Are the polls really all over the place?
August 27th, 2008
A guest slot by Bob Worcester - the founder of MORI
(This is a specially adapted version for PB of an article produced by Bob Worcester for his new Vox Populi blogs on the Ipsos MORI site. The aim is to produce a monthly piece between now and the next election based on Bob’s personal experience of nearly 40 years conducting and observing polls and how they are reported)
“Let’s look at the record”, as the politicians say. Just this past month we’ve seen two polls early in August, ICM in the Sunday Express and BPIX in the Sunday Mail, both being conducted over the same few days, yet one had a 15 point lead for the Conservatives (ICM) and the other had a 24 point lead (BPIX). They can’t both be right I hear the poll pickers say.
Or can they?
Then over identical days in mid-month, 15th-17th, ICM for the Guardian had 15 point Tory lead again, while Ipsos MORI had 24, published by the Press Association. Well that proves it, doesn’t it?
Or does it?
No, it doesn’t, if you look at the share, not the lead. For polls are subject to the laws of statistics (as any statistician will tell you, if you ask them), and polls using properly designed samples, and we all do, operate within a so-called ‘confidence interval’ of plus or minus three percent for a sample of c. 1,000 people. And the four polls above, plus the three done by YouGov in between them, are all, seven out of seven, within a three point ‘margin of error’ of the average share for the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Others.
That’s as good as it gets folks, and if you double the sample size, you don’t improve the accuracy much. And that holds whether you’re talking about a poll in America’s 240 million potential voters, Britain’s 45 million, or Trinidad’s 1.3 million or even the Maldives’ 200,000 electorate, holding their first ever contested presidential election this coming month. Hard to believe. Yeah, I know, but that’s the way it works.
Still don’t believe me?
Take all the polls in the first quarter of 2008. There were 23 polls published by one or another of the seven pollsters making the running. The Tories? 23 out of 23 were within the three percent margin as were the Liberal Democrats. Labour? 20 out of 23, as were the collective others. So in the first quarter of this year, 93% of the 92 party shares were within the plus or minus three percent margin. And what does statistics tell us? That the +/-3% rule you can expect to work 95% of the time if done at the same time, and these 23 polls covered three months!
OK, a fluke? What about April? 92%. May 84% (not too good, shape up pollsters). June? 94% (that’s better). July? 97% (wow). August so far? 100%! Seven polls out of seven hit the average for the month (to date), the Tories at 46%, Labour 26%, Liberal Democrats 17% and Others 11% within plus or minus three percent margins.
So why oh why do most folks believe the polls are all over the place. Some folks don’t believe in them at all, any more than Quiji boards or reading tea leaves. Another reason is that most folks aren’t statisticians. Fair enough, but most of those commenting on the polls in the newspapers, on radio and television, and certainly many who comment on them in the blogs and their responders, don’t really understand how they work, why those of us in the trade believe in them (otherwise we wouldn’t bother doing them, as nobody makes much money on them and they divert us from doing more profitable business).
And if you’re wondering, of the 65 polls published since the beginning of the year, the accuracy score is a credible 93.5% against a 95% out of 100% target for a perfect score: 98% - damn near perfect. Do the weather people do so well? Punters? Do you?
If you want the numbers, email me. I’d be happy to send the evidence winging back. The full table is on our web site, and we’ll be keeping a running total from here on right up to the next election.
Keep taking the polls…
Bob Worcester
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Great piece Bob and thanks for offering it to us.
I completely agree with you - the polls are not all over the place but are showing a remarkable level of consistency across the board.
My reading is that this view is prompted by Labour supporters to keep their morale up.
A very informative piece. Thanks.
Bob must be right, people don’t believe the polls.
Look at the betting figures and especially the spreads and compare them with the polling numbers = big difference in expected outcome.
donnay trust the polls at all. Is gonna be close at the finish with
the libral demmokrats the winner
I certainly believe the polls. The only thing I struggle to see is where Labour are getting 26% from, if people like me aren’t going to vote for them.
‘So why oh why do most folks believe the polls are all over the place’
Do they? I think there’s a bit of a straw man argument here. The recent polls have surely not attracted this kind of commentary at all.
A good analysis Bob. But you know the old saying; there’s lies, dammed lies and statistics.
“Ipsos MORI site”
Linky no worky..
Great article. Thanks. Very clear for the non-expert. I particularly appreciate the point about looking at the share not the lead. With a +/- 3% MOE on a party’s % share of the vote, then the MOE on the lead between two parties’ shares of the vote necessarily becomes +/- 6%?
So we can be 95% confident that The Tories are on 46%(+/-3%) and Labour are on 26%(+/-3%). This just reinforces to me the current value available in buying Tory, selling Labour seats on the ever dormant spread markets.
I haven’t seen anybody here at pb.com claim that the polls are “all over the place”. The voting intention polls have been remarkably consistent in the last few months, and all knowledgable commenters are perfectly well aware of this.
Even the Scottish sub-samples of GB-wide polls are remarkably consistent, over a very long period, when we might have expected greater fluctuation due to them not being properly weighted.
1. Mike, it is not just Labour who need to maintain a stiff upper lip in the face of overwhelming polling evidence, it is also the Lib Dems, especially the Scottish Lib Dems who are in dire straits at approx 10%-14% - ie. half their level at the last UK GE in 2005.
Thanks Sir Bob. That answers my question posted on the previous thread that the polls are not all over the place.
[re the US election]
Slightly unusually, I find myself completely at odds with my father in my view of the US election. Over the past six weeks, and culminating in Biden’s selection as Obama’s VP I’ve been more positive on McCain. (My BF average back price on McCain is 3.86 – albeit including some purchases during the primaries.)
But I think I’ve finally worked out Obama’s strategy, and while pb.com (ukpaul excepted) has gone increasingly sour on the Democrats, I am now thinking of reversing my previous stance.
Barack Obama is Arsenal of old.
His strategy, through both the primary season and now the general election campaign is to eek out a small lead, and then play a very negative, defensive, technical game. One Nil to the Obama.
The whole issue of him “not finishing off his opponents” (seen by so many as an issue) is a part of this strategy. Why swing for a knockout when you’re a few points ahead, and the risk is so high?
So Obama’s strategy is 1. First Do No Harm (i.e., Biden as VP in waiting), and 2. Build the Greatest GOTV Operation in History.
To put 2 in context. I was in Hampstead last Sunday. There were five or six Obama volunteers there, greeting every single person, finding out if they were American, and then making sure they were on the electoral roll. (As well, obviously as doing canvassing.) This data all went into a computer, there and then, and was uploaded back to Chicago.
I quizzed the nice young lady about the operation. She explained that it was Hampstead today, and had been St John’s Wood the previous day. The next weekend they were doing Knightsbridge and the other parts of London with high proportions of Americans. In each case they were identifying Obama leaners, and making sure they were voting.
This was sophisticated canvassing 3,000 miles from the East Coast of America.
And this is what Obama and Axelrod are doing. They are working to avoid major gaffs, and are working to ensure they get out 80-90% of their potential vote, while McCain struggles to get 75%.
So, with Intrade odds below 60%, I am backing Obama here. This isn’t about inspirational, this isn’t about detailed policy platforms. This is about the fact that Obama will get his vote out.
the polls have all shown, and continue to show, the prediction of an unprecedented political earthquake. not many on either side, or neutral gamblers, are convinced by it, yet. the methodologies, both of pollsters and punters reading the polls, have been reviewed and changed since the polls were last put to any sort of decent test.
hence, the polls appear to be “all over the place”. margin of error does not come into it, and this article does not answer the important question: can we trust the polls?
re 8 stjohn, but there’s the rub. There’s an awful big difference between 46/26 (Tory majority 190) and 43/29 (Tory majority 82) and potentially a lot of lost shirts on the spread exchanges.
Rasmussen today 47 McCain 46 Obama. Still no VP/Convention bounce for Obama.
12. Hasn’t that question been answered in large part by the results of real elections, in London, Crewe, and Glasgow?
“Scotland’s new Liberal Democrat leader has played down talk of his party supporting a multi-option referendum on independence.
Asked about the principle of a referendum offering the choices of independence, no change, or other options, he said: “I’m not sure how you could have a multi-option referendum in that sense.
“I think there’s a real danger of independence getting in through the back door in that kind of construction of a referendum.”"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7584125.stm
Does the cube rule still apply to British elections?
If so is not the current problem that the difference between the parties is so huge as (46/26) cubed is 5.53 and (43/29) cubed is only 3.26. If the parties were much closer together the 3% MOE would be much less significant.
Is the 3% M.o.E. universal across the parties.
Surely the Green party vote is not the same +/-3% as the Cons on 40 odd % ?
Thread Intro above:
This is a specially adapted version for PB of an article produced by Bob Worcester for his new Vox Populi blogs on the Ipsos MORI site.
Any relation to PB’s own voxpop by any chance?
Scott warns of ‘independence by back door’
“Newly-elected Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott… said no decision would be taken until well into the future.”
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Scott-warns-of–39independence.4431742.jp
Postponing a decision and sitting on the fence: classic Lib Dem attributes! Scott and his party deserve each other.
15. I don’t believe so, yet. I am talking primarily about the national polling which has been showing an unbelievable (literally for a lot of people) lead for the Cons, only a year after a surprisingly large lead for Lab (for a start I find it hard to believe that so many people change their minds that fast).
Bill Clinton Dishes Obama:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/26/source-bill-clinton-will-not-attend-obamas-invesco-speech/
I always knew he was a KLINGON!
13 Chris A - “here’s an awful big difference between 46/26 (Tory majority 190) and 43/29 (Tory majority 82) and potentially a lot of lost shirts on the spread exchanges.”
True, of course. But the spread bets are currently centered on around 345 Conservative seats, Tory majority 40. This is a long way from what the current polls indicate.
