. Knew at the time Blair & co. thought very little of Blix
If you watch the Hardtalk programme you can compare the stuttering performance of Straw to that of Blix. I know what I think.
88
Just done very detailed YouGov political survey with some very strange questions about policies and which would make you support parties and which wouldn’t. Some of the questions very difficult to answer with the answers they were allowing.
If asked I would say it was by a left leaning publication and was trying to mould the answers to want it wanted
by fitaloon February 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I did one for the first time in months last week, but it was like yours, it was very hard to give an answer to some of their questions.
222. or are descended from them
Labour the hereditary MP and leader party.
“The government has indicated that there will be a budget on March 24, setting the scene for an anticipated May 6 general election.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/02/08/next-a-battle-over-the-budget/
215-Sartre is far better. Perhaps other intellectuals appeal? Hoxha? Khieu Samphan? Guess they don’t believe in walking with dinosaurs. Just shooting 20% of the population, so not a problem. Still, they’re intellectuals so it’s fine. Guess it helps they’re socialists too.
226. A few more market squalls and it could turn out to be an emergency budget.
223. Surely they’ve got to call Blix to answer/refute Straw’s allegations?
226. It never in doubt that it’d be May 6th, IMO. So March 24th budget, March 25th, 26th or 29th Brown goes to the Palace?
226 - that budget is going to be full of oh-so-much free candy and delicious goodies.
Re Lobbyists….
Let just remember that Timmy told us that second jobs was going to make expenses look like a minor ripple in the pond, and that it was going to be overwhelmingly bad for the Tories. NPMP then asked a grovelling question about the disgusting second jobs of the Tories at PMQ’s.
Tiny problem, some Labour MP’s make the Tories look like a right bunch of lazy so and so’s when it comes to this. Blunkett, Beckett and Sheerman off the top of my head have more “second” jobs and than you can count on one hand.
I would hazard a reasonable guess that it is similar situation when it comes to lobbyist and Quango connections amongst Labour MP’s.
200 Scott P
The key word in Brown’s statement is “Parliamentary”. They were previously suspended from the PLP. They are now suspended from the Labour Party itself.
Small difference, perhaps, but not contradictory.
206. Betfair back the other way - 1.5 under pressure, NOM up to 3.5 from 3.4.
See also 190.
The most accurate pollster in America is Rassmussen and primarily the main reason why he gets it so accurate is that he does it all by automated questioning, no push polling or questioner bias in the voice.
Do any of them do that here.
226 - Watch the sweet chaff deployed left, right and centre…Free this, guarantee that…
Gordo’s Observer interview was interesting amongst other things he still wouldn’t entertain any talk of cuts…Mandy will have to have in for some further “re-education”.
216 - Hills have just cut their price on a hung parliament to 7/4
227. Except I explictly said “All I want from MPs is for them to be intelligent, well-informed and mostly free from demagoguery.”
Clearly, the die-hard Marxists fail on the last front.
See, what I want from public officials is to have people bright enough to listen to the other person’s argument rather than partisans who put words in their opponents’ mouths.
226 “The government has indicated that there will be a budget on March 24, setting the scene for an anticipated May 6 general election.”
Well actually not necessarily, they could still set the date for the budget as March 24th, fooling you into thinking a date but still if parliament is dissolved before that, it cant be held.
236. Wonder if they’ve got wind of Populus, which no doubt will show a narrowing of the Con lead, compared to the last poll?
Ho ho ho, smoke appearing from Charlie Whelan tw@tter such is the spin,
When BBC trailed that Cameron was going to attack Gordo,
“When politicians panic they loose their judgement. That is what has happened to Cameron with his ill judged personal attack on PM”
Then when Cameron didn’t say certain lines that the BBC reported
“More Tory jitters? Cold-feet Cam left out pre-briefed “disgusting sight” attack on Brown”
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
232. oldnat. Are you really suggesting that prior to Friday they were not active members of the PLP?
237. Yes but you spoiled it with your ridiculous reference to ‘intellectuals’ and even more so by equating FT readership with economic literacy.
Going back to the issue of PR in other countries, this is a very useful site for making quick comparisons -
http://www.parties-and-elections.de/countries.html
It also has a historical archive for each country.
There’s a £150 at 1.15 available on Betfair for a May 6th election. Or, better, you can back May election at 1.17.
You can back tories to gain most seats at a generous 1.15, which is a 15%ish return in 3 months.
241 Scott P
If you mean that they were barred from participating in decisions of the PLP, then that is my understanding.
Mind you, what decisions that bunch of sheep actually take is beyond my powers of description!
I’ve just been declined my £50 stake by William Hill and instead been offered the chance to bet 0p (their phraseology, not mine).
I am not sure that Cameron is capable of getting any sort of majority. With every day that passes he seems more and more unlike a PM in waiting. Today’s inappropriate diatribe was even criticised by one of the Tory grandees on Martha Kearney’s lunchtime programme. Opportunism will not endear him to the listening public and the sheer hypocricy of his criticism was highlighted by Harriet Harman when she pointed out that the Tories failed to support a bill which would have prevented a lot of the abuses.Meanwhile Gordon Brown ploddingly gives us a detailed account of all the hard work which has gone into the Irish settlement. A serious politician versus an opportunistic novice. The public will be wise to think seriously about their choice.
246. What were you trying to bet on ?
245. I think Labour have a procedure whereby MPs can be ‘internally suspended’ from the activities of the PLP while not strictly speaking being excluded from it. It’s what you might call the ‘have your cake and eat it’ clause.
But if they have now been properly suspended, Labour’s majority has just fallen by six.
242. From the OED:
Intellectual, noun, a person with a highly developed intellect.
Yes, that’s clearly a “ridiculous” reference when I’m talking about well-informed, intelligent people.
As for FT readership, tell me which other newspaper or media outlet on that list is read by most finance professionals in the morning? I accept there other, perhaps better, financial media to get your analysis from, but somehow I doubt they get any more reading from our political class than the FT.
248 - Their 9/1 offering on 250-299 Conservative seats (as part of a fairly complicated compound bet).
By comparison, tories most seats is 1/12 on Ladbrokes, 1/12 on Paddy Power and 1/10 on Will Hill (if they let you bet).
So 2/13 on Betfair is pretty good.
251. Looks to me like they’ve saved you £50.
247. I like how Labour have suddenly found the ‘isn’t Cameron so aggressive and nasty, how dare he criticise Labour and its leader” argument when pre-97 we had scathing attacks on Major and others from the opposition.
“Weak, Weak, Weak”!?
253 - It is not a prediction, it is insurance as part of a compound bet. I’m not crying into my beer that I can’t get it, but it is annoying.
Intellectual, noun, not Lilly Allen at 247.
Presumably NPMP is now in comittee with his minders, discussing how he should respond? His next post will be interesting- about climate change perhaps.
256. I do think Lilly Allen and Will L getting engaged in a debate with each other would be entertaining. Do you think either of them would ever stop?
Clegg on bbc news attacking Cameron for not voting for the reforms against mps privilege last year.
Cameron says he will give power away another pull the other one moment.
Similar to Camerons statement we all know how hard it is to pay our credit card off.
249 Three! It only goes to six if they vote against. At the moment, surely they must be regarded as “Independent Labour” or something similar?
Well, i think based on this last finding, there are only 3 possible leaders for Labour who could salvage the election for them, game changers as it were:
Andy Burnham
Caroline Flint
Parmjit Dhanda
They would all be completely different in their own ways, and might just swing it.
On topic, one good way of getting with Andy’s thesis (apart from the obvious spread-betting sell) would be to back Labour 125-149 @ 20/1, and 150-174 @ 10/1, both with Ladbrokes.
The latter in particular looks a hint of value. I’ve had a small dabble.
Cameron has gone on the attack today — beginning with what Paul Waugh highlights as a successful pre-briefing of his proposal that the law should be changed, preventing MPs claiming parliamentary privilege to contest trials over the expenses. It meant the Tories started the week on the front foot while Number 10 was still in its pjs.
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/02/08/cameron-goes-negative-against-brown/
259 - Camerons rather obvious line is a gift to Clegg, it’s not difficult to point out the hypocrisy and he’s been doing it all day.
What time is the Populus or is it tomorrow?
257. See 141
Q. When is the Labour whip not the Labour whip?
A. When it applies to David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine.
There’s been a bit of confusion today about why or whether this distinguished Labour trio of MPs had the whip withdrawn.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/q-when-is-the-labour-whip-not-the-labour-whip.html
247. LOL! Nice try Lil, but even you don’t really believe any of that.
260. “Three! It only goes to six if they vote against.”
But not all opposition MPs vote are bound to vote against the government, or not all the time. The majority is calculated simply by subtracting the number of non-Labour MPs from the number of Labour MPs.
247;
Lilly … this ’serious’ politician you talk about, this antithesis of the ‘opportunistic’ Cameron wouldn’t be the Gordon Brown who …
1) Has just exhibited a death-bed conversion to a new voting system that (by sheer coincidence) would benefit his own party - after a lifetime of opposition to electoral reform;
2) Visited the troops in Afghanistan in the middle of the Tory conference to (re)announce a reduction of troop numbers;
3) Introduced a 10p rate of tax that hammered the poorest voters in the country in a crude attempt to wrong-foot the Tories …
would it?
These are just the first three that came into my head. I could, but can’t be bothered, compiling a list of examples of Gordon Brown’s blatant opportunism. All politicians are opportunistic - it’s a requirement of the job - it’s just that the better ones are more deft at doing it.
Our great leader is, as you put it, ‘plodding’ - but that’s yours, and his, problem not Cameron’s.
247:
that’s a joke right? Brown dithers for days after Cameron’s instant action, then finally capitulates and does what Cameron wants, withdrawing the whip on his accused MPs. Sorry if Cameron wasn’t nice and polite about your man, but frankly what’s there to be nice about?
Cameron seems much more in touch to me, he “gets it” about this expenses thing in a way which Brown simply does not. Brown is far less Prime Ministerial, how you can call avoiding the expenses issue, or scuttling off to Ireland to try (and fail) to bask in the reflected glory of a power-sharing deal just so he could bottle out of PMQs the actions of a “serous politician” is beyond me. Brown is yesterday’s man, he needs to be put out of his misery.
I couldn’t help myself but have a dabble at the May GE. A little bit of free money surely?
259 & 264
As pointed out by Sir George Young the earlier vote was on a different matter,
269 I maintain that Cameron’s opportunism is in bad taste e.g Edlington jibes. He is not fit to govern.
264 The Government proposal on amending privelege was withdrawn as they accepted the Conservative argument it was better dealt with under other legislation proposed, directly related to fraud, whereas the Government proposal could have impacted on the real purpose of privilege.
As usual Clegg playing the fool.
272. Don’t ruin Cleggs 5 minutes in the sun this week..
247. Lilly Allen
Meanwhile Gordon Brown ploddingly gives us a detailed account of all the hard work
I’m sure the Prime Minister will not thank you for describing his efforts as being enacted ‘ploddingly’. It makes him sound like some knackered old donkey that should be put out to grass or sent to the knackers yard. Of course whilst commendable from my perspective that does not sell him very well.
Of course I heartily agree that Brown is a drudge (I’d applaud if he were given hard labour!) but for Labour supporters to admit it is certainly refreshing.
271 - I was sent a word yesterday about April from a Whitehall employee (it was via a friend so I wouldn’t know whether they could be fairly termed an ‘insider’) but I chose to disregard it - April would be the “something to hide” election date vis-a-vis growth figures.
Oh, and 262 above should obviously be marked as a ******* BETTING POST *******
Anyway, no one pays any attention to Clegg anyway, would anyone notice if he fell off a cliff, well probably not for a week or so.
167 “140. Hmm. Depends on your definition of ‘fair’ - if the Lib Dems get 20% of the vote (as this model assumes) should they not get 20% of the seats (there or there abouts) rather than less than 10%?”
I see this argument gets an airing every now and then. And it is I feel flawed since the totals, for all parties and not just the LibDems, include votes cast for losing candidates which must produce a distortion.
More interesting would be to aggregate the votes for winning candidates ONLY and then see how the party shares compare with seat shares.
I don’t have the time just now to do this but if anyone else could, I suspect it would reveal a very different picture.