That can only mean either that punters are behaving irrationally, or that they have good reason to think the position will improve for Labour. Well, yes, it might (maybe a new Leader, maybe improved policies, maybe a better-focused attack on the Conservatives). But, equally, there are reasons for thinking it might get worse for Labour (continued in-fighting, deteriorating economy, higher unemployment, SNP continuing to make progress, etc etc).
posted from last thread:
15. No kidding. Correspondents and pundits can always tell if a bounce is coming, only hours after an event.
No Biden bounce. No Michelle bounce. No Kennedy bounce.
The rabbits aint a jumpin’ dude..
25. Surely any bounce will come after his speech ??
19. the margin of error derives from the sample not the party support, so yes it is.
an intuitive example, the most “volatile” figures will in fact be for a party with almost no support, where a sample of 1000 could easily find 0%, 1%, 2% 3% supporters - huge differences in relative terms, but still well within the 3 point margin.
“The individual voter registration system piloted in Northern Ireland should be extended to the rest of the UK, the Electoral Commission has said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7583027.stm
22. But the collapse in Labour support indicated by the polls has surely been corroborated by the Glasgow and Crewe byelections. And no doubt will be at Glenrothes, too. Other than an actual GE, what other cross check exists?
6- Straw man or not, this is a great piece and will hopefully go a long way toward dispelling some of the innumeracy that leads to fallacious conclusions about statistics. I particularly like your explanation that a poll of sample size, say, 1000, taken in the U.S. is just as accurate as a poll of the same sample size in the UK (some people here have expressed the erroneous view that poll sample sizes should be larger in the U.S. to produce a poll of equal accuracy to a poll in the UK).
24. or maybe they rely on more than completely blind trust in polls that showed a big Lab lead 12 months ago?
from a betting point of view, there is a lot of risk to the downside in backing Con at those prices, this far out. although things could easily “get worse” for Lab as you mention, their vote share at a GE seems unlikely to me (based on historical precedent) to be as low as the polls currently predict.
the polls do not appear to be producing rational numbers. if they do turn out to be right, a lot of historical precedents and records will be smashed to pieces.
Odds against Brown going this year continue to drift. Latest:
Q3 2008 - 30.0
Q4 2008 - 6.0
I think these are the longest odds against a 2008 exit for a very long time.
He looks safe now. Expect him to call the Glenrothes by-election at start of October (to be held on 6th November). That will then prevent a challenge in October. Then PBR and Queen’s Speech follow at short intervals so no slot available for a challenge.
26.. Ghost! I’ll concede maybe a V Feeble bounce. Or none at all. Tee Hee………
‘the polls do not appear to be producing rational numbers’
That’s just pure assertion - you have no evidence to back it up except spurious references to ‘historical precedent’. The concrete evidence that exists from actual voting in recent elections supports the polls.
3 - That isn’t necessarily not trusting the polls though.
Firstly, the polls can only measure what would happen if there was an election today - but there won’t be. Labour may well not come back at all but even dead cats bounce and that is surely people’s thinking on the spreads.
Secondly, it is not clear how votes are likely to translate into seats. It may be that the Tories on the ground in seats with huge Labour majorities are too weak to deliver a win that the national swing suggests could be possible. That assumption may well be wrong - but it has nothing to do with not trusting the polls.
31 ed “from a betting point of view, there is a lot of risk to the downside in backing Con at those prices, this far out.”
Well, yes (it’s a risk I have taken, so I’m acutely aware of it!). But my point is that someone is taking on the opposite risk, assuming or hoping that either the polls are wrong, or that things will not only change, but change in the direction favourable to Labour. That requires a big leap of faith in my view.
32 No surprises there, Mike L.
Personally I rate the likelihood of a 2008 departure as about 1%, or 99/1. Anybody offers me odds greater than that, I’ll take them, but only to small stakes.
27. No it’s not. It depends both on the %support and the sample size. The margin of error is proportional to SQRT(pq/N), where N is sample size, p is %support, and q is (100-p). So you can see, the most uncertainty arises at a 50% level of support. At a 2% level of support, the MOE is just 0.87% [sample of 1000 assumed throughout]
21. The guy is a tool. His attitude will hasten the LibDems journey into Scottish electoral oblivion.
There is no way a multi-option referendum will ever produce a “yes” vote for independence. What is he scared of?
14. Chris A. There is of course the possibility that the situation is Con 49%, Lab 23%, lead 26%.
I have just plugged the figures into Baxter and I get the following results.
Con 42.9% Lab 29% LDs 16.9%. Con majority 100
Con 45.9% Lab 26% LDs 16.9%. Con majority 198
Con 46.9% Lab 23% LDs 16.9%. Con majority 288
Hope I’ve done this correctly.
9 Not quite - It won’t be a +/- 6% margin because the percentages voting for Labour and Tory are related. There will be a negative correlation between the %vote_Lab and %vote_Con (not perfect because of the pesky Libdems!), so you can’t just take +/- 3% and double it. Actually the 95% confidence interval (margin of error) should be slightly lower for the difference between the percentage share maybe somewhere around 5%.
31 - I think that you are looking through rose tinted spectacles. As discussed on here previously Labour leads last year could be explained by an anyone but tony effect. Also labour were trusted on the economy. Now we have a car crash of an economy and Gordonds flash spin has bit him on the behind. Once lost trust on PR (tractor stats) and economy cannot be regained.
That and the fact that by-elections have backed it up. If we disregard the gordon bounce things are worse and you would expect labour to poll worse. The turnaround has been quick but people weren’t that happy with labour before.
If you want to believe (like Rod Crosby) that everything is wothin a MOE and it will be a hung parliament then very well. But it seems strange to me that the polls are all at the wrong end of MOE for labour. Does that really make sense?
42- If Labour can be polling so abysmally (more or less the worst they’ve ever polled, right?) and still expect no worse than a hung parliament, how is it that the Conservatives have ever been in power?
There’s an article in the Scottish Daily Record that Brown is going to mastermind the Glenrothes by election, a constituency next to his home base. Could be a high risk strategy if Labour loose badly. What finally finished Douglas-Home as leader of the Tories was the loss of a seat – Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles – to the Liberals in 1965. The seat was close to Douglas-Home’s house at Coldstream and it showed he couldn’t even win on his home turf. The by election was in March and Home was gone by July.
39. Stickers - “What is he scared of?”
According to the man himself, this is what he is afraid of: “I think there’s a real danger of independence getting in through the back door in that kind of construction of a referendum.”
ie. Scott, in common with many other politicians (both unionist and nationalist), journalists and commentators, thinks that it is perfectly feasible that the Scottish electorate could vote YES for independence. Therefore he will run scared of the referendum, like all the other unionist fearties.
I think we should take bets on which columnist or pb.com poster will turn out to be the John Junor* of 2010.
*Who, infamously, was insisting Major could win right up till April 30th 1997. (And we call General Tojo a fanatic for arguing that Japan should fight on even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki!)
Here he is; Millipede the Great. Our FM want’s a “hard headed engagement”, with Russia.
The man must be a poop, a noodle a big round turd. A representative of a country that has:
Pared down the Army.
Crippled the Navy.
and Mangled the RAF.
Want’s to threaten Russia with words, knowing that Europe has to shelter under a US umbrella if it came to blows.
And why is that? Because Europe hasn’t got an army, only Nations have forces, and they are reluctant to use the few that they’ve got
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7583486.stm
Sorry for the grammer but I’m fuming.
44. This is pure gold for the SNP:
‘Exclusive: Gordon Brown to take charge of Labour’s fight for Glenrothes’
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/08/27/exclusive-gordon-brown-to-take-charge-of-labour-s-fight-for-glenrothes-86908-20712877/
Well worth a wee read, if you are thinking of betting on the Glenrothes market.
40 - Or, to put it another way, if we reverse the question and ask what the spread-bet markets are predicting for vote share, its something like:
Con 40%
Lab 28%
LibDem 20%
Perfectly plausible, of course - I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. However, it seems anomalous to have this as the mid-point, given the polls.
48. Sounds like a rerun of Glasgow East - he’ll try and impose the candidate.
Why don’t they try an English candidate ? If it’s ok for us to have Scottish born MPs surely a southerner would be welcomed in Fife with open arms ?
Great news for Mac:
Florida: McCain +7
–> Strategic Vision; 1200 likely voters :
Mac: 49%
O: 42%
Barr: 1%
Undecided: 8%
BTW, according to the survey, Floridians support off-shore drilling 62%-27%.
http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/florida_poll_082608.htm
——————-
Also : Conservative Democrats Peeling Away From Obama
Gallup,
The 63% of conservative Democrats supporting Obama over McCain in Aug. 18-24 polling is the lowest Obama has earned since he clinched the Democratic nomination in June. At the same time, there have been no similar drops in support for Obama in the preferences of liberal or moderate Democrats.
As a result of this, support for Obama among all Democratic registered voters fell from 81% in early August (Aug. 4-10) to 78% last week (Aug. 18-24). Obama’s support from Republicans over this period also dipped from 9% to 7%, while 42% to 43% of independents have consistently supported him.
… The 7% of Republicans for Obama is the lowest to date (since the start of Gallup Poll Daily tracking of the Obama-McCain race in March).
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109846/Conservative-Democrats-Peeling-Away-From-Obama.aspx
40. Nobody is going to use Baxter to forecast the next election….
32,37. MikeL and Ptp. William Hill are still going 1/2 that Brown stays as PM beyond December 31st 2008. Now that the speculation of an imminent coup has subsided, that looks cracking value to me. I know some got on at better prices! I wouldn’t go so far as PtP but I would certainly say it’s now less than 1/10 that Brown sees this year out as PM.
Whether he should renew his Sky Sports subscription to No 10 Downing Street for a whole year or pay for it on a monthly basis, now that’s a different matter.