275 GHF
of course across large parts of Britain a cleg is an annoying insect which tries to spoil your summer days.
270 Well tell Cameron to ‘get it’ on the dodgy Ashcroft millions. He does not ‘get’ a lot of things! As for Brown avoiding PMQs I think it was far more important for him to be in Ireland. Do have a sense of perspective. PMQs are not that important.
259 - then Clegg is an idiot, if he can’t see the difference between protecting MPs from vexatious prosecutions and protecting MPs when they’re being illegal bu**ers.
276 I think Lily was trying to say he’s not flash, just plodding Gordon
247. Incidentally Lilly, can you tell me how much hard work did it take Brown to buy off the Northern Irish Assembly? Or was it the case that they knew if they held out for long enough he would do what he always does which is to throw money at the problem in the hope it would go away?
277. Postponing a budget and having a GE before the Q1 GDP figures - it would be a slaughter.
116.
“Shame less spin from Campbell?”
As Will heaven correctly points out, the Campbell response was pathetic play-acting. His timing, delivery and his body language was all hopelessly out of kilter with the message he was trying to deliver of being ‘overcome’. It was a desperate last-minute attempt to answer the unansweable.
“IF” the intelligence on possible WMD threat was NOT ‘overwhelming’ then of course Blair had misled his cabinet and the House of Commons, something which Campbell could not bring himself to answer. So, instead of doing the tired ‘well that’s a hypothetical question so I wont answer it” line, he came out with this primary school play performance instead.
The really sad thing about this Chilcott stuff is how the Tories are getting away with blue murder. With a few honorable exceptions they were all taking the Michael Howard/Tony Bliar/George Bush line of regime change at any cost to make us feel more secure. Goodness knows what they would have done if given the nuclear button during the cold war!). The official Tories were at least a little more honest than Bliar in that they were not pretending to make this judgement based upon a value system different than the one they really had (except on the Fern Britton show).
Bliar/Campbell logic goes like this:
I want to do this regardless because I believe that there;’s a real threat. I believe that despite there not being any real current evidence and all those directly involved in weapons inspection etc suggesting that the opposite is true. Trouble is, those I’m meant to consult about these decisions (Cabinet) and answerable to (HoC, British People, media etc) would take a different view of the evidence as it is. But of course I know best. So I’ll just tell them the evidence is different than it is. They’ll all be so grateful afterwards.
283. Indeed Ted so perhaps we can describe Brown’s vision as ‘Plodding progressivism’?
284. That’s a bit churlish isn’t it? I’d like to see how Cameron would have handled those negotiations, now that the Tories can’t possibly present themselves as neutral arbiters between the NI parties.
288 JK
probably like the FF govt. from the Republic.
Lilly re 273;
I note that you don’t refute (because it’s irrefutable) my observation that Brown is a shameless opportunist, despite having (in your initial post 247) sought to contrast Brown ‘the serious politician’ with Cameron ‘the opportunist’.
Sorry Lilly, your argument doesn’t stand up and you know it. Time to revert to Plan B of the New Labour handbook … the personal smear.
Dizaei = exempt from tim’s principled campaign against howwid bullies. I wonder why.
247 Lily, nice to see you.
I don’t often advise anyone to follow tim’s example, but spelling-wise “hypocrisy” is probably the way to go. And when you see a striker kicking a ball into an open goal do you call that opportunism, or just doing his job?
289. Except - for all the talk of it - there has been no merger between FF and the SDLP, and the chances of it seem to have receded sharply.
288. Move the negociations to Gibraltar ?
281. Lil; if there was anything to come out about Lord Ashcroft it would have come out years ago. Do you not think the likes of Brown and MandyCampblell wouldn’t have pulled up Ashcrofts file up on a rainy Monday afternoon? If there had been anything really bad I’m sure said file would have found its way into the hands of a friendly Guardian journalist.
286 You’re citing Will ‘Cherub’ Heaven as an authoratitiave source?!
He’s a shocking coat-tails ramper who relies on other journos stories to try to grab hits - the comments on his posts are usually 98% thumbs down.
292. Hardly relevant since FF share the same position as the SDLP and the Shinners and therefore can’t be described as neutral either.
And of course the SDLP take the Labour whip
292 JK
that could be because FF have decided to set up candidates in their own right in future elections. So what’s different from Cameron ?
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ahern-rallies-fianna-fail-for-northern-ireland-polls-battle-14482311.html
288. James.
Churlish perhaps, cynical definitely (it is politics after all) but don’t get me wrong, I’m not being critical of the NI Assembly particularly for doing it.
I’m more concerned at the fact that our Prime Minister is a one trick pony and whatever the issue is his only answer is to throw money at it with no guarantee that that money is going to be used effectively. I mean look at the waste over the last 13 years.
288. Or maybe Labour are too scared to contest elections in NI?
281 Lily, do you have any evidence that Lord Ashcroft’s donations are “dodgy”?
Gordon Brown, personally, and Labour have had donations from Lord Paul, a non dom member of the HoL, from other non dom millionaires/billionaires incl the Mittals, Mahmoud Khayami.
If Jim Devine is going to ask the first question at PMQs, does this mean that JGB will refer to him as “my honourable friend”? Or does the removal of the wip change this?
Shameless opining from Glen O’Glaza on sky. DC’s speech a sign of desperation after Brown did so well at PMQs.
277
I agree that April would look bad. The time for going early is rapidly passing and everything we know about Gordon suggests May 6 is the day. Unless he goes later, risking a poor local election result, but I can’t see him going earlier.
297. I’d study the wording of that article a bit more closely if I were you - it’s got ‘aspiration kicked into the long grass’ written all over it.
But in point of fact, if that ever did happen, it would be more like the previous Conservative stance, where they put up Tory candidates in NI on their own merits (conspicuously without success) but did not have an alliance with one of the pre-existing NI parties.
288 JK
here James here’s the invite to FF launch in Co. Fermanagh at the end of last year.
http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/119370-fianna-fail-32-county-party.html
Now tell me why Cowen is a neutral broker with no axe to grind ?
302. Did he miss last Wednesday ? Lol.
302. I agree it was disgusting.
305. Alanbrooke - see 304.
281. Getting a bit flouncy there aren’t we Lilly?
301 Wonder if Jim will be accepting advice from a Labour Whip on what to ask?
or has he decided Whips aren’t the best advisors?
278.If Tory posters claim noone takes any notice of Clegg ,then why do they spend so much time posting about him?
Ed Davey calls for Jack Straw to resign over his misleading Parliament about the state of advice on the Iraq invasion (on R4 PM)
305. Fianna Fail organizing in Northern Ireland is on a par with the Conservatives organizing. If Fianna Fail were attempting to be arbiter in a pan-Nationalist pact you might have a point, but as it is should they organize in Northern Ireland they would be a challenge to the other nationalist parties, not a facilitator, so your comparison is spurious.
311. It’s entertaining to poke fun at such a loser?
313. Somehow I can’t see them bravely putting up candidates, splitting the green vote and losing nationalist seats, though. Can you?
Talking of Lib Dem’s, yet another local incident….
A paramedic who was called to give assistance to the Lib Dem AM Mick Bates after a drunken night out says he was physically assaulted by him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8503542.stm
294. GIN - It’s not the alleged dodginess of Ashcroft’s millions that will hit the useless Tories, its the stink that funding will cause your Party when it is highlighted day by day by day during the election campaign.
302, haha. Cameron crushed Brown, twice, last time. Is O’Glaza moonlighting as a glove puppet with a red rose?
Did immigration transform Britain by accident?
Why did immigration to Britain increase so rapidly in recent years? David Goodhart, editor of Prospect magazine, considers the question for Radio 4’s Analysis programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8494275.stm
Interesting choice of person by the BBC to consider such a question!
279 “I see this argument gets an airing every now and then. And it is I feel flawed since the totals, for all parties and not just the LibDems, include votes cast for losing candidates which must produce a distortion.”
Eh???
315. “splitting the green vote and losing nationalist seats”
Are you talking about the assembly elections? If so, I think you may be misunderstanding how STV works! But as it happens, I agree - FF won’t be standing in NI any time soon. They seem to be just taking some very tentative first steps that may - or may not - lead to something further down the line.
317 - so Labour don’t plan to campaign on their record and their vision for the future?
“dodginess of Ashcroft’s millions”
Hmm, interesting. I think if I was you I would be very careful what I posted with regards how such a wealthy and powerful man obtained his money. I hope you aren’t suggesting that he acquired them through any illegal means…
Anyone care to confirm if Ashcroft is domiciled in the UK for tax purposes like he promised?
The Information Commissioner - after calling the Tories “evasive and obfuscatory” last week would gladly take your call…
318 If there’s no “dodginess” then it’s not an issue, except among those who think it’s outrageous for rich individuals and organisations to donate money to the Conservatives, but entirely in order for them to make such donations to the Labour Party.
Completely OT. In the 90’s my daughter was at school with the daughter of a very beautiful model who I’d worked with. I asked her to describe the daughter to me which she did in great detail. Height eye colour face shape hair everything except that she was black. I thought how nice that this generation don’t even notice skin colour.
This morning I was reading the Mail (for reasons that don’t matter) and the back page had a story about the new England captain Rio Ferdinand whose appointment it described as ‘historic’ because he was the first black captain of England. Black captain? I thought and I had to look at a photo to remind myself.
317 The Electoral Commission are still conducting their investigation of the Ashcroft donations . I wonder what the chances are of a critical report in the run up to the GE . You can hear the wailing cries of political bias from Conservative posters on here should that be the case .
Is Lord Paul?
324 (cont) - If you are talking about his, his wifes and Bearwood Services donations, well we can have a chat about the likes of Abrahams’ donations or Cash for Honours if you like…Lord Paul is another interesting Labour character or how about the Union funding of the Labour Party / the Union Modernisation Fund…
328, is this the same Commission that considers stolen money to be legitimately donated if given to men with a penchant for sandals and EU-philia? Pah.
There are only 2 possible answers to the Ashcroft question. If he has not complied, the Tories will never be elected again. If he has complied, the years of anguished cries from Labour and the Lib Dems have been futile posturing, and questions about their sources of funding come to the fore.
It looks like a suicidal attack to me.
324. Ooo - threatening me with the might of English libel law, now Oracle? What a big men you Tories are…!
PMSL!
Note that the PM (richer than me - so a much better target for any summons) asked the same question, widely reported, over the weekend.
They have to go for March, otherwise they’re screwed. Here’s why:
GDP figures. If they are good, then the country will say, “Yeah go for it Cameron”.
If they’re are bad, who knows. But they might just stick with nurse.
Tax allowances. ISA allowance goes up to £10,000 next April. Once it is in, it’s in. Osbourne could only cancel it next year.
But if he was Cnancellor BEFORE April 5th, then he might cancel it there and then.
Then there’s the government stakes in RBS and Lloyds. The massed ranks of investors who are now praying to GB to do the right thing by them. If the stock market recovers and the shares start rising,who knows what the Tories would do with their government stakes.
Personally speaking, if i were mandy, i would go for April 1st, with all that would follow about April Fool jokes.
Because if they dither, they’re finished.
333 - I’m not a Tory. Just saying, I wouldn’t want to make such a claim.
With regards donations, all 3 major parties have had donations from non-doms in the recent past.
317. In the interest of balance here is today’s big embarassment on the Tory side:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249296/Graham-Davies-Tory-PR-guru-held-sex-attack-cleaner.html
The full Hans Blix interview on Hardtalk can be seen on the BBC News Channel at 2330 GMT and on BBC World at 0430, 0930, 1530 and 2130 GMT on 8 February 2010.
I wonder if Jack will watch it?
Apart from the potentially libellous aspects of BenM’s posts, he should be aware that it is not Ashcroft’s money that is being spent in the marginals… it is party money, from a variety of different sources. Ashcroft himself donates but a small percentage of party income these days. Ashcroft’s role is to lead the marginal seats campaign from an office in CCHQ. It’s not secret, it’s not Ashcroft’s cash, and it’s not ineffective.
It is well known that Labour has received far more in individual donations from its pet millionnaires than the Tories over the past 15 years, so the attack is somewhat blunt. And that’s before we get to the simple fact that the public has more important issues to concentrate one, such as the deficit, recession, character, future plans and policies.