27 (and BW himself), it’s 3.22pm, and I call SHENANIGANS.
The 3 percentage point margin of error (actually 3.1, with 95% confidence) on a survey of 1,000 respondents is strictly on a statistic which you have estimated to be 50%. The margin of error shrinks as you move away from 50/50 propositions.
27, your intuition is way off here. If you have interviewed 1,000 people and you haven’t found anyone who supports Labour yet, there is virtually no chance at all of Labour’s national vote share being 3%, 2%, or even 1%. You can be 95% sure that it’s 0.3% or less.
The theoretical margins of error on a survey of 1,000 are as follows:
Tories: 45.9% +/- 3.1%
Labour: 26.0% +/- 2.7%
LibDem: 16.9% +/- 2.3%
Others: 11.3% +/- 2.0%
It’s a small correction, but it does suggest that BW’s claim that all the polls were within the margin of error is a tad optimistic. The Labour 29s and the other 8 stick out a bit (of course, I don’t know if BW has access to the unrounded figures, which may paint a slightly different picture)
“only Nations have forces, and they are reluctant to use the few that they’ve got”
I thought someone on the previous thread was arguing that wars were no longer about manpower? (BTW, of Donald Rumsfeld and General Shinseki, who turned out to be right on this matter?)
Strategic Vision is a GOP-favouring pollster.
I would have thought Mike S would be laughing in Bob W’s face for daring to use averages….
55- Which pollsters do you see as being Democrat-favoring?
43 - You missed my point (I think it will be a maj of approx 100)
Rod Crosby has said many times that there will be a hung parliament. Ed seems to think labour are doing better than all available evidence. They are entitled to their opinions, but they seem to be letting their opinion / belief cloud their judgement. I think it is most people’s opinion Labour will be in opposition next time.
Similarly a wipeout for Labour could happen but the evidence does not point to it. It would take a very poor performance by labour, and exceptional performance by nats in scotland and wales, and tories and libs in north.
Agree with Stuart Dickson - I don’t think Labour people here have claimed the polls are all over the place? When one is marginally better we say ‘oh good’, but that’s as far as it goes. The 20% lead plus or minus a bit is quite consistent, and we diverge only in speculation about the possible position a year ot 18 months hence.
Also agree with S&S that it’s a fallacy to think that sample size is related to the size of the entire population, silly extreme cases excepted (if you sample absolutely every living person and they all tell the truth, then your margin of error is zero, but…).
Weathercock: your enthusiasm for a European Army is noted. seanT will be calling…
57 — whatever ones you don’t like?
58- I wasn’t accusing you, Chris, but rather supporting you with what was more or less a rhetorical question! To follow up on your additional information, why does it seem so much more difficult now for the Tories to rack up 1980’s-style majorities than it was then?
“if you sample absolutely every living person…”
Isn’t NuLab’s Bill for that going to be in the Queen’s Speech, Nick?
The major factor, imho opinion, holding back the spread betters in the GE Seats markets is a simple lack of belief that it is really possible for the Tories to anywhere near double their current representation in the HoC from approx 200 to 400 seats (and for Labour’s seats to halve).
Coupled with this is the punters’ knowlege that in order to achieve even the tiniest majority, the Tories need to win approx 40% of the vote, resulting in Labour’s share being around the 32% level. In such circumstances their real lead over Labour, seats wise, is very much smaller than the 20%+ figures being reported by the pollsters in terms of their respective share of the vote.
In such circumstances with the likelihood that a General Election is still 20 months away and with plenty of scope for “events” to take place in the interim, spread bettors are preferring to remain in their comfort zone at least for now.
Were we to see similar polling figures say 12 months hence, then I suspect the number would really start to move from about that time forward. In the meantime, other things being equal (which they won’t be!), I expect a gentle ticking upwards in Tory seats of around 2-3 seats per month.
BannedHorsa–
FWIW, 538.com rates them pretty good:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/pollster-ratings-v311.html
60- I don’t discount any of the major pollsters out of hand as partisan hacks. The only polls I look at with major suspicion are the ones sponsored by campaigns or special interest groups.
45. Stuart, I could understand Tavish Scott being apprehensive about a simple “Yes/ No” referendum. There is a small chance, given a good SNP campaign, that the “Yes” vote could prevail.
What I don’t get is why he wouldn’t agree to a multi-option referendum? Most people instinctively go for the middle-ground when faced with a major decision like independence. A “one step at a time” mentality.
Surely there is no chance that Salmond could win a multi-option referendum. I’m surprised that he would even consider it.
41. Yes, at a perfect negative correlation between Con/Lab the MOE of the lead would be about +/-5.18%. At a more realistic 80% negative correlation, it’s precisely 5.0%. [sample of 1000 assumed]
29. there is no such cross check - that is the nature of polling. however, there aren’t many serious commentators out there saying the GE will end up 46/26/17, and certainly no bets beind traded in that range. in other words, it would be a surprise.
you mention Crewe etc. I haven’t checked but I would guess that in recent years, anyone who had historically bet on the commons seats spreads in strict accordance with every byelection result would be bankrupt by now. not to say that they aren’t interesting, but they must be viewed within a certain strict context.
59. NickP I’m going to agree with you (and ignore your blatant flashing of euro-stocking-top, designed to get me all het up!) - I actually haven’t seen any Labourites on here claiming the “polls are all over the place”.
In fact I haven’t seen anyone saying “the polls are all over the place”.
In FACT on this very site about three days ago I asked the opposing question: can anyone remember the last time the polls were this CONSISTENT? As I see it, polls have been estimating a Tory lead of, say, 15-25% for months. I can’t actually recall a time of such prolonged polling CONSISTENCY. It must be a few years ago since this last happened.
Anyhow, all that said, Bob Worcester is an esteemed figure and his article is jolly interesting - and many thanks for that.
For anyone worried about my wellbeing as near-revolution rocks Bangkok, I managed to dodge the bombs and buy a nice cabernet this evening, and the next season of the West Wing, before returning to my hotel for a green prawn curry followed by fresh mango.
Coups are hard work.
Here’s an article today talking about the very topic of the previous thread: why has Hillary been so mistreated by the Obama campaign and its supporters?
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08272008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/she_done_him_right_126276.htm
The author points out that Hillary did far better in her primary campaign that previous Democratic primary candidates like Gary Hart (1984) or Ted Kennedy (1980), but she conceded the race much more quickly than they did. Ted Kennedy didn’t even concede to Carter until the convention and then gave a bitter and defiant convention speech! But in spite of how comparatively gallant Hillary has been toward Obama since losing by a razor-thin margin, she’s been treated by the Obama campaign like chopped liver. It is this, more than anything, that fuels the righteous anger of many of Hillary’s female supporters, including both PUMA’s and Bill Clinton himself (Hillary has been too decent to show her anger, and she must be angry!). This is all a huge misstep by an arrogant Obama and he will pay a price for it; he’ll probably still win, but it won’t be pretty.
61 - There is an in built bias towards labour in fptp. Can’t remember the exact figures but if Labour get about 33% and tories 39% then Labour win. This is because the tories tend to vote in higher numbers in safer seats. These seats also tend to be more rural and have a larger number of voters. Conversely labour will win seats in urban areas on less votes. Typified by Hillary Benn in Leeds Central june 1999 voted in on lowest post war turnout with 6361 votes. Conservatives held Eddisbury in a by-election 1month later with 15,465 votes. Even Portillo got 11004 votes in safe Kensington an chelsea later that year.
70- I didn’t mean to imply that Bill is female!
From Pollster:
The opening night of the Democratic National Convention drew more than 22 million viewers, a 20% larger audience than in 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/22_million.php
71. Is the boundary commision not trying to remedy this slowly but surely or will they never catch up ?
Cons are better off by nominally several seats since 2005.
68. Perhaps it’s all those ’serious commentators’ who are heavily backing Labour and holding the spread prices where they are?
56 Very true - whenever any mere mortal on PB dares to adopt a crude averaging of polling numbers they are very quickly sent packing.
re 32 You’d need to call a by election in the middle of October (around about 15th) to have the election on 6th November. When does Parliament reassemble? He’d be hard pushed (given the indecent haste of hte last two) to delay it much beyond the first week.
Queen’s speech not until December which gives quite a lot of November for plotting and assassinations.
66. Stickers
If it is the only way to get independence on a ballot paper in front of the Scottish electorate, then the SNP will go for it.
We want to give the electorate their opportunity. If they say Yes, we will be overjoyed and move forward, and if they say No then we will be pleased that they have had the chance and delivered a considered verdict. The important thing is that Scots must take the decision, not The Establishment.
68. Precisely. The by-election history tells its own story
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/byelections.jpg
The average swing to the Tories stands currently at 6.5%…
68 - A surprise, perhaps, but not a bolt from the blue. For Labour’s position to improve, something has to change. They cannot carry on so abysmally as they have done for the last 10 months (surely?) but they have shown no sign in picking up their game or even managing to keep their heads down for a while. Their rating won’t improve even a little until they do.
I’m not convinced the drop in Labour’s polling is finished yet. You overlook any number of left-leaning commentators who fear catastrophe, John Kampfner being only the most vocal. You might also want to consider charlie’s words above.
72 — BTW, as noted by the humorous folks of the The Corner, Hillary did not say in her speech, that she was a “proud wife”:
She called herself a “proud mother,” a “proud Democrat,” etc. — longish list. She did not say “proud wife.”
34. nothing spurious about historical precedent - no party has turned a large deficit into a landslide majority, as currently predicted by the polls. basically the polls are saying Cameron is suddenly doing considerably better than Blair from a much weaker starting position, while Brown will do considerably worse than Foot from a much stronger starting position. historical precedents are of course there to be broken, and it could happen. my argument is that it doesn’t seem likely to me, and would certainly be hugely noticeable. i expect the result to be closer than 46/26.
42. you seem to want to cherry pick, as in polls last year were wrong because of x effect, now they are “correct”.
58. the evidence does point to wipeout for Lab and LD, so you must accept that if you want to take the polls at face value.
81- That would have been a bit much and I can’t say I blame her for leaving that one out! But Bill has been quite tenacious in fighting for her and his heart has clearly been in it from the beginning. I don’t know what sort of bizarre accommodation he and Hillary finally came to, but they are clearly teammates in politics as much as they ever were.
It’s also quite funny to read the “relief” of some Republicans to fight this Election against Obama rather than against Hillary…
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODkzNWI4YmIwN2NmMWIxYWRlNmE3MDM1OGJlMWZkYjI=
L. Kudlow: I’m glad McCain’s not running against Hillary.
re 71 the next election should have the seats more or less evenly sized.
69 If the polls were between +5% Labour and +5% Tory I am sure we would think they were consistent.
68 - I think PfP has made a valid point that people dont seem to be betting on it at the moment because it is so far out. Anything could happen - terrorist attack / death / major scandal which could totally change everything. If labour were on 46 and tories on 26 i am sure you would not be predicting a comeback. My point is your affinity for labour is forming your opinion.
74. the “problem” can’t be “remedied” by the boundary commission because the existing system isn’t actually unfair. the system favours the party with a wider national appeal, and everyone knows that when they choose where and how to campaign, and on what platforms.
83 — As she took the stage, Bill Clinton looked at her as adoringly as a person can. He even mouthed “I love you,” several times.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODVhYjZiYWQ2M2Y4NTllYTBmNWRlMGE2NGE1ZDE2OGE=
85. based on the 2001 census. i.e. already 9 years out of date….
‘my argument is that it doesn’t seem likely to me’
Well that’s a very impressive line of argument.
88- Please, Philippe, I just ate my breakfast!
Pollster’s Mark Blumenthal:
… be patient and stop worrying about the “bounce” (or lack thereof) in daily tracking. Conventions matter, but the response we are interested is not necessarily instant.
86. if that were the case, i certainly would be predicting a comeback, in fact it would be a racing certainty. the last time a main party sunk to those levels and didn’t make a comeback was… 1930??
84- Yes, I’m sure that if Hillary were the nominee, certain folks would be saying, after Obama’s Tuesday night speech, ‘I’m glad we won’t be facing Obama!’ But I think it is generally easier to give these sorts of concession speeches, like the masterful one Gore gave in conceding the 2000 presidential election (better than any other speech he had given during the campaign).
82 ed - Let’s put it the other way round. Putting aside political preferences as much as possible, and considering this purely as a bet, at what level would you consider the Conservatives a ‘buy’ in the GE seats spread market, as at today?
Shock, horror, Scottish Olympians fly their own flag!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7584514.stm
90. the betting exchanges agree with me. that is a strong line of argument in itself. i am just positing a few thoughts on why that might be the case.
82 “Similarly a wipeout for Labour could happen but the evidence does not point to it” I am not trying to have it both ways. I am saying that you are looking at it and saying that Labour are on 26% but MOE is 3% so they are really on 29%. Equally they could be on 23%.
I do agree with you that it will probably be closer than 46/26. Probably 45/29. What will be interesting is how the Lib dems stand up.
79 - I am sure you will make a huge amount of money when the swing is 6.5%. Understanding the past does not let you see the future.
73- I’m sure Obama’s numbers tomorrow will be through the roof. I only fear that the post-speech analysis will be so driven by media hyperpartisanship that, within a day or two, nobody will have any real idea what kind of speech he gave and it will all have entered the realm of folklore (for some, the best speech since the Sermon on the Mount; for others, portents of gloom and doom). Anyway, we’ll soon see.
94 — Yes, indeed ; it is probably happening in the huge majority of the parallel universes where Clinton effectively clinched the nomination.
98. I’m expecting the swing to be less than 6.5%, actually…
Betfair - date of next UK GE
Jan 2010 or later 1.6
Jul - Dec 2009 5
Jan - Jun 2009 5.8
Jul - Dec 2008 22
“for some, the best speech since the Sermon on the Mount”
lol
For those who thought Obama’s nomination speech at the outdoor stadium had the potential to become a Kinnock like Sheffield arena moment, does the news that he plans to deliver it in front of a fake Greek temple confirm the suspicion?
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/08/27/obamas-temple-for-the-cult-of-personality/
78. Stuart, do you really think an astute operator like Salmond would call a referendum he couldn’t possibly win? He must be up to something.
A multi-option referendum wouldn’t really put the constitutional issue to bed. Perhaps that is Salmond’s game. Devolve more powers to the Scottish Government and keep the independence issue alive.
On a different note, I see Chris Hoy has clarified his mis-reported views on a Scottish Olympic team:
“I feel a bit upset that I have been quoted as saying the idea of a Scottish Olympic team is ridiculous. If and when a Scottish team was put together, I would be delighted to represent Scotland in the Olympic Games.”
102. 1.6 for 2010 is the only value there.
Jul - Dec 2009 should be 12s or higher - Brown wont want an autumn election.
95. good question.
at the moment spreadfair doesn’t look like value either way to me (at around 342 that would be a majority of around 30 at present), and i can’t foresee any obvious significant move in the near future. this explains why i am not in the market at present.
i think the polls are way off on this, as i did when they were showing big leads for Brown (and i made a modest trading profit back then). we seem to be in “uncharted territory” with them.
103/104- Wow, this will be a religious experience indeed (but apparently a pagan one). Let’s all tune in tomorrow night and worship at the temple (this is starting to look a bit creepy, I have to admit)!
101 - SO you think labour will be the biggest party in a hung parliament + in coalition with Lib Dems.
105. “I feel a bit upset that I have been quoted as saying the idea of a Scottish Olympic team is ridiculous. If and when a Scottish team was put together, I would be delighted to represent Scotland in the Olympic Games.”
Oh gosh. Given the arguments I’ve been having here over the last few days I must be allowed a little gloat about that!
99 — “I’m sure Obama’s numbers tomorrow will be through the roof”
I think so too, after his speech (in front of a Greek-like white temple?)
Biden’s speech also promised to be very good (by which I mean quite effective).
I expect thus to lay Obama afterward — hopefully around something like 1.43-1.45 — and to back Mac yet again.
I’m beginning, however, to be nervous about Mac’s VP.
I’ll lose money if he picks Romney — but be up in toto around 500$ for both VP markets if it’s not.
Anobody thinks (or hope) that it’s gonna be a woman?
Paddy Power - 2012 London Mayor election
Con 4/5
Lab Evens
Ind 10/1
LD 12/1
Grn 40/1
BNP 250/1
112. Labour evens - you gotta be kidding.
74. There are 10 new seats that would have been Tory last time. There also appear to be 13 seats that become Tory under new boundaries, while 5 that go the other way, for a total of 18 seats. Not realising this may be one cause for a lack of support in the betting markets for high Tory gains?
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seats-changing-hands
87.I think you’ll find the problem was with the voter to seat ratio.
104 — Maybe, formated for the TV, it will look more like the White House than like a “pagan” temple.
S&S: exactly. The grass is always greener on the other side.
If I was a Republican, forget Hillary, I would be most grateful I wasn’t facing Mark Warner!
98. i’m not saying that, i’m saying the statistical MOE is irrelevant, the underlying numbers just look like garbage to me (and other punters). they are very very unlikely to happen in a GE (if you think they will, there is a fortune to be made).
112 — a bit early to froze money on it?
111- I meant the number of viewers. As far as his bounce in the polls, I’m sure he’ll get one, probably putting him about ten to twelve points ahead of McCain by Monday.
112 — a bit early to freeze money on it?
105. re Chris Hoy - “I feel a bit upset that I have been quoted as saying the idea of a Scottish Olympic team is ridiculous. If and when a Scottish team was put together, I would be delighted to represent Scotland in the Olympic Games.”
Quelle surprise! I knew that there would be a ‘clarification’ of Hoy’s views once The North Britishman filter was removed from the reports from Beijing. Never trust a Unionist journalist as far as you can throw him!
109. I am uncertain as to that, just pretty certain the Tories won’t get a majority…
116- Indeed. His speech reviews may not have been that great, but I think he’d be winning by a country mile if he were the nominee (maybe something like Warner 55, McCain 40).
11. If does work, maybe one of the UK parties could take up the idea at their conference this autumn. I suggest a full size replica of Stonehenge a la Spinal Tap.
53 St John
He should renew on a monthly basis.
The 1/2 against a 2008 exit is indeed great value but I have already filled my boots at better odds.
On topic, isn’t the problem for Bob Worcester that there have been recorded occasions when the polls have been impressively consistent - but consistently wrong? I’m sure in the months leading up to the 1992 election, he could have been saying “February - 95% (wow). March - 97% (purr).” It wouldn’t change the rather more important fact that the result of the election was outside the supposed margin of error.
Presumably the polls are more accurate these days, but Bob does tend to come across more as a PR man for his own profession, rather than an objective analyst.
Philippe: I still can’t believe McCain will pick Romney. It would be a decision even more stupid than Obama’s pick of Biden.
Romney is:
* a poor campaigner
* a serial flip-flopper
* a Mormon
And the idea he brings Michigan is absurd. Worse, you don’t even get to tap his huge fortune as McCain has chosen public funding.
But Huckabee, although a great campaigner, would be a worse decision. Huckabee is:
* devoutly crazy
-but-
* he does shore up “the base”
He scares off centrists and the irrelegious. For a young, healthy candidate these might be ignorable. But McCain is old enough that people have to consider Huckabee a likely President.
On the betting, I’ve been laying Romney. Not keen to lay Huckabee, simply ’cause it’s too scary. Pawlenty - who might actually bring MN - looks a better call.