If Labour want to waste time, energy and resources attacking Michael Ashcroft, let them.
318.
The words ‘Khamereon’ and ‘crushed do not seem to go well with the transitive version of the verb. If you were more than five foot three and bumped into the Tory tonsure-tweaker in the dark in a pub car park you would not exactly be bothered would you?
Re 317. Oh it’s Lilly’s little friend (clearly they are increasing the bot shifts now the election is getting close).
The pervading stench around funding is the way Labour take the taxpayers money and launders it via the Trade Unions back into their own coffers. It brings a new meaning to the word recycling.
Then of course there is the outrageous political fund called the communications allowance which Labour created.
And then they come on here whining about and smearing Ashcroft (who no one has proved anything against) when they support the most self-interested, self-indulgent and systemically corrupt governing party I can recall.
Let’s not forget Lord Sainsbury’s donation, which dwarf Lord Ashcroft. Yet Lord Sainsbury is an evil capital gain tax avoider
Lord Sainsbury, the former minister and Labour’s biggest financial backer, transferred £340 million worth of shares last night in a move that experts claim will save him more than £27 million in tax.
The supermarket heir moved his shares in the company on the eve of the Government’s controversial changes to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2787307/Labour-donor-Lord-Sainsbury-avoids-27m-capital-gains-tax.html
333 He shares your tendency to fling mud.
318.
BenM - Ashcrofts donations to the Conservatives are <2% of their income.
Shorter 331:-
Whatabout! Whatabout! Whatabout!
The sheer panic of Tories to the simplest of queries is most amusing.
Clarification is all we seek. What are you afraid of?
Guido is at an event this evening asking whether political blogging makes any difference.
I don’t know whether PB moves the polls, but we know it moves markets…
http://order-order.com/2010/02/08/does-political-blogging-make-any-difference/
336 - guy who may or may not have given some Tories lessons vs. actual Lib Dem AM. Not sure sure they’re quite equal, ya know…
337 John. I might, I might not !!
333 / 335 - Furthermore, Brown never made any claims about how Ashcroft got his wealth, it was directly solely the means by which he has funded the Tory party over the years. Even Gordon isn’t that much of a moron!
333 Gordon Brown riding to another fall?
Shame that Straw withdrew the amendment banning donations from Lord Paul and Labour’s non dom donors coincidentally when it was said Lord Ashcroft had fulfilled the obligations he had taken on and Ashcroft said the proposed law would trouble him.
344 - “The sheer panic of Tories to the simplest of queries is most amusing.”
Gordon Brown took over a week to decide upon his favourite biscuit.
Todays angry personal Dave is of course a recognition that they’ve just cocked up five weeks of campaigning.
It all indicates how concerned the Tory high command was by the way it fluffed the start of its general election campaign launch in January. It is essentially writing that off as a botched job and starting again
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/02/08/cameron-goes-negative-against-brown/
340. But jsfl, we at least know where Union donations come from don’t we?
And unions are democratic institutions looking out for ordinary uk tax paying members, no matter how sniffy, prejudiced and blinkered you are about them.
Now about this Ashcroft fella…
327. What utterly fatuous self-congratulatory Rogeresque bollocks. As if having a black skin rather than a white skin isn’t a fairly definitive way of identifying someone.
Imagine a world where some people had heads that were ten foot wide, and some were normal, and it became politically incorrect to mention this. Asked to identify a particular ten foot wide head person, a scared youngster might say, ooh, they had a nose, two eyes, um, a chin…
And they would fail to mention that the person’s f*cking head was ten foot wide. Why? Because the world had become so sweet and wonderful no one cared or even *noticed* differential head size? Or because they were just nervous of even mentioning racial/cranial difference?
Roger is the belch of a git.
338.
“t it is not Ashcroft’s money that is being spent in the marginals…”
My my! Who’s been reading his Tory spin-line this morning? Ashcrupht has been pouring his money into the marginals - at least the ones he has chosen. It may well have been supplmented by other Conservative money.
“It is well known that Labour has received far more in individual donations from its pet millionnaires than the Tories”
I always suspected the official Tories might subsidise their unofficial bretheren. I didn’t realise that pet millionaires subsidised them even more!
*** Betting Post ***
I will elaborate another day, but for the record, I wanna say that:
I’m betting that HURT LOCKER will win the Oscars for Best Picture.
On Intrade, I’m now 500 contracts long at $3,50 in average, and have no intention of hedging — yet.
Let’s just say for now that the expanded field (from 5 to 10 movies), combined with he “new” instant runoff voting system to choose Best Picture strongly favor the Hurt Locker.
This year there are ten nominees for Best Picture – the rules were changed from the previous number of five. With this wider field, I can see how the ballot tabulation rules needed to be reconsidered. With the old plurality system, ten nominees meant the threshold to win would have been 10% +1. That means a film with little support among members could win the Oscar.
This morning’s award announcements give us an opportunity look at majority voting systems. One way to conduct this kind of election is through multiple ballots. If there’s no majority on the first count, the last place vote getter is dropped off the list and ballots with the remaining nine are given to voters. If there’s no majority on the second ballot, the last place vote getter is dropped off the list and new ballots with the eight remaining nominees are given to voters. This process would continue until a majority (50% +1) picks the Best Picture.
Multiple ballots work good in places like meetings, conventions -where people are together. But when ballots need to be mailed to voters, the logistics can be cumbersome. Washington State has a majority voting system that winnows candidates down to the top two vote getters. There’s a primary election followed by another Top-Two election at a later date.
With either of these systems, some voters, whose first choice was knocked out in a round of counting, have to then consider a second choice on a later ballot. To accommodate this dynamic, the Academy used a preferential ballot. Voters rank their choices on a single ballot. For example, you put “Avatar” as your first choice and “The Hurt Locker” as second, “District Nine” as third and so on down the ballot. This way, Academy members are mailed a single ballot. And tabulation is basically the same; if there’s a majority on first count, the election is over. If not, the last place vote getter is dropped and that nominee’s voters second, third and subsequent choices are distributed to the films remaining in the counting. This process continues until the majority threshold is met.
With expanding the number of nominees for an Oscar, the Academy needed to look at voting methods. Ranked ballots didn’t create all the choices - it only accommodates them. And by giving members choices by preference, a voter can feel invested in more films. It’s like. “Heck, my first choice lost but I did rank the winner high on my ballot so I’m happy.”
http://oscarvotes123.blogspot.com/
In other words, Avatar might get more votes than Hurt Locker, but still lose, if it doesn’t reach over 50% in the first “round”. The anti-Avatar votes can then favor the Hurt Locker… And the director of Avatar has made plenty of foes in the guild since Titanic…
I would also point out that the Information Commissioners outburst last week was the sort of thing I would expect when a petty bureaucrat has over-stepped his bounds, been told to mind his own business and found out there is absolutely nothing he can do about being given the bums rush. He like BenM and others is/was just whining…….
350.
352 Ben M, do you dodge your taxes, or assault women?
I think we’re entitled to know.
jacquep
@glenoglaza Straw carrying on with Labour lies. France was simply saying: “Not tonight Josephine”, not “never Josephine”.
I meant : In other words, Avatar might get more *first choice* votes than Hurt Locker, but still lose…
340 “Then of course there is the outrageous political fund called the communications allowance which Labour created.”
And which no Tory MP has EVER used of course.
Fool
357 - it’s true though, unlike the bilge you’re currently ejaculating all over Mike’s site.
354. Laughably ill informed - even tim wouldnt follow you down this blind alley of wrongness.
346. Another David - according to the Daily Mail Graham Davies’ website includes this statement:
“On his website, Mr Davies makes no secret of his links to the Tories. He says his clients include seven members of the party’s front bench and his past pupils are said to include schools spokesman Michael Gove and multi-millionaire prospective Parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith.
The website adds: ‘He coaches executives and politicians on how to get their message across in a brutally effective way.’ It says that when Mr Davies is not speaking publicly, he relaxes by ‘providing David Cameron with a sense of humour’.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249296/Graham-Davies-Tory-PR-guru-held-sex-attack-cleaner.html#ixzz0ey4JErJK
Talking of Gordo talking about donations….Pot / Kettle / Black
The allegation of a £50k slush fund….questions to answer there…
Please be careful what you write about Lord Ashcroft. He does sue
The main problem with party funding on all sides is that the parties want too much of it. It would do them all good to cut their cloth according to their means rather than put themselves in hock to donors with dubious morals or an immediate or longterm agenda.
358.
You suggesting he might be a secret FOOTBALLER?
351, you mean they’re adapting and improving? I agree
356.
Translation: I know the current situation about Ashcroft’s donations to the Tories is indefensible and blah, blah, blah, look over there…!
314 316
Sorry, wireless went down.
FF are at present leaving all their options open as to what they do in the North. Their main fear is being out greened by SF which organises on both sides of the border and has about 10% of the vote in the Republic.
i can see no difference between the FF position and the Conservative position except they are on opposite sides of the fence.
356 jsfl. That’s the sort of rection we have come to expect from Labour ministers. Deary me and the Conservatives aren’t even in government yet.
BenM are you listening now, as suggested above, you might want to watch what you say….
356 jsfl. That’s the sort of reaction we have come to expect from Labour ministers. Deary me and the Conservatives aren’t even in government yet.
360 - it makes it more interesting, this voting system, doesn’t it?
I personally think Avatar could get a lot of second-place votes; I don’t know why, just something telling me that might be the case. Then, you’ve got 9 other films - neither of which touch Avatar in terms of sheer presence on the list - that could split the first-choicers. Then Avatar scoops up all the seconders. Who knows, though I confess I’d really like it to win.
It’s particularly egregious of Nick Clegg to attack Cameron over plans to clean up parliament, considering how remarkably dynamic and radical Cameron has been prepared to be. Peter Watt praises him highly for his approach. I think it’s worth quoting Watt at length because it goes to show how mendacious Clegg is being. Watt makes it clear that it was Labour that refused to play ball, the sticking point as we know being Union funding. Brown was the roadblock to reform which Blair wanted to push through:
As time went by, it became painfully obvious that the Labour Party could not resolve its internal issues and cross-party consensus was impossible. Tony became increasingly exasperated with Gordon’s refusal to intervene. Jack [Dromey] and I would meet him occasionally to update him on progress, and the PM would stress that he was prepared to take all the flak from the trade unions if Gordon would just help behind the scenes.
‘I don’t know why Gordon doesn’t just let me get on with it, and I’ll take all the shit. We have to do it, we have got to reform,’ he would say despairingly. But the momentum was slipping away’.
Once Brown was in office he caved in to the Unions. Watt commends Cameron’s bravery in offering to cap donations at £50k and explains what a missed opportunity it was.
…on the Hayden Phillips review, the unions won. On 30 October 2007, around eighteen months after the review was launched, the cross-party talks finally collapsed after a particularly acrimonious meeting. In press statements, Jack [Dromey] accused the Tories of being ‘unwilling to negotiate’ while Francis Maude complained that his party had ‘come against an absolute brick wall’, The Lib Dems blamed the Conservatives, accusing them of ‘walking away’.
…Though the unions greeted the suspension of the talks with great glee, the failure to reach any agreement was a disaster for the Labour Party. The introduction of state funding would have solved our financial crisis; there was no Plan B. We were now in for the long haul and would have to watch helplessly as the Tories amassed a fortune from their wealthy supporters to fight the next election campaign, while we continued to rely on the benevolence of he trade unions. While donations from tycoons could not come with strings attached, the trade union barons were never shy of articulating what they expected in return.
BenM,
I’d be interested in your thoughts regarding the morality of political donations from the Hindujas and Bernie Ecclestone.
318. How do you think it sounds when you put in the context of a donor who is a self-made man, who gives away a fortune to charity, who established Crimestoppers, who puts up rewards to help find missing children and who has no influence over party policy VERSUS £10 million from Trade Unions - militant and unelected bodies who most definitely do try to influence party policy?
372 Oracle. Cobblers !!
You go for it BenM. Don’t let the Blue Brigade bully you !!
353. But Roger was talking about a situation in which young people simply don’t think of mentioning skin colour because it doesn’t seem important to them, not because they had been told not to for reasons of political correctness. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that very young children don’t rate skin colour highly as a distinguishing feature, without being subject to any ‘ideological programming’.