114. the problem described (at 71) was to do with turnout in different areas.
the boundary commission exists only to tweak boundaries as the population changes over time.
119 — Nuance saisie.
*
According to 538.com, a 10 to 12 points bounce in the polls would be impressive, for a regular one is historically around 6 points.
I wish you’re right, though.
123. Just be glad you’re not facing Kucinich. We all know he was the one the Republicans were really afraid of.
re 105 Stuart strange you should talk of consitutional issues when you only mention a Scottish referendum. If you’re planning to butcher our country shouldn’t the rest of the UK have a say in the matter?
131. Don’t be silly - only Chris Hoy and Tommy Doherty have valuable opinions.
127 — Huckaromney
I wish we could create a monstrous political hybrid of Romney — his energy, white teeth, youthful look and his magic brain for capitalism (the guy made millions with curling — curling, the borest sport evah!!!) — with the communication skill and clean faith of Huckaboom-boom.
Labour heading for a hung parliament?
Obama 10 points ahead on Monday?
Have we slipped into an alternate dimension?! I didn’t hear the ‘Twilight Zone’ theme kick in…
126. Frances
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with a practitioner being an ambassador for their profession. In my opinion, taken as a whole, the market research industry (of which social/political research is but a small corner) is by and large wonderfully useful, proficient, decent and value for money. Of course their are bad eggs, but the biggest scoundrels in this business are the clients (and the political journalists), not the polling companies themselves.
I would trust Worcester’s analysis more than most journalists. Most journalists are as thick as mince, and lazy scuzzbags too.
Philippe: fantastic, where can I buy some?
127. Mike “a woman should obey her husband” Huckabee would be an absolutely ridiculous choice given the HRC situation.
“I’ve been laying Romney”
Me too, Robert.
But as Shadsy wrote, it can be kind of scary when a few people do indeed know in advance the answer to the question…
Today, when I offered to lay Romney for a backer’s stake of 222$ @ 1.7, my offer was almost immediately eaten. It scared me a bit, this immediacy (for the actual laying offer was 1.99).
134: Obama will be 3-4 points ahead next week. One thing that has been incredibly unusual about this race is that most people appear to have already made up their minds, and very few people are switching allegience.
I suspect 80% of the polls between now and November will be in the range of McCain +4% and Obama +6%.
On the day, a superior turnout out of Obamaphites will give him a narrow but decisive victory. (See my post at 12 above.)
137- Romney would be bad, Huckabee would be better, but who would be best? This is still not an easy question to answer, let alone whom McCain has decided to pick.
By the way, I expect Obama’s spike to fade pretty fast given how quickly he’ll be shut out of the news by the GOP VP selection and the RNC. I don’t think a 50-40 polling result is that outlandish by Monday, and I think Obama and his campaign will be mightily disappointed if they can’t at least accomplish that.
128. 71 = “This is because the tories tend to vote in higher numbers in safer seats. These seats also tend to be more rural and have a larger number of voters.”
There are more voters per seat in Tory areas. This is the unfairness which you claimed doesn’t exist.
Serious indiscipline has infected the Labour Party. You can’t switch on the news without hearing of dozens of Labour MP’s petitioning the Chancellor about something he’s doing wrong. At least when Brown had the job no one would have dared.
As it happens this latest wheeze-a windfall tax on the oil companies-is just stupid and has the feel of a medieval monarch snatching land off the Catholic landowners because they found themselves short of cash and no one liked Catholics anyway……
(Not like the tax on the utilities in 1997 incidentally which was completely justified because they were snatched for a song)
thomas - worth noting there is a demographic element here too.
Voters are leaving depressed and depressing parts of the country (Labour seats), and moving to more economically dynamic parts (Tory and occasionally LibDem).
Unless you want to continuously reshuffle the boundaries, this is an inbalance that will get worse.
126. spot on. committed statisticians absorb themselves in MOE and other minutiae of the data they have collected, while the world looks on thinking “that data itself doesn’t sound right - are you sure you asked the right questions?”
135. Stuart, I think it’s just Worcester’s salesman-like style that gets on my nerves. Peter Kellner manages to be an advocate for YouGov while still providing a more sober style of analysis. I’ve certainly got nothing against polling companies in general.
By the way, I presume you would be as irritated as I was if I tell you that I saw Bob Worcester a few years back informing CNN that Scotland is ‘the last socialist country in Europe’. That’s the sort of absurd hyperbole he’s capable of. I mean, has he never been to Wales? (More seriously, how about Moldova or Cyprus, with their communist presidents?)
142. Retrospective taxes are unfair full stop.
142. Yes Roger, Labour is disintegrating rapidly. They are on the verge of becoming a complete rabble.
53. I can see the logic St John, but this is not exactly great news for Brown.
http://tinyurl.com/5f7q6j
These things can spiral out of control very, very quickly.
145. Have you ever been to Scotland ? It IS the most socialist country in Europe. The % of people that work for the public sector is scary.
140 - It would be a massive accomplishment to get that level of bounce given a lot of the convention is taken up by defusing the Clinton issue and Robert’s point that the race at least appears pretty stable. Often coming into the conventions, people know relatively little about the candidates but with this one coverage has been intense (not to overestimate how much attention people pay - a fair number will not have paid close attention).
S&S : I expect Obama’s spike to fade pretty fast
That’s why we’ll have to lay Obama as soon as some kind of bounce manifests itself in both the polls and the markets.
139- “Obama will be 3-4 points ahead next week.”
But when next week? Next week is a very big one, what with the aftermath of the DNC, then the GOP VP pick, then the RNC and McCain’s speech. If the polls just stagnate at Obama +3 or 4 from Monday through Sunday, I’ll be shocked.
138 Agreed, Philippe. As a punter I’d have to say odds on Romney has to be a lay but like you I’m wary of the speed with which my lay offers have been taken up. Experience suggests to me that nobody knows; if somebody did, they’d just mop everything up. I doubt also that a final decision has yet been made, or if it has, very few people are aware, and they wouldn’t be the sort who stick a few quid on Betfair (illegal in the US anyway!)
I’ll still be surprised if it’s Romney, and somewhat poorer, but I haven’t bet the house on it and I won’t be doing so.
(I’m a bit of a Huckabee man. Does that make me weird?)
143. Absolutely its a demographic issue to a large extent, I agree, I’m making no claims about how it came about. My point is simply that an unfairness had developed which ed didn’t want to accept. Btw, I do indeed want the boundaries to continually change to keep up with population shifts, that’s how we should keep our fptp system as fair as possile whilst keeping the constituency link. The recent changes are a good thing, and I hope we’ll keep changing the boundaries as demographics change.
121. Erm, but he was also quoted in the Aberdeen Press and Journal (also mendaciously Unionist?):
“We don’t have an international facility for cycling and we don’t have the coaching structures in place. In fact, we don’t have anything in place, so the whole idea is ridiculous. I’ve not lived in Scotland for nine years because there is nowhere for me to train. I’m a Scottish athlete but I’m proud to perform in a British team.”
The same newspaper goes on to say:
“Hoy’s views were echoed by fellow Scot David Florence, who won canoeing slalom silver. He said: “[a Scottish Olympic team] is a non-starter and he should consult athletes first before he comments. Scotland would have to build a new slalom course first and they would have to build a velodrome.
“I am very proud to be Scottish, to have been born in Aberdeen and have Edinburgh as my home town. But I am also very proud to represent Great Britain and everything that stands for, which is not just Scotland.
“I’m as proud to wear the union jack as I am the saltire. I don’t have a problem separating my pride in being a Scot from being British at the same time.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
However you’ve done your job, and you are irritating this Englishman into supporting Scottish independence.
Just go, you whining, pre-menstrual mosquitoes of Celtic mithering: just go, walk out the door, no one’s stopping you. Call your referendum, have your party, and take your silly kilts with you. And shut the door behind!
Just bog off. We don’t want you. What makes you think we won’t kick you out first? F*** off. Go on. F*** off. Everything about you and your toxic little country is just horrible. You are the ugly girl England got pregnant 300 years ago, who we married out of guilt.
Now you have turned into some moaning, sad, frigid, 50 stone slapper who just sits on her ugly butt eating deep fried porridge complaining about the plasma screen TV we bought six months ago to SHUT YOU UP.
Glasgow smells. Ayr is disgusting. Your celebrity Nationalist lives in Bermuda. If you’re lucky it gets dark at 1pm in summer. Your only native animal is THE MIDGE. You are obsessed with “fitba” yet you can’t beat ANDORRA. You haven’t won anything ever at anytime anywhere and your idea of having an empire was invading PANAMA and then LOSING to an ANTEATER.
Most of you couldn’t run a f***ing clap clinic in Cuba. You are a repulsive nation of parasitic, layabout, smelly drunken gargoyles devoted to wife-beating and self-pity. Just go. GO GO GO GO GO. And you know what? Even when you go you’ll still be ruled by the Queen of England.
lol.
141. there should be a roughly equal number of people eligible to vote in each seat, that is the idea. that some of them choose not to turn out is not “unfair” on anyone.
142. Roger - “Serious indiscipline has infected the Labour Party.”
Yeah, yeah, that’s right Roger. All Labour’s problems are purely due to “indiscipline”. Sheesh…..
538.com on the Convention bounce:
A 6-point convention bounce represents par. If a candidate gets a bounce larger than 6 points, that can be considered to be a good sign. If the bounce is smaller than 6 points, that can be considered to be a bad sign.
Of course, this gets more complicated if you have two conventions occurring back-to-back, as we have this year.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/conventions
145. It’s strange that you seem to accept his charge that Scotland is a socialist country. Do you? If so, do you think that would survive independence? You can hardly be taking Moldova as your template …
132. Tommy Docherty once famously suggested the best way of treating football hooligans was with capital punishment. And when asked who he thought would next manage England he said to know that you’d need crystal balls.