Are you disturbed by a world in which people are spontaneously unfussed about racial differences, Sean?
378 - Oh behave Jack, or do you really want OGH to get into trouble.
Philippe, much as I respect your wisdom on American politics, you’re surely wrong on this.
Avatar is gonna win. It’s revolutionary, it’s got the world talking about cinema (and it’s got the world going INTO cinemas), it’s agreeably left-liberal and anti-neo con (for Hollywood types), it is a work of accepted artistic genius, and it is THE BIGGEST GROSSING MOVIE OF ALL TIME.
Hurt Locker is a nice but predictable piece of conscience-stricken film making that focuses on a depressing subject no one wants to talk about.
Hm. Tricky. You’d need some f*cking good odds on Hurt Locker to make it worth a punt for Best Picture. They might give Bigelow the Oscar for Director as a consolation - just cause she’s a chick.
I don’t dodge taxes or assault women - I am not Ben M, I know - but I was just showing how easy it is to answer that question when you aren’t guilty, Sean.
That was the classic Tory argument for the early introduction of lots of CCTV in city centres of course - if you have nothing to hide…
358.
Ah, Mr spiteful joins the fray.
Funny question. I marvel at the kind of mind which thought of it.
For the record I do neither.
From Friday. Only just noticed. I am staggered.
Donal Blaney “Keir Simmons, ITV News’ Crime Correspondent, is reporting that none of these MPs were arrested, fingerprinted or had to give DNA samples. One law for them…”
http://donalblaney.blogspot.com/
So does Lord Paul pay his taxes or not?
”The sheer panic of bunkerbots to the simplest of queries is most amusing.
Clarification is all we seek. What are you afraid of?”
327 - Roger, the first black England captain was Paul Ince, IIRC, Sol Campbell has captained England too, and so has Rio in the past
378 - Jack W, as I said a) not a Tory and b) no problems with discussing donations to all parties (all have and have had some interesting backers).
My point was BenM was specifically about making allegations that Ashcroft wealth was obtained in a dodgy way. I simply pointed out (and Mike has said the same) Ashcroft sues people over claims like that.
370. “I can see no difference between the FF position and the Conservative position except they are on opposite sides of the fence.”
In a nutshell, the difference is that they don’t have an alliance with one of the NI parties.
Kitten-killer (alleged) Tory Mayor of Margate back in court:
http://www.yourthanet.co.uk/kent-news/Mayor_s-animal-cruelty-case-back-in-court-newsinkent30685.aspx?news=local
A new Marist poll shows Obama’s approval at only 44%, and this among registered voters (no attempt to screen for likely voters):
http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/misc/usapolls/US100201/Obama/Complete%20February%208,%202010%20USA%20Poll%20Release%20and%20Tables.pdf
There isn’t currently even a single poll in the RCP average showing Obama over 50% job approval, but several show approval somewhere in the upper 40’s. His approval/disapproval in the RCP average is also his worst ever, as the positive effects of his State of the Union speech have now worn off and then some.
This is the real danger zone for Obama. If his approval/disapproval ends up essentially tied somewhere in the upper 40’s and stays there, or if his approval is in fact south of his disapproval, he and his party are officially in big trouble. Note that many of the polls are actually inflating Obama’s standing since they include all adults or all registered voters, when the real population to be concerned about are likely voters (who happen to be the least Obama-friendly group of the three). And nobody in the Democratic party is more popular than Obama, so he is as good as it gets for them. Put together Obama’s growing unpopularity, the abysmal ratings of the congressional Democrats even among Democratic Party supporters, and anger over the direction of the country, and you have a November bloodbath in the making. The Republicans aren’t exactly the popular party either, but they don’t need to be for the purposes of the mid-terms; they just need to be the guys who are against what is happening in Washington.
35. David Cameron has no serious plans at all to clear up Parliament and never has done. His own best chums are second-home flippers with the moral scope of fleas and he will protect them at any cost.
384 - Yet Damian Green was forced too.
Curious
382 I’m glad to hear it.
I was merely demonstrating how easy it is to throw mud.
383 Prove it.
391, play fair, Mr. Eagles. Mr. Green was arrested by a small army of anti-terrorist rozzers.
355 - Join the club, Philippe - we’ve been top price Avatar all the way… http://odds.bestbetting.com/tv–film–music/oscars/best-picture/
@ another David
That’s where we disagree: I think that the people voting first for, say, “Inglorious Basterds” or “District 9″ are much more likely to put Hurt Locker as their second choice than Avatar.
James Kelly: “379. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that very young children don’t rate skin colour highly as a distinguishing feature, without being subject to any ‘ideological programming’.
Is there really? Where is this evidence? Can you provide this evidence? Oh look, no, you’re totally and pitifully wrong. What a f*cking surprise.
http://tinyurl.com/nk4ynw
373. Jack W
1) I’m not a politician
2) Whilst I am right of centre I’m not (no longer) a Conservative and haven’t been for a while. I’m an independent who despises Labour and bureaucracy.
3) I used to be a civil servant and my assessment is that of someone who spent over a decade working in a major department’s Head office. Whatever party I support I still would say the same. Bureaucrats try to be a rule unto themselves and when told to get stuffed they get on their high horses (I tried it myself a few times).
So if you dont like it lump it but don’t unsuccessfully try to score cheap political points over it…….
Here is a list of all the seats we can win.
http://www.justsolutions.eu/marginals/startmarginals.html
Lord Ashcroft’s position is quite a good issue for the Conservatives. Like the Latvian homophobes, it’s one of those things which Labour and LibDem activists get terribly excited about, and no-one else cares about one way or the other. So when Labour bang on about it ad nauseam, they just sound shrill and a bit deranged. It’s a totally wasted attack.
38o Scream. There’s as much chance of legal action from Ashcroft on political donations, especially so presently, as there is of Italy winning the Rugby Grand Slam - NIL
Some Tories here just want to close discussion down on embarrassing topics. Fortunately PB is made of sterner stuff.
384. What do you expect from yet another Tory death penalty lover like Sean Fear?
388 JK
…yet
394 - Ah yes, the moment i thought I had woken in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe
381 - I think that’s more likely - giving Director to Bigelow. Which would actually be a real shame, since Cameron has spent about 4 years making the film. Remember they literally had to invent the camera in order to make it.
As of this weekend, it’s also the highest grosing film in the UK. Beating Mamma Mia - thank heavens.
375 Polly B. I am very impressed by your use of the English language. Remarkable or shocking to say I had never encountered
“egregious” before and had to go to the dictionary. You must be a very interesting person to know and talk with.
I suspect Mr Clegg might be equally impressed.
On a more boring note there are a string of local elections this week, in double figures I believe, some Con / Lib Dem contests.
Recently the Lib Dems having been coming off best in these, see if the Cons make a come back. Of course they reflect 2007 etc when the Cons vote very high, more difficult to compare with 2005.
375 PollyB February 8th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Yes I read that and it confirmed that Clegg prefers to side with Labour. Today we have Clegg on the channels attacking Cameron first. It is his default position and only at PMQs does he have to attack Labour.
401 - Jack, He’s a man that took on News International and won. He’s not someone to be messed with.
Roger’s statue of liberty:
“Give me your nice, your rich,
Your select few, yearning to breathe free,
The super models of the Cote D’Azure
Send these, with 2 homes, as dinner guests to me.
I lift my lamp beside my golden door.”
387/398. Oracle/jsfl. There seems to be a lot of right wing non conservatives about.
Waddle, waddle, quack, quack.
I get the distinct impression that Glen OGlaza is going to be devastated when the Tories win the election.
Richard Nabavi is, as so often, right about the politics of this. Attacking Lord Ashcroft makes Labour look obsessed with trivia. They only have limited airtime and gunning for a man who most voters haven’t heard of is unlikely to be a winning move.
389. The likely voters issue is a key one. It’s interesting that the young-old split is probably the biggest there’s ever been. Young people have had a long tendency of turning out less, although Democrats have had increasing success at getting them out for Presidential elections. I wonder if this will settle into a medium-term pattern of Democrats doing relatively better at the White House while the GOP does well in Congress.
409 I think there are a lot of people around who will be voting Conservative this year, who would not normally identify strongly with the party.
397. I’m off for my dinner, but I’ll have a rummage later and after your previous nonsense about the supposed evidence in favour of British ethnic homogoneity, I’m not going to faint with amazement if I discover what you’ve provided here is not exactly considered the definitive study of its kind.
389 - One little caveat, Hillary Clinton’s approval is way higher than Obama’s. She is actually the most popular Democrat at present.
Interesting
Every defendant convicted in a criminal court would have to pay a levy of £200 under plans being put forward by the Conservatives, The Times has learnt.
Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said that a levy or a fixed fee could raise £80 million a year towards the costs of bringing criminals to court.
Mr Grieve also also indicated that he would favour scrapping the Legal Services Commission, the quango that runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, which costs £125 million to run. “It seems to me that if someone goes through the court process and is convicted, then it is perfectly acceptable to send out the message that the prosecution and defence costs money — and this fixed fee would do that,” he said.
The Conservative plan is one proposal in a package to boost the £2.1 billion legal aid budget.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/election_2010/article7018478.ece
404. I totally agree. In a just world, Avatar should sweep the board, it is in a different league to all the other candidates in almost every department.
I’ve never known a movie which had all kinds of people saying to me Wow you HAVE to see this! And I mean all kinds, all ages, all backgrounds and intellects and outlooks. People LOVE it.
Hurt Locker is a less well plotted, more meandering, less entertaining version of Three Kings. It’s not a bad movie at all, with some nice moments, but really… comparing it to Avatar is like comparing a rather good episode of Emmerdale to Durham Cathedral.
But Bigelow may just get the Director gong coz she has ovaries.
407 Scream. My god, I wouldn’t want to go into battle with some of the puff balls on here.
Oh look away Emperor Ashcroft’s in the buff !!
416 It’s a good idea in principle, but very often, these people have no assets in their names.
416 - I always wonder with the levy at the moment, if you are convicted and sent to prison, then you refuse / are unable to pay the levy…what happens?
416 - note how the levy is on convicted people. If Brown were to have this idea, he’d put the levy on everyone charged, then invent some complicated credit system to repay them if not convicted.
418 - You’re just annoyed that he’s turned Watford into a nailed on Tory Gain.
If this is a suspension, what is an expulsion?
…
The rumour is that Morley was either re-instated on the quiet or had escaped in the first instance, lending more weight to the sense that Labour’s response to the expenses scandal has been hopelessly ill-conceived. Today has been the Tories first decisive and total victory for some while.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5760848/if-this-is-a-suspension-what-is-an-expulsion.thtml
411 and I’ve no doubt that is what Lord A so enjoys about it all
413 Sean F. My dear Sean, me thinks that statement in an election years verges on the ‘bleeding obvious’
420 I have a feeling that our ancestors would have had little difficulty in extracting the levy from those who were reluctant to pay.
420 - They could deduct if from the wage they get in prison (which is a pittance) and or any postal orders they receive in prison.
389 - if he keeps up his hard left “big government, more spending” it’s going to hurt the dems even more. There is real anger out there at the direction Obama is taking the country - the Tea party movement(s) illustrate just one aspect. He is totally at odds with the mood of the country.
Apparently (from what I read) Nancy Pelosi is trying to work out a way to force the existing health care bill through by parliamentary procedures. The huge cost of this bill will result in maybe 10-15 million more people getting health care, and fining those who don’t. It’s absolutely staggering.
419. You could always take it from their next employer, or knock it out of their next benefits check.
Still no reply about Lord Paul and his tax affairs:
”The sheer panic of bunkerbots to the simplest of queries is most amusing.
Clarification is all we seek. What are you afraid of?”
403, that’s a pretty ridiculous comment. It’s not like we’re led by an economic illiterate who thinks he can print money to buy government debt.
416, convict cashback
Comments above on Glen O’Glaza are absolutely correct.The guy doesn’t even bother to hide his pro Labour bias. The word “desparate” was exactly the word the Downing Street spin machine used this morning. The point is that Cameron raised some very important issues in his speech and O’Glaza didn’t even bother to mention them at all. As for last weeks PMQ’s to basically say Brown bested Cameron is laughable. There is not a Paper that called it that way.