150- If you’re right, it will speak volumes about what could then rightfully be called the epic disaster of the DNC. After all, in this atmosphere of hatred for two-term President Bush and Democratic euphoria at the thought of finally winning back the White House with a history-making superstar candidate, how could the Democrats have a convention so divided and misplayed that Obama could fail to get a bounce from it? Incredible!
151- Sounds about right!
Betfair (illegal in the US anyway!) : right!
79. Hi Rod, that’s an interesting graph. I think a possible improvement for predicting the next election would be to plot the average by-election swing between year 1 and year 3 of the parliament. You are comparing an average over the first three years of the parliament (where, I would imagine, Governing parties generally do better in by-elections) to an average over all the parliament.
My theory would be that the larger by-election swings tend to happen very close to a change in Government, but of course I may be wrong!
155. SeanT - that was exactly the quote Chris Hoy was ‘upset’ had been taken out of context and was clarifying today. I know you must like today’s quote less than the previous one, but we really must allow the poor man to have views of his own.
The Epic Disaster of the DNC
Write this book in advance; you’ll sell millions if Mac wins!
159. Sigh. I’m just saying that regardless of your perception of how ’socialist’ Scotland is, it must surely be an absurd piece of hype to say it’s the ‘last socialist country in Europe’ when Moldova (and indeed the EU member state of Cyprus) is sitting there with a communist president!
163. Then I am glad to be of help putting it in context, Frances.
Yesterday, or was it this morning?, SeanT wrote this:
This afternoon thousands of protesters stormed the Thai government buildings, beating back the police. Thousands more rebels blocked roads into the capital. At one point this afternoon the Thai National Broadcaster went off air, as radicals broke into the TBC HQ - and counter-revolutionaries brawled with them for control of the Siamese media.
So Sean, how is it going now?
155: SeanT, it’s England who can barely beat Andorra. Scotland have repeatedly failed to beat the Faroe Islands, if memory serves.
I do agree with you on the independence thing though. I’d absolutely love them to try it because it’d be an unmitigated disaster. You can’t spend hundreds of years as one country and hope to split without consequences. Scottish independence is only slightly more feasible than Kentish or East Anglian independence.
164- How McCain Won the Unwinnable Race: A Tale of Pride and Prejudice… How’s that for starters!
163. As long as those views accord with the SNP view on what it means to be Scottish, eh? Otherwise the individual concerned can expect to be pilloried as a ‘north Briton’,'traitor’ and worse…
169. It made it into todays Guardian
156. I agree. I think you’ve chosen to only look at the first part of the quotation, not the second. Differential turnout is one issue, the size of constituencies is the other.
“This is because the tories tend to vote in higher numbers in safer seats.[which is your point, and I don't dispute it] These seats also tend to be more rural [irrelevant] and have a larger number of voters. [which was my point]” Ah! Unless you think ‘a larger number of voters’ means people who actually vote, whereas I take it to mean eligible voters! But if it is referring to people who actually vote, the sentence repeats the thought of the previous one ‘tories vote in higher numbers’.
169. Thankyou for your concern, Phillipe, but you must have missed my update at post 70 on this thread:
“For anyone worried about my wellbeing as near-revolution rocks Bangkok, I managed to dodge the bombs and buy a nice cabernet this evening, and the next season of the West Wing, before returning to my hotel for a green prawn curry followed by fresh mango.
Coups are hard work.”
Good article by Sir Bob.
Its been obvious to me for months that the Tories have got a consistent and huge lead. Theres really nothing to suggest the next election won’t be won by the Tories with at the least, a very healthy majority and quite possibly a landslide. Anyone that thinks otherwise is, I think, deluding themselves.
155. Most of you couldn’t run a f***ing clap clinic in Cuba. You are a repulsive nation of parasitic, layabout, smelly drunken gargoyles devoted to wife-beating and self-pity. Just go. GO GO GO GO GO.
Personally, I can’t see any conflict in the two statements by Chris Hoy. If I was in his shoes I might well be perfectly content to be a member of a GB team but if and when there was only an English team I’d be proud to serve in that. The poor man is a sportsman not a politician. Winning a gold medal must seem easy compared with trying to negotiate the minefield of nationalist politics in Scotland.
143. there is some internal migration, for sure, but that is covered by the boundary commission and does not account for Kensington&Chelsea returning a higher majority than Leeds.
the only significant discrepancies i am aware of are in places like Highlands where population density is unusually low.
127. robert. The commentators say that now he is practically level in the polls, McCain should pick a safe choice and that choice appears to be either Pawlenty or Romney.
For some reason Romney’s price has tightened sharply over the last week or so, especially clear on the graph of price movements on Intrade. With the announcement now only two days away, maybe it’s down to PfP’s old adage: “Someone always knows and someone always tells”. It appears to me that someone is backing Romney on the basis of “information”. Information can be wrong of course.
Great article, thanks Bob.
35.”Secondly, it is not clear how votes are likely to translate into seats. It may be that the Tories on the ground in seats with huge Labour majorities are too weak to deliver a win that the national swing suggests could be possible. That assumption may well be wrong - but it has nothing to do with not trusting the polls.”
James that is a good point and is certainly true of more than a few seats in Scotland.
But, there was definitely some large swings to the SNP in seats where they were not in the running previously and where they did not have a visible campaign team on the ground. The Salmond/SNP juggernaut nationally certainly gave them more traction because the voters knew that they were the most likely party to oust Labour from power.
That mood of change swinging in behind a party can make a big difference, also a dramatic improvement of your party’s electoral performance enthuses and motivates the grass roots to get out and campaign.
44.”There’s an article in the Scottish Daily Record that Brown is going to mastermind the Glenrothes by election, a constituency next to his home base.”
Didn’t Brown have a major part in the Dunfermline campaign?
178. Quite - and the SNP and its slavering minions should be ashamed of themselves for belittling, pressurising and abusing Scots athletes in the way they have in recent days.
Interesting artical - I think the polls are accurate at the moment as everywhere i go people complain about the economy, tax, fuel prices, public services the lot! Just this afternoon i was talking to some old dears at the bus stop and they said it was like being in the 1970’s again! In some ways it is worse as we don’t have sunny Jim but Grim Reaper Gordon!
173. i did read the first part as the thrust.
differences in population between seats really are not that large, and certainly won’t have a noticeable effect on the outcome of a GE.
146 - I believe that a Swedish Government minister was once quoted on air describing Norway as the last Soviet republic.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/
144, 156 - But you must accept that there is a lag bias in favour of Labour. As people move out of Labour strongholds to get a better life the effect is not picked up unitl much later. If you want to be fair it should be predicted how much growth will happen in nicer areas (based on evidence from previous election of course), and those constituencies should be smaller to allow for that growth. Can’t see that happening!!!!!
Just because something doesn;t feel right to you doesn’t mean it isnt true. Lots of people were genuinely suprised by the massive scale of the labour win in 1997. It didn’t feel any different to them but the govenrment had lost the trust of the public, and the opposition had a new charismatic leader who understood the aspirational nature of politics. Does this sound in anyway familiar to you?
149. HenryG. Yes I did see that article but somewhere else saw it’s arguments largely discounted. I think Nick Palmer, who is a member of Unite, doused the article with cold water.
186. i would consider accepting it if you presented any evidence for it whatsoever.
in my experience people move to the big city, which in Britain often (but by no means always) means into a Lab seat, in search of a “better life”. when they get older they then realise how rubbish that is and aspire to move out again, which (in my area) would probably be into a Con seat. there are no doubt lots of other effects, such as people looking for cheap places to live, immigration from abroad, etc.
i’m not aware of any documented overall effect of this in party political terms, and unless you provide some evidence i will be very sceptical.
156, 173 It would be interesting to know the electoral size in each constituency at the time of an election. Does anyone know where this information is available?
189 http://ukpollingreport.co.uk has masses of information on constituencies, including size and demographics.
164. It tends to follow a parabola, with the swing usually peaking in the third year of the parliament (if there is a third year), although occasionally in the second or the fourth.
Invariably, the anti-government swing weakens towards the end of the parliament, especially in the final six months…
53,27 stjohn, PtP - Well, PP are stii quoting ODDS-ON that GB will leave office this year!!
As previously posted, their odds on him remaining in office beyond end 2008 are considerably better than Wm Hill’s 1-2, viz: 10-3 for 2009 and 5-4 thereafter.
176 - BTW, Martin, any progress on you getting off benefits and into work?
186. second point, fair enough it could be true, but i’m not going to bet on it, and it wouldn’t surprise me, or anyone else, if it wasn’t true.
in other words, the polls say Con 46 Lab 26 with 3% MOE. few would be surprised if an election was held and the result was Con 42 Lab 30, a resounding Con victory _outside_ the MOE. it would be a real shock if they were wrong the other way and the result was Con 50 Lab 22.
when something looks feasible outside the MOE in one direction and impossible to foresee in the other, the chances are the data is simply wrong.
184. “I believe that a Swedish Government minister was once quoted on air describing Norway as the last Soviet republic.”
Really? That’s a bit unfair, considering that Norway is a member of NATO and Sweden is traditionally neutral. And indeed, Sweden has had a Social Democratic government for all but ten of the last fifty years, or whatever it is - I don’t think even Norway (and sadly not Scotland either!) can match that. Of course, if the minister in question is from the present centre-right government it might make sense, although I gather that administration is highly likely to be a one-term wonder.
181. “…belittling, pressurising and abusing Scots athletes…”
Completely unfair. I came across this very balanced analysis from the Herald’s political correspodent Robbie Dinwoodie (hardly an nationalist stooge) that sets out how the SNP have tried their best to play a straight bat over the Olympics, but have been placed in a no-win situation by the media (as indeed have the poor athletes) -
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/politicalblogs/index.var.13055.0.team_gb_its_sport_not_logic.php
184. antifrank
Pot calling kettle black!