422 Watford’s new home strip
http://www.8ball.co.uk/PoliticalT-shirts/PoliticalT-Shirt-DavidCameron.html
422 Scream. At least you retain a sense of humour …. Watford - Tory gain !!!
420, you get slapped with an enormo-haddock. That’s what.
Eagle. Interesting. Read paragraph 2. I think it describes him as the first appointed black captain (whatever that means)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1249223/MARTIN-SAMUEL-Judge-Rio-Ferdinand-does-did-then.html
Watching Sky News Dave comes over as a little bit panicky in the context of the polls, Clegg ripping him a new one.
Amazingly THAT poster cost half a million quid.
Why didn’t he just buy a clown suit.
405
“Remarkable or shocking to say I had never encountered
“egregious” before”
Ah so you have never watched the last Pirates of the Caribbean then. Jack Sparrow uses the word at the very end of the film explaining to a ‘young lady’ how it is pronounced.
435 - Not fired from the space cannon?
416: Another apparenbtly impracticle idea. I re4ally wish politicians would stop trying to appease the tabloids.
Most defendants can’t afford £200, what is the point of taking it from benefits, probably make them think of thieving again to get the money!
It will also take more staff and resources to run it, let alone all the court proceedings for non payment.
I expected more from Grieve who is normally one of the more sensible front benchers the Conservatives have.
Sometimes it makes you want to give up and join the ranks of the “refuse” to vote”
432 - Peter, he didn’t say “last weeks PMQ’s” he said “over the last few weeks” or something like.
436 refers to 386.
414. Yeah, run away. And don’t bother coming back with an argument, coz there isn’t one.
You are simply wrong, just wrong, misinformed, badly educated, and wrong, just stupidly and boringly WRONG. And I am bored of arguing with morons who have no f*cking idea what they are talking about, like you and Roger. It’s a category error. Why should I even bother? Why waste my time?
I might as well talk calculus with a mollusc, it’s like asking Man United to play 90 minutes against a basket of carrots. You are so stupid you don’t even know how wrong you are. Go and have some neeps and tatties and come back when you have learned to button it, you lump of Caledonian kitty-litter.
436 - Ah yes, I see what you mean, Ince, Campbell and Rio, were appointed captain for one of games.
Whereas Ferdinand has been appointed full time
437 One Big Yawn @ Tim, do you ever change the record, or do spin soundbites fly out on the push of a button, just like a barbie doll.
433 - Whats the “C” after the “Daft” stand for?
409. Jack W.
And there seems to be the odd (left wing authoritarian?) old geezer who wants to categorise everybody into nice concise little boxes with convenient little labels in big letters so he can understand them fully.
Well your ARSE may be that simplistic and that convenient and easy for the little bots to understand but life elsewhere ain’t like that I’m afraid……..
Resistance is futile you will be assimilated
Hmmmmm…. Sean “the Antenna” T channeling the voice of the guild…
Your point about attracting crowds into cinemas is indeed powerful.
Yet I still think that the electoral politics for Best Picture, the backlash of Titanic (translated into a widespread animosity against Director Cameron), the absence of a nomination for best scenario, are able to neutralise the powerful fact you single out.
Avatar will win all the technical award, to be sure.
I will come back in a few days with more details.
439, if you slap them, they can pay later…
441, you silly twonk. It’s been marginal victories or plodding no-score draws, when Brown hasn’t run away, and most recently Cameron thrashed him. But yeah, when you revise history and ignore facts your perspective really makes sense.
437. The idea that… Nick Clegg could ever…. “rip someone a new one” is piquant in its embarrassingly badly-phrased absurdity.
I mean…. Nick Clegg?
Ripping someone…. “a new one”?
Oh dear.
437. ‘Amazingly THAT poster cost half a million quid’
That amount of retouching doesn’t come cheap
450 - Perhaps he meant he could get ripped in 4 weeks.
Might explain his success with 30 women.
On thread-a question for Andy Cooke.in the 2005 GE ,how far did the party total seats deviate from what would be expected on UNS?
450 - I knew you’d like that.
Although after the girlie snowballing and the Dave Winton poster, I’d take Clegg in a fight with floppy boy any time.
Full disclosure: I have immensely enjoyed Avatar, have a head 10 foot wide, and have stopped the DVD of “Hurt Locker” after 30 minutes of yawning.
But then, for some reason watching DVDs has became incredibly boring for me.
I mean — I was even bored watching Jack Bauer winning the Russian Roulette with a loaded gun…
451 - would that be the retouching Labour did to it? Because I don’t think Labour really have the money to do that when they’re struggling to pay staff.
Labour has decided it’s a bit too embarrassing to carry on using its lawyers while the three Labour MPs facing trials are using them too, so it is letting it be known that it will not be instructing the firm, Steel and Shamash, until the cases of the three MPs are finished.
That’s a second cave-in, the Tories will claim, after pre-briefing on David Cameron’s speech this morning seemed to trigger Labour to suspend its three MPs from the party.
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/02/08/tory-tactics-in-attacking-pm-risks-backlash-on-all-parties/
451 - So the poster cost half as much as John Terry’s wedding, when it comes to making yourself look a Tw@t Dave certainly gets bang for his buck.
452 - “at least” 30 women. Give the man his dues
456 - Cameron is leading two parties, his own and Labour.
Re 450/437. Oh Timmy
Did you really write that the shouty student could rip someone a new one
ROFLMAO
I’m crying with laughter. It’s the most ridiculous thing I think you’ve ever written!
437 Clegg and whose army?
454. I don’t think “girlie snowballing” means what you think it does.
451
“That amount of retouching doesn’t come cheap”
Actually it must do. Since most of what we’ve seen was done by bunkerbots for free.
The original was only marginaly airbrushed. Most of the work was done on the spoofs.
458 - Ah yes, at least.
I predict Labour will have at least 100 MP’s at the next GE.
457, could be worse. He could’ve claimed to save the world, or burst out laughing at the thought of a bank collapsing, or claimed spending would grow by 0%, or pretend changing the system after 13 years in power a few weeks before the GE is not gerrymandering… etc ad nauseum.
Think how many people have made their own DC poster. Now think how many would do the same to a GB poster. If they do make a Brown one (and they should) it’ll be an internet phenomenon.
462 - I don’t thinking snowballin’ should be discussed until after the lagershed.
412- “I wonder if this will settle into a medium-term pattern of Democrats doing relatively better at the White House while the GOP does well in Congress.”
This is entirely possible. Especially if the GOP manages to retake at least the House in November, it’s quite possible that we could see the re-emergence of the dynamic that existed in Washington from 1994-2000, broken only by a razor thin presidential win for the Republicans, of voters settling in for a Democrat-controlled White House and a Republican-controlled Congress, each keeping a watchful eye on the other and disempowering the extreme wings of both parties.
428- Obama is torn in multiple directions. On the one hand, he would like to fight back against Republicans and regain some ground from them, hence some of the tactical maneuvering we’re now seeing. However, any attempts at a strategic move to the center are stymied by a Congress controlled by liberals who will have none of it, unwilling as they are to completely surrender the momentary power they have to shape the direction of the country. And since Obama is unwilling to go to war with the liberal wing of his own party, he ends up feinting to the center only to move back to the left. The left doesn’t seem to have the power to actually enact much, though, so neither wing of the Democratic Party ends up happy. Only Obama could break this intraparty impasse but he seems unable to do so.
437 - Tim. People will read whatever they want to but what I find disappointing (although not suprising) is that the substance is not reported and the only answers from Labour today have been basically to assault David Cameron - apart from of course trying to play catch up with Cam.
Great article, although obviously it could be difficult to place any models over the likely results as there are going to be many anti-incumbent(particular MPs) votes that could change the number of seats gained on the particular swings if the polls really are tight. I’d be interested to know how much the Tories are racking up large poll numbers in relatively safe seats, gaining large fairly meaningless swings in the South East etc. compared to those seats where people may baulk at voting Conservative, and Labour may just hold on by fighting harder (i.e. those seats right around the Con. overall majority target.) Could the unwind be much greater in certain areas than others?
428 - So ‘hard left’ that it would sit comfortably as tory policy.
It doesn’t do you any favours by getting this so wrong, we know what hard left is and attempting to make it mean something else doesn’t work.
466. Tell tim that. Preferably without mentioning “smearing”.
Is Jim Devine asking the first question at PMQs this week good news for Gordo or Cameron?
As someone with a sort of stitstical background I can understand the logic.I do agree the Cosnervatives don’t need such a big lead as 10%. I still have a feeling the Lib Dems will do better even than these figures. It is what happens in their marginals that counts and I think many of their MPS will cling on even those with low majorities like Tim Farron and Chris Huhne. As has been said elsewhere these guys will now have an incumbency benefit un-tainted by expenses. I would not be surprised to see the Lib Dems at 60+ which makes the Conservative task a bit harder.
467 - There’s no substance to what Cameron said.
Parliamentary Privilege rules aren’t going to be changed while there’s prosecutions in the offing.
469 - I’ll try. Sadly, it’s reminded me of a joke, that would make my jam joke look suitable for the tweenies.
461 Clegg and Dad’s Army perhaps?
http://www.genuinelondonpearlykingsandqueens.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/rad_boywhosaved.jpg
468 - In UK terms you are correct, it is nowhere near hard left.
Over here it is very much on the left of the political spectrum.
I have to admit that I’m in awe of PB, its contributors and commenters, too many of the latter to read in one sitting.
This is an interesting piece of work, reassuring to old Tories like me, but I do wonder what the effect of the anti-incumbent vote spawned by Expensegate will be.
Can it even be quantified by the massive brains of PB’ers?
Given the hyperactive activity by the clone collective (energizer bunnies on the job) this evening it is clear they want to hide how much of a climb down Cameron has forced Brown into.
Why is it whenever the issue is about honesty or integrity Brown loses the argument so spectacularly? He always fails to be on the right side of the argument.
Perhaps one day someone will find his moral compass and give it back to him? That is of course unless it was yet another of Brown’s procession of delusions, a figment of his rather inventive imagination….?
472 Nonsense. Why on earth not? As long as the rule changes aren’t retrospective what have prosecutions in the offing got to do with anything?
re 471. We have the LD-CON marginals included in the PB Angus Reid marginals poll which is coming out soon.
I think that you are probably right - the LDs are going to do better than the projections and might see progress in three-way marginals where the incumbent is Labour.
You can see former Labour supporters switching to the LDs as the best way of stopping the Tories.
My 50/1 bet on bet on the party in Bedford might just be a winner. It’s now down to 7/2.
re 289 but the problem is that we have NI parties at all completely divorced from the mainstream politics in this country. The MPs for Northern Ireland should be interested in the next strategic defence review not whether this or that faction has said it’s disarmed, or the whether the government can be believed on knife crime and not whether this or that body marches down this or that bit of road. There will be no progress until then and the fact that the Tories are trying to integrate the UU into the mainstream should be applauded.
468 - In UK terms it is not hard left at all, you are correct.
But this is way to the left on the US political spectrum.
Re 476. hyperactive activity = hyper-activity
oops tsk tsk tsk
re 295 GIN of course that’s why the government is dragging its feet over the Ashcroft FOIA request because they KNOW that there’s nothing to reveal.
476, don’t be so cheeky. Brown’s moral compass is on the ground floor of Downing Street, next to his unicorn stable and opposite his wardrobe that transports him to Narnia.
re 304 ASOD everything we know about Gordon from 1995 onwards shows that 3rd June is the day, surely?
422.
“Watford into a nailed on Tory Gain.”
The only nailed-on Tory in Watford on election night will be Ave it crucifying himself using Lib Dem nails!
Re FF in NI.
I am confused. I thought that FF’s sister party in NI was the Alliance Party since FF joined ELDR (the European Liberal grouping) last year.
412- “I wonder if this will settle into a medium-term pattern of Democrats doing relatively better at the White House while the GOP does well in Congress.”
This is entirely possible. Especially if the GOP manages to retake at least the House in November, it’s quite possible that we could see the re-emergence of the dynamic that existed in Washington from 1994-2000, broken only by a wafer-thin presidential win for the Republicans, of voters settling in for a Democrat-controlled White House and a Republican-controlled Congress, each keeping a watchful eye on the other and disempowering the extreme wings of both parties.
428- Obama is torn in multiple directions. On the one hand, he would like to fight back against Republicans and regain some ground from them, hence some of the tactical maneuvering we’re now seeing. However, any attempts at a strategic move to the center are stymied by a Congress controlled by liberals who will have none of it, unwilling as they are to completely surrender the momentary power they have to shape the direction of the country. And since Obama is unwilling to go to war with the liberal wing of his own party, he ends up hinting of moves to the center only to retreat back to the left. The left doesn’t seem to have the power to actually enact much of their agenda, though, so neither wing of the Democratic Party ends up happy. Only Obama could break this intraparty impasse but he has so far proven unable to do so.
483 - Are you saying Gordon has spent a lot of time in the closet?
483. I thought he went on holiday to Narnia last year and was visiting his cousin the Balrog in Moria this year?
478. Mike Smithson February 8th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Mike the LD in Bedford stuff is laughable bullshit.
It is easy to tell a mile off the Lib Dem does not stand a chance: For starters, would you not be the candidate if their was a chance!!! 
467. Agree PeterBuss. Cameron’s speech was really interesting, but yet again the media don’t divulge the substance; Labour don’t want to tackle the issues but would rather launch ad hominem attacks (where are the all the decents like Peter Watt?) and the Lib Dems aim their fire in the wrong direction. The consequence is Britain loses.
457.
“Dave certainly gets bang for his buck.”
I wonder how much John Terry got for his £700k?
471 - madmacs. It depends on the seat as to wether or not it makes the Tory aims more/less achievable. Seats where the Tories are a good distance away on third, then it makes no difference. There will be some falls to the Tories, but there will be some resistance in other seats and some will pick up as Mike says the anti-Tory vote.
488, ah yes. He has the balrog’s rage and misanthropic qualities, yet lacks the intelligence or social skills.
487, not at all. Don’t be surprised when he axes Darling just before the Budget and announces Aslan is now Chancellor of the Exchequer.
479. Is NI the only region in the world where the National governing party fails to put up candidates at General Elections?
First off, many thanks for the kind reception. To those who’ve said things along the line of “fair enough, but I think it’s a touch overoptimistic”, I fully empathise. This piece was written over a week ago, but I emailed Mike asking for a hold so I could check it in depth - because it looked too dramatic. I didn’t want to find I’d missed a decimal point or something …
On the 5 point lead - yes, it would be possible, but unlikely. On a par with a 7/1 winner, and if it happened, you’d expect quite a lot of Conservatives with very small majorities. The 6 point lead would be far more likely - if Cameron fell short with that lead (assuming the given assumptions), it would imply a lot of the remaining Labour MPs possessing wafer-thin majorities.
The core concept is that standard UNS “takes votes for granted”. Where you ended up last time - from straight swing, tactical voting, or marginal overperformance - is where you start from this time. It should always be prefaced with “assuming tactical voting is as strongly against the Tories this time and the Labour overperformance in marginals is sustained”, but that caveat tends not to be mentioned in the press that much …
Specific points:
34, David L
Maybe I have misunderstood (always found standard deviations a bit tricky) but is the stablity of the Lib Dems not a direct result of their results not being “modelled” in the same way? It seems very likely to me that Lib Dems would suffer at least as much as Labour on the points made since they have been the traditional home of the vote against voter.
I was actually rather surprised, as at the higher swings, we’d be looking at about a 6 point LD-> Con swing (partially offset by about a 3.5% Lab-LD swing) and most LD seats were taken from the Tories (so they’re most susceptible to a revivified Conservative surge). I didn’t put in any LD underperformance, because I don’t think that Labour “refugee” voters would be too unlikely to return. Plus, as JackW always says - it’s hard to dislodge the “Yellow Peril” once they’ve got a foothold, anyway …
37, Sandy Rentool
A couple of posters have mentioned 1992. I have been thinking (insert joke) about this issue of Blair unwind, anti Tory tactical voting etc. in trying to second guess what will happen this time round. My solution - forget the Blair years. Use the 1992 result as the starting point. Look at swing from 1992, and apply UNS to determine the number of seats for each party.
This sounds way to easy to work - but is it? Please feel free to rubbish this idea as you see fit…
Actually, Sandy, it’s a sound and scientific approach - eliminate the distortion and see what happens (no guessing at assumptions, changing as few variables as possible). Unfortunately, as has been said elsewhere, modelling the effects of the seat reallocations/changes makes it a prohibitively difficult one these days.
42, Mark Senior
[summary - the potential demographic changes moving the ground]
Very good point on the demographic changes and one that should be kept in mind. As Sean Fear says, we can assume that the seats that move demographically away should be approximately balanced with those that move towards, but it is an assumtion that should be kept in mind, certainly.
47, Aaron
So if the Tories can just get their traditional late swing to them, and Smithson’s law applies vis-a-vis Angus Reid, and the Brown Epiphany comes into play, we’re looking at about 90 Labour MPs? [I've had to extrapolate since your table doesn't show 22 point leads].
Be very cautious of extrapolating past the top - the “Blair Boost” effect drops off sharply past that point and the benefits to the Tories would be far, far less as we get deep into the Labour heartlands. It may even underperform UNS at that extreme.
51, RodCrosby
“As he says it’s based on assumptions”
Extreme assumptions at that. In 1997 Labour managed to net about 14 seats for each unit of swing. Andy seems to be suggesting the Tories will virtually double that conversion rate.
Believe that if you will…
To be fair, that 14 seats/unit of swing was hardly a historically high conversion rate, was it? Churchill kicked seven bells out of that in 50 and 51 (29 and 25 GB seats per unit of GB swing, IIRC) and other similar scales weren’t unusual. Kinnock managed 21 seats per unit of swing in 1992. The worst loss conversion rate I’ve seen since the war was the Tories in the first 1974 election - a rate of 35 GB seats per GB point of swing!
77, DavidL
[summary - what if it wasn't a "Blair Effect" but simply better organised ground troops where it counts?]
Good point. However, it’s another case of “running the Red Queen’s Race” - they’d still have to work just as successfully to hold the advantage they gained. From reports, the Tory machine has become far more successful in the marginals in any case (from posts on pbc, it appears that Ashcroft demands a good and sensible action plan/business case before he sends any money to any given marginal, which would help matters).
80 SthLondon Nick
… You have taken the baseline AIUI as being the 1992-1997 changes. My question would be what if we looked at it from 1987-1997? Remember the % vote moved very little yet the seat swing was dramatic in 1992. Did the tactical voting actually begin then (whilst not actually resulting in a Labour victory) and then accelerate?
Yes, it does look like tactical voting kicked into gear then - but the marginal effect was what I was really focussing on, and there would be a good case to make that I’d be extrapolating way too far back going back to the 1987->1992 swing. But yes - Kinnock outperformed the swing on pretty much tactical voting alone. There’s a decent case to be made for extending the tactical vote unwind beyond what I’ve assumed (I did try to be cautious on the modelling - especially when I saw the initial results!)
195, James Kelly
On-topic - I think my first point would be, if the baseline is pre-1997, why did the Tories only just barely win a majority in 1992 on a lead of almost eight points? It does seem likely that there’ll be a slightly higher swing in the marginals, but not enough to give them victory on a five or six-point lead. Additional points - a) the Lib Dems are going to be much more resilient against the Tories than Labour are (ie. the Tories won’t be regaining quite a number of seats they held in 1992), b) the Tories are going nowhere in Scotland (where they won eleven seats in 1992), and c) the minor parties may well pick off one or two Tory targets, eg. Brighton Pavilion.
First point - the reorganization of the boundaries messes up a straight comparison with 1992. IIRC, the Tories in the mid-nineties were fairly smug about pulling voters from semi-marginals to marginals to buttress the resistance against the expected Labour storm-tide, but it turned out to have been a rather poor decision, as the weakened semi-marginals flooded away after the marginals. But the 1992 election on current boundaries would have been rather different.
Additional point a - A good point. If the Lib Dems hold on in a more limpet-like fashion, the seat numbers for the Tories will not be quite as good (not that much different, though - the Lib Dems hold on to quite a lot in this model anyway). That’s one of the reasons I decided against unwinding the Lib Dem tactical vote share.
Additional point b - the loss of Scotland is rather made up by advantages in Wales and elsewhere.
Point c - could make a very small change, but not by much (one or two seats as you say).
As an aside to the rest - I’m going to have a crack at the Scottish variations (I’ve been rather cautious about doing so as the situation is very different there) and see if I can get some form of decent model for any Lib Dem variations (as has been said above, I also wouldn’t be too surprised to see them doing even better than the table here).
(Anyone I’ve missed - sorry).
480 - To me the centre has to be looked at globally; there is, at any one time, a broad consensus as to where the democratic centre is and countries should be measured by that. Otherwise we would have had to acquiesce to the soviet bloc self proclaiming themselves to be the centre (to take one example).
478 Mike S. I see …. are you conceding Watford to the Lib Dems now ??
476. “Given the hyperactive activity by the clone collective (energizer bunnies on the job) this evening it is clear they want to hide how much of a climb down Cameron has forced Brown into.”
It’s of some academic interest perhaps to note how the spin has changed.
This morning we had this
Since then it’s been “distract from negative headlines”. I wonder why they didn’t say “bury bad news”?
Who says political blogs have no influence…
492 - If he does, expect Polly to have a major hissy fit
‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion
‘Children won’t get the Christian subtext, but unbelievers should keep a sickbag handy during Disney’s new epic, writes Polly Toynbee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/05/cslewis.booksforchildrenandteenagers
472 - Thats the problem Tim - the question of Parliamentary privilege was only a fraction of the speech which was far more about ways of reforming Paliament and Politics. Incidentally that included some sane and long overdue advbice to the Press as well.It also dealt with how Cam would respond to the 24hrs News cycle, a better way of dealing with Tony Wrights reform proposals. the position of lobbyists etc etc.These are all substantive Issues.
re 475. The anti-incumbent vote might see Tory MPs suffering a bit but the national swing will limit the damage.
Many Labour MPs in the marginals are standing down and my guess is that it will only be an issue if the opposing parties in the constituencies are able to get some traction.
492 - If he does, expect Polly to have a major hissy fit
‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion
‘Children won’t get the Christian subtext, but unbelievers should keep a sickbag handy during D1sney’s new epic, writes Polly Toynbee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/05/cslewis.booksforchildrenandteenagers
For those of you who compare Lord Paul’s donations to the Labour Party with Ashcroft’s donations to the Tories, please consider the following contrast. It is not right that non-doms of either party distort the democratic business of a country. However Ashcroft’s FIVE MILLION pound donation to the Tories has done a lot more distorting than Paul’s £70,000 contribution. If voting in the marginals is seen to have been affected by unequal funds then the election would not be won with honour.
Mike, have you heard if we’re getting this Populus/Times poll tonight?
497 - the hilarious thing is that the Home Sec himself commented on this matter only yesteday- what is Harman on??
501. Still plugging away at Lord Ashcroft eh Lil?
500, bah. I’m a staunch atheist and always have been, but didn’t stop me enjoying the Narnia books.
501, how much taxpayers’ money has the Labour Government given to the unions, and how much in donations have the unions given to the Labour Government?
re 496. Not quite Jack - there are too many other seats in the vicinity which are competing for attention and it depends on where the roaming bands of activists decide to put their efforts. At the moment Bedford is getting a lot of outside support.
486
FF have shown themselves of late to be closest to the SDLP and were considering an alliance \ merger. Currently they have an embryo political base in NI which they could expand.
There is an “independent” MLA who sit at Stormont who is also a party member of FF.
It’s amusing to see Tim and Roger go on about posters on a day when Labour have basically been ordered about by Cameron.
494 Andy - An impressive set of responses.
Note to Mike - perhaps worth flagging up Andy’s post at 494 in your main article?
501. Lakshmi Mittal. Lord Sainsbury?
501 LA
so the party which created the postal vote scandal is going to lecture us about winning with honour ?
506 Mike S. Ok Mike …. I’ll let you down lightly on Watford !!
“If voting in the marginals is seen to have been affected by unequal funds then the election would not be won with honour.”
So, Labour unfairly won the last election because it had more money than the Tories?