O/T US Open tennis. My first tip of Odesnik won at 8/11 courtesy of 5 sets. I’ve very confident that Chris Guccione will beat Jesse Levine this evening. Guccione is a step above his opponent and although now worldbeater, was good enough to reach an ATP final earlier this year. He has a very good serve and will be guaranteed to strike 20 aces with few double faults. Levine on the otherhand has a serve which frequently misfires.
Guccione has a higher ranking and has a much better win:loss ratio than his opponent for 2008 (just less than half compared to Levine’s third). The pair played each other last month on the hardcourts of Cincinatti and Guccione won 6/3 6/4. There’s a good chance he’ll not be broken all match and win again in straight sets. I strongly recommend backing Guccione at the even money with http://www.bluesq.com but also have something on the 3-0 set score at a standout 11/2 (Betfair currently goes 9/2).
97.”Shock, horror, Scottish Olympians fly their own flag!”
Shock, horror, a Scots comfortable to wave both the British and Scots flag!
192. Thanks for reminding me Peter - just taken the 10/3 on a 2009 Brown exit. Very good value.
194 - I agree that people might be more surprised by 50/22 than by 42/30. But there are a couple of reasons for that which do not suggest the data is wrong.
One is that 42/30 feels like a “normal” election result whereas 50/22 doesn’t… until it happens. Another is that you might expect a late bounce - clinging onto nurse for fear of worse and Tories not turning out for a foregone conclusion while Labour turnout on a backs to the wall element. It appeared to happen a bit in 1997.
I don’t find either of those things totally convincing myself and, if there was an election tomorrow, I am not sure 50/22 would actually surprise me any more than 42/30. But they do account for the different expectations without resorting to saying the data is wrong.
180 I’m sure he played a major part in Dunfermline and also Glasgow East…..but in the background. Typical Brown. He might be about to play a more open role, if i’m interpreting the Daily record correctly. This would be risky but he might feel he has nothing to lose.
197. That should say ‘no worldbeater’ not ‘now worldbeater’
184. Belarus?
202. Browbeaten ?
198. ChrisD - “Shock, horror, a Scots comfortable to wave both the British and Scots flag!”
Just a shame that they were not allowed to fly their own national flag in Beijing then.
I wonder if the London Olympics in 2012 will try to ban the Saltire, St George’s Cross and Welsh dragon? Should be fun seeing them try!
Maybe I’m in the wrong mood or something, but unlike the first few posters in this thread I can’t say I find the article “great” or “informative”. It has hardly anything which most of us don’t already know, and it is somewhat patronising to use phrases like “Hard to believe. Yeah, I know, but that’s the way it works.” and “Still don’t believe me?”.
192. Peter. I work it out this way. 1/2 = 0.5/1 = 66% Intrade. 10/3 = 23% Intrade. 5/4 = 44.4% Intrade. So 10/3 + 5/4 = 67.4% = 0.48/1. So the combined odds available with Paddy Power on Brown leaving in 2009 and in 2010+ are fractionally worse than William Hills 1/2 that he doesn’t leave in 2008, which is of course the same thing. If Paddy power were making a 100% book then they should be laying 2/1 against that he goes this year.
186. Cameron is way beyond aspirational.
I linked to Bob’s post at the mother ship yesterday. Mostly falling within 3% either side of their own average shows that the polls flock together rather than that they are “right” in terms of what would happen in a poll tomorrow. That was not his claim. He claims they are not all over the place, and as someone else said above, few if any are claiming that they are.
But there seem to be a lot of “certain to votes” who won’t or can’t say how in many of these polls, say one third, and there are also a lot of the two thirds who did make a choice who say they may change, almost 2/5ths of them.
Versus the whole electorate the CTVs are 75% (not so certain then) with the DK/won’t says among them 25% of the whole and the “may switch” brigade towards 20%. 45% unknown or uncertain out of 75% seems a very high proportion and it is that rather than the polls being all over the place that gives this loyal Labour supporter heart.
Greatest concern for me is that once on the move the polls are leading rather than following prospective voters.
Where’s our intrepid reporter Morus? Still a bit sauced from all the “networking” from last night? We want news!
205 - the Union flag *is* their national flag, Stuart. And yours.
Am I alone in finding this childish squabbling over which flag a genuinely admirable sportsman would prefer to wave just a little tawdry? It demeans his - and others’ - achievements.
Eh?
Stop kissing Bob Worcester’s bottom everyone.
He’s the man who ignored the evidence of the votes on ITV News in 2004 and smugly declared for President Kerry.
And none of us claim the polls are all over the place, they all show a strong Tory lead. So he’s basically answering a question none of us actually asked.
Just because someone’s old and famous no need to get misty-eyed, chaps.
200. Bob Worcester is a lot more specific - 42% for Con (which I’m sure the party would be delighted with) or less would be outside the MOE and therefore a 40/1 shot by his logic, and lengthening as more and more confirming polls come in. that is blatantly nonsense.
193. Well i have just applied for more jobs today! The jobcentre have advised me they rarely get someone who applies for jobs in with the intensity that i do and quality! I make sure i proof read and spell check the bugger’s!
I hope to be off the dole soon as i hate been out of work! Things are slow in August as many people are away! Nevermind, have to remain positive, forward looking and chipper even if we are heading into a recession!
211. David Roe. I hope when you do an article for PB.com you receive a better response than the one you offer to Bob Worcester.
211.
211- He predicted a Kerry win? It’s pretty foolish for pollsters to be predicting election outcomes given the statistical margins for error that they know about better than anyone, let alone other sources for error that can creep into polling methodologies. What’s more, the late polls in the Kerry/Bush contest were alternatively predicting slim Kerry wins or slim Bush wins. Seems like he’d have been better off leaving the crystal ball business to others.
Just read the thing about Obama playing in a mocked up Greek temple!
What is he playing at? Has he been studying ‘Winning General Elections’ by N G Kinnock?
216 - It was much worse than that, he actually CALLED it for McCain even after the first results in showed a swing TO BUSH.
Shocking stuff, I laughed out loud.
calling it for MCCAIN really was a blunder
217. Neil Kinnock seems to be playing a big part in this US election, he wrote the speeches for the Dem. VP and now he is instructing Obama how to win elections via his handbook! Cannot wait for the visit to the seaside or the last week rally!
156: I suspect that SeanT’s view of the Scots is pretty much that of most English Tories. And I am amazed that any Scot reading this should consider for a moment remaining in the Union under a future Tory government.
214 - I was going to do an article on Wales after the locals but we just discussed it on the thread instead. After that, I had had all my work on the topic published in another format so didn’t want to upset my publishers.
But I stand by the fact that he’s arbitrarily answered a question no-one has asked. If this piece had come out at the time of the London mayoral poll it would have had a point but Mike wrote fantastic stuff at that time.
A better article could have been comparing US and UK polls. That would have been interesting, informative and of some use to us at this point in time.
MORI has hardly been covered in glory the last 12 months.
106.“I feel a bit upset that I have been quoted as saying the idea of a Scottish Olympic team is ridiculous. If and when a Scottish team was put together, I would be delighted to represent Scotland in the Olympic Games.”
Stickers, got a link to the article that went with that quote?
If its the one I read yesterday, then your are being a bit cheeky taking that selective quote out of context. The whole article puts a different slant on things. The SNP are not coming out of this debate very well, it looks like a very crude politically opportunistic attempt to whip Scottish nationalism with tactless timing.
217- This is getting pretty wierd from my point of view. I’d love to hear the explanation for this one! He’s really going for a non-traditional show here and I’m not sure how it will play with the public. All hail the mighty Zeus!
211. Hear hear
214. is an example which proves the point of 211.
Re 211 - I’m afraid I’m with David Roe on this one (apart from the disrespect of course) the polls have been consistent for months now and I’ve yet to see any one here or anywhere else for that matter, claim that the ‘polls are all over the place’.
Although rumour has it Roger does mumble it in his sleep…….. allegedly.
224 - Maybe he’s just decided he doesn’t want to be president after all. He maybe doesn’t fancy four years of leading a country through recessions as Russia tries to re-form the Soviet Union.
Possibly he thinks losing now would be as good a plan for the Dems as losing in 1992 was for the UK Labour party?
We’re back to him reading books by Neil Kinnock!
205.Stuart, that just backs up my view that the SNP are not coming out of this debate very well, it looks like a very crude politically opportunistic attempt to whip Scottish nationalism with tactless timing.
224. Where can i read about this?
Obama knows he ain’t going to win IMO - So he just seems to be given reasons for a big defeat!
212 - Your argument runs as follows: “I just can’t believe that Labour are doing so badly/the Tories are doing so well. I therefore do not believe any evidence to the contrary. Therefore it is nonsense and not to be taken seriously.”
This line of argument will make perfect sense to you, but as you can see, you have few converts to your cause on that basis.
177 Agreed completely.
So, please let’s have a moratorium on people quoting Chris Hoy to support their arguments.
If I was an elite athlete, I wouldn’t want to get drawn into a political squabble like this — and Chris Hoy’s comments seem to me to be both balanced and non-controversial.
Unfortunately, Hoy has been rather selectively quoted by both sides.
227. Maybe he will have a Neil Kinnock mask on when he gives his speech for novality value?
230- Go to post 105.
The man won three gold medals he can say what the hell he likes.
234. Thanks!
232. Perhaps the success of Sir Tom Daley will inspire Chris Hoy and his father to do synchronised diving in London in 2012.
231. anyone who agrees with you will be too busy filling their boots on spreadfair to argue your case, i presume.
233- It will be an awesome spectacle, that’s for sure. The world hasn’t seen anything like it since Nuremberg, 1934.
222. David Row - “MORI has hardly been covered in glory the last 12 months.”
Very true.