I see no denial that Lord Paul is a nom dom.
”The sheer panic of bunkerbots to the simplest of queries is most amusing.
Clarification is all we seek. What are you afraid of?”
501 - Lily - alll Ashcrofts money has done is to go some way to helpoing the Conservatives to fight on an equal footing with Lab in the marginals. At the moment the sitting Labou MP will be getting a tax payer funded Communications Allowance which is basically used as a propoganda machine for the Govt. In addition the Govt is able to set the News Agenda which it is doing with the shameless ruthlessnes endemnic to NuLab. Furthermore it has the benefit of Quango’s stuffed full with NuLab clones coming on TV to praise the Givt and diss Tory plans.They come on as “impartial commentators”. And last but not least the quite shameful amount of Govt advertising to which we are all subjected . Your lot have taken over just about everything and if Ashcrofts money has gone just a little way to rectify the imbalance then I say “thank goodness”.
re 501. What about the communications allowance that Labour incumbents are using. Our local MP spent a wedge of tax-payer funded cash on a four-page wraparound with the local Sunday newspaper. This was as close to being political campaigning material as its possible to be.
Labour has many more MPs so the possibility to exploit this is even greater.
In any case the marginals will be lose to Labour much more because of demographics than anything Ashcroft has put in.
He is being made an excuse for failure. Fact is electors are just fed up with your party - the sooner you face up to that the better.
You just look shabby, nasty and undemocratic - which is why we are picking a lot of support from ex-Labour voters in Bedford.
501. “If voting in the marginals is seen to have been affected by unequal funds then the election would not be won with honour.”
Do something about the Union Modernisation Fund, until then you lot haven’t got a leg to stand on.
516. Mike S. As the local ‘bunnco’ for Bedford and frankly who could be better, what would your odds be for the seat for the each party ?
497. ““Cameron seems to be having a stab at prejudicing a fair trial.”” He seems to have done this in spades as the majority of the ‘flipping’ villains never even got to the stage of the CPS.
Two more soldiers lost in Helmand
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8503841.stm
516 Sorry Mike, did not realise this was a Tory ‘love in’ Good luck with your Tory campaign in Bedford. Mwah mwah. Now know what the comment about loo paper on UK Polling Report was all about.
JAck W!! Welcome back. I had heard that you had been sent to the Antipodes.
Mr Smithson, I wouldn’t argue your point about demographics and Lord Ashcroft. However, don’t you think there is a question now about the potential influence he is having on policy ?
My perception is that there is a bit more pandering to the ‘Con Home’ agenda with things like prison ships, ‘leave your human rights at the door’, climate change scepticism and getting Oliver Letwin involved with the manifesto than when Steve Hilton was advising him to ‘hug a husky’ or ‘hug a hoody’. My concern is that having painted himself as a progressive, his commitment to the environment will then evaporate after polling day.
Of course, Lord Ashcroft is ‘only’ contributing 2% or 5% or whatever figure they come up with tomorrow, but he is Deputy Chairman and I fear he may be ‘calling the shots’ more than people realise. It may be that they are just ‘energising the base’ prior to all that foot-slogging, but I fear a takeover of the party may be underway.
495 To me the centre has to be looked at globally;
But life’s not like that, unfortunately. The political spectrum varies from country to country. In the US there are many cultural differences compared to the UK - remember the initial blows in the independence battle were due to ‘no taxation without representation’. There is a deep suspicion of big government in this country in a way there isn’t in the UK. If you read the constitution, large parts are about limiting the power of the State (or protecting the rights of the individual if you prefer).
The NHS would be impossible to enact here - look at the travails of the health care reform bill here. People here have a more individual and self-reliant philosophy than in the UK, and prefer private enterprise rather than government sevices.
501. So what you are saying is that it’s a tie morally speaking, but when it comes to the willy-waving tie breaker Lord Paul turns out to be hung like a hamster?
523. “It may be that they are just ‘energising the base’ prior to all that foot-slogging, but I fear a takeover of the party may be underway.”
“Union’s £75m plot to seize control of Labour”
http://blogs.notw.co.uk/politics/2010/02/unions-75m-plot-to-seize-control-of-labour.html
There’s a lot of it about.
354 ‘My my! Who’s been reading his Tory spin-line this morning? Ashcrupht has been pouring his money into the marginals - at least the ones he has chosen. It may well have been supplmented by other Conservative money.’
A simple look at where Tory money comes from will tell you the post you are critisising is, in fact, absolutely correct.
Seem our permanent cynic is easy to fool.
re 523 Ashcroft has probably got less influence on Tory policy than UNITE has on Labour.
Thanks to Andy for the interesting analysis. Points 2 and 3 do seem to depend on assupmtions that I’d question - that there is either a tactical unwind in the marginals, or that the Tory operation is consistnetly better there. As I said in my response to the first piece, I’m finding it much easier to get LibDem tactical support this time, because Iraq is no longer an issue for most (despite Chilcott) and becuase the Tory threat is more evident. Other marginal MPs tell me the same. As for the Tory operation, it varies a great deal, including in areas where Ashcroft sent the cheques. These points are counterbalanced by the demographics in some marginals - where the Labour vote mainly depends on CDE support to stay in contention, it’s difficult, and not only in marginals. In short, although Andy’s statistical analysis looks impeccable, it has at root the same problem that the UNS model has - it assumes a consistent pattern in a year where consistent patterns may be notable by their absence. It’s extremely difficult to predict what level of Tory lead would produce a majority - Andy might be right, UNS might be right - I’m glad I’m not betting on it.
Tonight’s Populus will be interesting, as the first poll to follow the decision to charge the MPs and peer. My tentative belief is that the expenses issue is dying and the poll is going to resemble all the others with a Tory lead of 7-9 points. If it leaps to say 12 points then we’ll know the issue is alive and kicking. And the Others share should be interesting too.
The idea that there’s no difference between what happens in marginals and seats in general is blown out of the water by what happened in 1992.
Swing in marginals - 4%
National swing - 2%
Major’s majority would have been around 60 seats instead of 20 if the swing in the marginals hadn’t counted for anything.
Maybe the best comparison for the next election would be with the last time the Tories came back into government in 1979. Then they won a 44 seat majority with a 7% lead, so a 5% lead would probably have given them a majority of about 1-10 seats.
“I fear a takeover of the party may be underway”
Huh?
Anthony Wells is expecting Populus tonight.
Estimated time? No reports of anything on Twitter?
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
I think that if we do see Labour weakness generally then the LDs will get more than the 50ish seats assumed, so Cameron needs greater than 5%, but I do buy into the theme of the piece and believe it’s not much more than 5%.
227. With regards to dates. Clearly the budget will be tricky, and I can’t see Labour going early. Whilst the government almost certainly has it’s eye on May 6th there’s a pretty good chance that it will look so awful - either from the polls or possibly (say 5% chance) that the markets are going nuts about our debt - that we’ll finish up in June, and that’s where my money is.
Re 516 Re 501 You just look shabby, nasty and undemocratic
A leopard never changes its spots….
PS I suspect Mike forgot dishonest and hypocritical
522 Augustus. Many thanks, however my infrequent recent posting was merely caused by some heavy work on a few projects and some equally heavy family committments.
I’ll be back in full trim in three weeks or so.
re 522. Yes - there’ve been some great YouTube videos from someone who, I guess, looks pretty much like Jack did when he was half his age.
498. Yet despite all this substance, Gary Gibbon made out that Cam was just getting desperate over the increasingly mythical poll lead decline and so got personal. (ie the line from the bunker). They then served up a highly unconvincing package of Cameron attacking Gordon. In recent weeks the advice has been that Cameron should go on the offensive. Yet his measured comments are now being treated as to quote Harriet ‘a slanging match’. For the press Cameron is wrong come what may. Lets face it the media are not remotely interested in the truth or cleaning up public life. They run with the all powerful Labour pack. End of.
Incidentally does JK Rowling pay tax on all her earnings to the UK. I think we should know…..
501 Lilly Allen
while you are grandstanding about Lord Paul read this on pensions at his businesses.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090616/debtext/90616-0022.htm
re 532. Populus usually comes out from about 7.30pm - can be later
536 Mike S.
527.
You never dod get the maths CSE did you Sally? Or the logic badge at Brownies. BOTH statements are true. Ashcrupht’s contribution to TOTAL Tory funding (which involves an awful lot of waste) is relatively marginal (though far from peanuts). His contribution to his pet marginals (where it makes a difference) is far more significant. I presume that he, unlike the official Tory hierarchy, will also be able to take a look at the handful of basket-case candidates in certain marginals and stop good money following bad down the plughole.
529. NPMP, last months Populus poll gave the Tories a 13% lead - So 12% would see them down 1%.
540. I’d have thought it was too early to see any effect from the latest round of the expenses scandal.
523
“My perception is that there is a bit more pandering to the ‘Con Home’ agenda with things like prison ships, ‘leave your human rights at the door’, climate change scepticism”
If only that were true. Ufortunately Dave still seems to be wedded to the flat-earther ideas about man made climate change and shows no signs of moving away from his stupid and ill informed infatuation with the AGW fraud.
Prospect of hung parliament increases as Tory lead narrows, Populus poll shows
e poll, undertaken over the weekend, shows that Labour has gained two points over the past month to 30 per cent, with the Conservatives slipping one point to 40 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are one point up at 20 per cent and other parties are on 10 per cent, down two points.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7019788.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=6848714
Re 501 And Lilly like Gordon always has to misrepresent the figures. Paul’s identified donations in this article from Dale are closer half a million than £70,000. Lilly really cannot get her facts right….
Tut, tut, tut…..
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/mystery-of-lord-pauls-privy.html
I’m sure Cameron will welcome tonights performance by a certain Bedfordshire Tory MP sneaking £50 into her underwear.
527, 528 Can I suggest that we ignore Ashcroft for a few hours and look at Michael Spencer instead? He has been funding those parts of the Conservative Party that Ashcroft cannot reach, and it seems that his fund raising through share dealing over the last few weeks has caused a few eyebrows to be raised and indignation to be spouted. Sold shares (perfectly legally) just before issuing what amounted to a profits warning. Fund managers not happy - see the Mail on Sunday, FT and most Stockmarket reports for further details.
CON 40
LAB 30
LIB 20
Populus interviewed a random sample of 1,502 adults aged 18 plus between February 5 and 7. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to be representative of all adults.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7019788.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=6848714
478 & 491. An honour to have a reply from OGH. I am a rare poster but an often lurker (sounds as though I could be arrested for that!)
There are LD seats which I can see going to the Conservatives and just maybe a couple the other way Eastbourne and Solihull? I am a biased Lib Dem but having talked to a number of LDs in LD/Con marginals it is encouraging, to me, how hopeful these people are. These are professional party workers so would, I hope be realists.
Obviously things don’t look good in Scotland for the LDs (I have no contacts there).
My point was really if the Lib Dems do better than predicted in England holding most marginals and maybe taking, say Bedford and Watford, then the Conservative lead would need to be a bit bigger and may need to be 7% rather than 6%.
So another small complication to Abdy’s excellent model.
“Sorry Mike, did not realise this was a Tory ‘love in’ Good luck with your Tory campaign in Bedford.”
Too stupid to know OGH is a Lib Dem?
494. Andy , not just top notch article, but taking the time to comprehensively answer the feedback as well. You are to be congratulated. Would be very interested to see your take on Scotland , as I think it would be very hard to get a clear picture given that since last election Holyrood has become ever more important and Westminster is now seen as a kind of sideshow for Scotland with little relevance either way., if it is labour or Tory other than the hatred of the Tories factor in general.
538. Imagine she has some financial Wizard that helps her not do so. Hard to imagine that any very rich person pays UK tax on all their earnings. Hardly matters one way or another - assuming people act within the law good luck to them, and if that way of acting produces results that others don’t like then it’s the law and not the individual that needs looking at.
546 - And thats with fieldwork done when the Labour MPs being charged was all over the news.
Have to laugh really.
Scotland proves its backwardness once again.
The Naked Rambler has been jailed for 21 months, his longest sentence yet.
495 - as an example of a major difference between the US and UK, I was driving home this morning and saw (it’s a frequent sight) a group of prisoners cleaning up trash from the side of the road. They also mow and do gardening work on the highway medians during the summer.
I’m sure if they did that in England there would be an outcry. Here it’s accepted and gets approval. The prisoners are not chained while working any more.
Mr Smithson, A fair point well made - but although I don’t feel I will be supporting Labour, one can argue that UNITE is at least trying to represent the needs and views of many people, albeit focused only on their paying members. My concern is that Ashcroft is largely representing his own needs, and the views of the right-wing Conservative Home commenters, rather than the wider centre-ground which Cameron has supposedly embraced.
Many view Lord Ashcroft as a patrician and benevolent, if slightly eccentric, individual. Anyone who spends any time at all on the internet may find they come to a different view. And for someone who expends so much time and money on legal action to maintain his reputation to have even a small ‘tip of the iceberg’ is worrying.
Notice the caveat in Populus, all within margin of error. So no change then really.
So the Tories really are not shifting of around 40 at all. I don’t expect them to either.
Peter Riddell: (Per UKPR) Con 3 seats short of majority
Andy Cooke: (Central forecast) Con majority 108
557 - yes, I’m sure bleeding heart liberals would make a hue and cry about it if it happened here, which it should IMO.
556. They should have dropped him off in the Cairngorms, might have cured the halfwit. Reckon he would have changed his mind pretty quick.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7019788.ece
40:30:20:10
This hung parliament stuff is getting really tedious now. 40/30/20 and a 10% lead would translate to a perfectly governable majority.
413.”409 I think there are a lot of people around who will be voting Conservative this year, who would not normally identify strongly with the party.”
Sean, I agree.
Big thank you to Andy Cooke for his excellent and thought provoking articles over the last couple of days. Have really enjoyed some of the contributions to the discussion in the threads too. PB.com at its best, its a constant and very welcome learning curve for me on here.
I don’t think that we would have Brown and Clegg working together on a last minute attempt to introduce AV into the political landscape if they were not very worried about this very realistic scenario laid out by Andy unfolding at the next GE.
557. Tim , Long overdue to be introduced here, preferably with the chains and the stripey suits and free tomatoes for any passers by looking to get value for their tax payments.
Cons still on 40, when media awash with anti-Tory sentiment. Have to laugh really.
I am pretty happy with that poll.
Since Populus work like ICM but are more favourable in their weighting to Labour/less to us, that represents a move back to us after dodgy January.
And Cameron has been good, Brown weak since.
Wish it was like the old days on Pb.com when name/email would always autopopulate so you didn’t press submit, then fill in details, submit, then find you had mistyped, fill in again and submit by which time the breaking news is older than last weeks Gordon Relaunch….
Did any one see our friend Nick on BBC tonight? He is down in South Wales in Cardiff North asking people who they will vote for. I did not hear one person say they would switch from Cons to Labour; a few people were not sure. Then he finished up in a Bingo Hall!!! Now I would expect most Bingo Hall players to be Labour supporters, but I think less than 50% went for Labour.
It will be interesting if he tell us the result of the votes he has put in his Election box.
Labour will be happy that they’ve managed to reduce the tory lead by 3 points at a time when the charging of the 3 Labour MPs was all over the media.
No wonder Cameron’s rattled.
Though I have to say Peter Riddell’s article is pretty good.
568. Yes if Populus have it at 40-30 I suspect the reality is more like 42-28.
Which on the basis of Andy Cooke’s estimates puts Labour within striking distance of its worst result since 1931…
557, 561. Then again, somewhere between 60-120,000 prisoners are raped every year in American prisons. I’d be cautious in using American crime and punishment policy as an exemplar.
568 - Yet you wrote off the weekend polls because they were done before the DPP brought charges, now you’re happy with a three point slip in the lead when the fieldwork was done during the event you reasoned invalidated the previous polls.
I despair at your shallowness.
555 If you didn’t, you’d cry.
From the Times/populus article :
“Moreover, there is evidence that the Tories may be doing better in their key target seats which would mean an overall majority at this level of national support.”
Says it all really.
For those interested in all things American, apparently Rep. John Murtha (PA) has died.
“Ashcrupht” - I see Coldsore’s been at the spelling dictionary again. Is this supposed to be a libel-proof way fo saying that Ashcroft is corrupt?
And did we ever get an explanation for “Khammereon”?
So Tory vote share (last 5 Populus polls) 40/41/38/39/40
And Tory lead (last 5 Populus polls) 10/13/8/10/10
…limited evidence of polls narrowing here
569
Ted, mine does still autopopulate. Is it something to do with your cookie settings?
Is it possible we are seeing a slight reversal from a mini Labour bounce post end of recession?
End of recession quickly followed by 2 polls showing 7% lead.
A week later ICM 9% and now Populus 10% (and on slightly less favourable weightings for Con).
I know we shouldn’t compare polls from different organisations but it seems to fit.
566 - It’s not like Cool Hand Luke any more: they have white overalls and orange bibs.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who keeps prisoners in a tent city, makes them wear pink underwear etc is amazingly popular, but now has his own legal problems.
40/30 would almost certainly give the Tories a majority.
I think the way the papers keep quoting swing calculators based on the bias which has taken place in the last 3 elections is going to make them look a bit silly in the end.
550. “Fop meltdown” anyone?
40 - 30 - 20. It’s been stuck like that for ages. Everyone’s made up their miinds by now, and just want to get on with the bl00dy election!
554. Omnium Hardly matters one way or another - assuming people act within the law good luck to them, and if that way of acting produces results that others don’t like then it’s the law and not the individual that needs looking at.
I would agree but I’m sick of all the whining from the left and whilst I agree that Ashcroft should come clean I believe in fairness in such matters and if one donor has to bend over backwards to satisfy a bunch of self gratifying political sadists then they all should. So Ashcroft, Rowling, Sainsbury, Patel, Paul et al should all get their books out so we can all pore all over them to our hearts content and scream in rage at the sheer greed of it all.
After all, shouldn’t Sainsbury be dragged across the coals because of his recent tax avoidance escapades, for example?
Hopefully, if all donors financial business was made transparent that would shut the whiny little arses on the left up.
Well that is until the activities of the trade unions (and certain think tanks) and their financial rellationship with the Labour Government is made transparent. When those cans of worms are opened oh how the left will squeal in pain.
Rep John Murtha has died.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/rep-john-murtha-dead-died-at_n_453849.html
583. Most of Arpaio’s legal problems come from him being a vicious, demagogic thug, who in a righteous world would be resident in one of his jails.
Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has died.
He became famous during the last election for saying that many of his own constituents wouldn’t vote for Obama because they were racists. He was also subject to multiple ethical inquiries, largely concerning to his ties to defense contractors. The special election for his House seat promises to be very hotly contested.
- an this summer’s hot fashion must have….
a T shirt with Gordon’s conference speech printed on it. Any colour you want as long as it’s Red or black….
http://www.labourlist.org/the-change-we-choose-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LabourListLatestPosts+%28The+Labour+List%3A+Latest+Posts%29
The last Populus was unusually generous to the Conservatives. Support looks pretty stable to me
575 The last Populus was a month ago tim. This represents an improvement on ICM and its still early days. Your linees from the bunker toady were such a failure.
PS whilst the idea of you ‘despairing’ is quite attractive, if you are brought down by ‘my shallowness’ your dislocation from the realities of life outside the bunker couldn’t be clearer.
tim supports labour because he has no concept of real life? - tick.
558 - Eric that is an interesting point you have made. Ashcroft is a renowned Euoe sceptic. The fact that Cameron did not go down the road of a post Lisbon referendum shows I think that its Cam in charge of policy and not Ashcroft. Also a quick read of ConHome would show that most posts sadly are pretty negative about David Cameron because his policies are too centrist for them - although not for the likes of me!
Wonder how the press will spin 40-30-20 from Populus? Doesn’t fit the narrative at all, which probably means they’ll ignore it and carry on pretending the polls are narrowing in lala cronyland.
570. I saw Nick Robinson. I got the impression he’d been bombarded by people telling him that Labour had lost their vote, and was trying to make the best of the bad news for Gordon.
3 months out, 20% is a very solid base for the LDs. The idea that we would be terribly squeezed in a Dave/Gordon battle now looks quite laughable.
I will be especially interested in seeing the regional splits for both this poll and the last ICM. Considering that our vote has almost halved in Scotland, it is even more impressive that we remain on 20% of the vote UK wide. At a minimum we must be on a par with our 05 showing in England, if not slightly ahead…
henrymacrory Labour Party drop their official lawyers until after the cases of the three Labour MPs have concluded
henrymacrory Labour Party drop their official lawyers until after the cases of the three Labour MPs have concluded
569 Ted
I’m having the same problem - ever since I changed to Chrome.
593 ‘bunker toady’ clearly a misspelling.
But LOL!
593 - well said Sally ! I simply cannot understand why Labour Supporters seem to regard 30% as good news - I really can’t. I am not saying that the Conservatives are definitely going to win - that would be plain daft but I would much rather be in my position than Labour’s. Labou simply cannot sem to get beyond 30% - or if they do its only marginally so. I really do think that 40 of the population have decided for ages they want rid of Brown and will vote Tory to do that. It seems that the only thing still to be settled is whether Cameron heads a majority Govt or a minority one.
henrymacrory Times/Populus poll tonight gives Conservatives 10pt lead
2 minutes ago from web
Populus history is available here:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/populus
All looks rather similar to October. Pretty happy with that considering this was supposed to have been so bad for Cam in the past 4 weeks. 1 point off their vote share. Labour picking up a bit is the bigger story of the past few polls, which would be somewhat in line with what NPMP has been saying.
Weightings comment from Anthony Wells (not made in relation to this poll):
“As you can see, comparing Populus and ICM the figures are very similar to each other (and are pretty similar today) – Populus are slightly nicer to Labour and ICM and slightly nicer to the Lib Dems, a pattern that’s reflected in their poll findings, but the differences are small. ”
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/faq-weighting
New thread
597. Third climbdown of the day! Brown=The Duke of Plaza Toro
453, rogerh,
Sorry - missed you while I was writing my big reply.
According to UNS, if you’d put in the correct poll scores the day before the 2005 election, it would have said “Labour majority 96″.
According to the pre-election polls, on Electoral Calculus, the 1st May 05 poll average would have led to a forecast Labour majority of 140.
596 I have the same gut feeling. Dire in Scotland but you won’t get swept away en masse by some sort of Tory tide and you’ll take from Labour.
If you’rs going to be really ambitious though, you need Andy to be right. If Labour get hammered, it will time to move. They ate you up once upon a time.
503 Current weightings used for Populus and ICM are almost identical , Populus is NOT currently more favourable towards Labour though in the past they have been . Populus weightings in their Jan poll were Con 20 Lab 23 LDem 13 and ICM Con 19 Lab 22 LDem 13
Disagree with 76. On the ground there has been a sea change. Tories have re-learnt how to campaign and picked up new tricks as well. In many areas they are out in force while in those same areas Labour seem to have disappeared.
Jay Blanc who has a UK Election Trend blog and who posted on pb.com a couple of threads back, has just blogged on Angus Reid:
Looking at the movement of recent polling shows a clear trend across the different pollsters. Except for AR. AR Polling has been an almost straight line, within only one or two points around 40/23/20. According to AR, public opinion hasn’t had statistically significant change since October. If the next AR poll comes out with another 40/23/20 split, then I will continue feeling confident in the decision to exclude them.
This brings me to a conclusion. AR polling is not simply offset to a “house effect” that tilts their numbers in one way. AR are measuring something different to what other Pollsters are measuring. And what ever they are measuring is not reacting in the same way as what other polls show.
This is odd, as AR have an apparently good track record in Canada.
http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-are-angus-reid-measuring.html
It seems the intent of Blanc’s blog is to attack AR and justify his decision to exclude AR polling results from his aggregated/averaged polling figures. Yet nothing new is added to the sum of our knowledge about AR. The right questions are asked but remain unanswered.
I sense the beginning of a small loggers skirmish here.
I wouldn’t call needing a 5% lead just to win ‘too good to be true’ though it’s a lot better than what we’ve been reading.
I get a much stronger feeling we’ll win from here on the ground. Everyone wants to give the government a kicking and the Cons on the ground may well be campaigning better than the leadership! My only fear is that the public will be heartily sick of being polled to death by May 6th!