Gallup today: 44 McCain 45 Obama: “A strong night for Obama in Gallup’s Tuesday tracking interviews, however, suggests that a convention bounce may be developing.”
No sign in Rasmussen yet.
234. Crikey! That in it’s self shows he is unfit for office!
The only thing going for Obama is his wife’s Booty! Cannot take my eyes off it!
224. “The SNP are not coming out of this debate very well, it looks like a very crude politically opportunistic attempt to whip Scottish nationalism with tactless timing.”
ChrisD, I dare say you and I are never going to agree on this, but I’d be grateful if you’d have a glance at Robbie Dinwoodie’s blog entry I linked to earlier. It does put a slightly different complexion on the sequence of events than the one you’ve been portraying -
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/politicalblogs/index.var.13055.0.team_gb_its_sport_not_logic.php
229. ChrisD
Jeeper creepers! What about all the Team GB crude politically opportunistic hyperbole to whip British nationalism with tactless timing. The BritNats have been out in force the last few weeks, and the pong is still in the air. Someone open a window…..
210 - I’m writing feverishly!! So much to cover and so little time. Updates within the hour!
200. There’s some logic to that. Since the Libs and Nationalists started fighting elections on a national basis in Feb 1974, neither major party has exceeded 44.9% (Thatcher, 1979), and only once has a major party dipped below 30% (Foot, 1983).
The numbers show that if Labour can get back above 30% a hung parliament is very likely. I suggest that is what bettors focus on, not the current outlandish projections from Baxter et al…
Who among us would say that it’s impossible Labour will win above 30% of the vote at the next election? With some natural recovery? With a new leader? With both?
It’s barely outside the margin of error as it currently stands…
238 - I am a buyer of Tory seats and a seller of Labour seats, as it happens, though with measured conviction. I do anticipate a Labour recovery ultimately, because I expect Labour to start to do things differently. However, they may not, in which case a Tory landslide is on the cards. At present, the omens from Labour are unpromising. Spluttering about the idea that a large current poll lead for the Tories is somehow flawed or inevitably unsustainable is to give an emotional response to a fairly cogent body of evidence.
193 Yes, Pfp, and PP will let me stake amaximum of 5 euros on that one. I imagine our fellow non-betting PBer Test would risk more than that with me.
222 - I expect seanT has been accused of many things in his day, but surely never before of being ‘representative’?
@246:
Swingback again, eh, Rod?
LALALALALALA
198 Thanks Henry. I collected on your earlier tip and will go for the straight win Guccione here.
Btw, I think your ‘Unison’ article, though interesting, does not convince me that there is any realistic prospect of Brown going this year. The mechanics alone make it very unlikely.
@249:
I don’t think he’s a Tory either.
Imagine the lulz if one of our cuddly blue rinses ever stumbled across some of Sean’s published filth by accident. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
245. Any chance of a Clinton or Obama scoop? Mind you it must be difficult getting one of those! Maybe a Senator or House member can get one for you?
244.Stuart, I read the WHOLE article on BBC Scotland last night. And despite Chris Hoy’s other comments backing up the argument that I and others having been making on here over the last few days, I decided not to post a link because the whole argument has been done to death on here.
But I did put up another link to an entirely different story about the poor soldier languishing abroad because he was in an accident whilst on leave. He had no insurance and his family can’t afford to fly him home while the MOD are refusing to foot the bill despite the fact he is a career soldier with 20 years service.
Now, I would be more interested in Salmond and his administration trying to fight his corner, rather than trying to play petty nationalist politics on the back of what is undoubtedly a British sporting team triumph!
250. Well, considering Labour have only been under 30% for the past 4 months, and there’s five times that period remaining until the election, it can’t be unreasonable to say Labour *may* recover to above 30%….
249, 252: I have never seen any Tory distance themselves from the posts of SeanT, which seem to me to be an excellent exposition of the outlook of the right. I have said before that Tory candidates should use his posts in their campaign literature.
Just completing my 12th hour at the office desk as we cannot find enough experienced and qualified people to match a growing orderbook. So a brief respite to read pb.com.
Whilst I concur with the comments on the polls and variations, the major difficulty I find is converting the pools into projected seats as once cannot assume an even cross UK spread. Even when allowing for the surge in SNP and the growing PC, where then does one then allocate the excess Con votes? (Scotland and Wales showing a CON %age of less than half that show in the polls).
Unfortunately the regional splits shown i the polls do not match these regional variations (except Scotland) as Wales is mixed with Midlands or SW and London is either separate or mixed with the SE.
Would it be possible for the pollsters to double their sample and to separate the regions into more definable areas. They are not short of a bob or two.
Just finished some chocolate biscuits and must put my scientific hat on and continue with another four hours of computation. Will then read remaining comments and Morus’ very informative reports.
Enniskillen local by-election:
“The DUP candidate for the Enniskillen by-election, Arlene Foster, has spoken of her desire to ensure the seat remains in Unionist hands.
“Only 49% of the votes cast in the last election were for Unionist candidates, and it will take close co-operation to win. The figures show that it is only the DUP that can keep this seat in Unionist hands,” Mrs Foster urged.
Her selection as candidate has been endorsed by the a senior DUP MP and the Party’s Director of Elections, Jeffrey Donaldson… “I urge everyone in Enniskillen to rally to Arlene and prevent Sinn Féin from stealing a Unionist seat on Fermanagh Council,” he urged.”
http://www.nwipp-newspapers.com/fh/free/304423038467196.php
256. Don’t think SeanT is even a member of the Tories!
Maybe SeanT and i should run as an indepedent team! He can be Hitler and I can be Himmler! Sean has after all written a book about his life, a bit like Mein Kampf!
257. It’s been looked at, Financier. Pretty much wherever you allocate them, it’s unlikely to make a difference of more than +/-5 seats…
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/04/16/rod-crosby-asks-will-regional-swings-help-the-tories/
257. Just completing my 12th hour at the office desk as we cannot find enough experienced and qualified people to match a growing orderbook. So a brief respite to read pb.com.
What is it you do?
@256:
For goodness sake, get a grip. Sean’s vicious savaging of Mr Dickson and The Scotch are clearly meant to be humorous. Humour: it’s a fashionable concept, look it up some time.
I realise that SeanT as a wealthy, over-indulged, well-travelled, filthy, trash-talking Cornish sex memoirist and quasi-deity must threaten you as a shrivelled, depressed, humourless leftie, but don’t take the misery of your empty existence out on innocent Tories.
Try masturbation. It should help. And if it doesn’t, at least it keeps your hands busy so you can’t post more of your self-pity.
255 “considering Labour have only been under 30% for the past 4 months, and there’s five times that period remaining until the election, it can’t be unreasonable to say Labour *may* recover to above 30%….”
Of course. But the question is what the mid-point of projections should be, not the range of reasonable outcomes. You could equally project the trend line in Labour support, which has been falling steadily for several years apart from the ‘Brown bounce’, and conclude that it can’t be unreasonable to say Labour *may* fall further, to below 25% or even less.
Of course, none of us know. But we can look at the factors affecting sentiment, and in particular at the almost inevitable increase in unemployment and house repossessions over the next couple of years.
@261:
He sources ‘fresh meat’ for Tom Knox.
256. You don’t have a sense of humour do you?
251. I agree the timescale is tight. But what was interesting was that it was Unite (not Unison) and they are the union that’s (literally) keeping the party afloat at the moment. Just as it was the money men that did for IDS in the end, so it could be for Brown.
264.
258 - However much I dislike Lib Dems and Labour I thank God I don’t vote on religious grounds. Fermanagh is a truly stunning part of the world but they still have serious issues.
243.”ChrisD, I dare say you and I are never going to agree on this, but I’d be grateful if you’d have a glance at Robbie Dinwoodie’s blog entry I linked to earlier. It does put a slightly different complexion on the sequence of events than the one you’ve been portraying”
A consummate political and media performer such as Salmond has not got to where he is now by falling into elephant traps with a big warning notice above them. The timing of this article tells me one thing, the leadership of the SNP are now backing off and attempting to distance themselves from their earlier posturing because this has been a massive own goal, excuse the pun.
Britain will be the largest country in the EU in 50 years:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/27/population.eu
But won’t Scotland likely be independent by then, preventing Britain from attaining dominance in Europe? After all, it seems like only a matter of time…
Barack Obama to address supporters from god-like setting
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/philip_sherwell/blog/2008/08/27/barack_obama_to_address_supporters_from_godlike_setting
Interesting a Newspaper has now put the Obama Temple thing up!
Looks like this could cause him damage - just reinforces his elitist reputation! If the US is as insular as many people say many americans may well think it is a stage off the film: Greece!
271. Sorry the film Grease (1978) spelt properly!
270.
The UK is not a ‘country’. It is a state: a political union of two countries, a principality and a province.
270. I think those figures are based on shaky migration statistics. Assuming the tories win the next election; non-EU migration should be curtailed IMO. EU immigration you cannot do much about! Besides overtime as places like Poland catch up the numbers will deminish big style who migrate for economic reasons.
266 Setting him up for next year, Henry?
273- Well if the subjects of the Queen at the Guardian don’t know this, don’t expect me to either!
270 If states as opposed to each other like Texas and New York can rub along I think there’s a bit more life in our Union yet.
273, nonsense. Northern Ireland is a province, Wales is a principality, England and Scotland are kingdoms and Yorkshire is the Centre of the Universe.
The UK’s a splendid country. Hurrah!
I think a 2009 exit is the most likely outcome and available at a generous price with paddypower.com. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Brown resigned in October. There would then be huge pressure from the Labour NEC to run the leadership election as quickly as possible ‘for the sake of the country’.
279. That was for 275.
266.”251. I agree the timescale is tight. But what was interesting was that it was Unite (not Unison) and they are the union that’s (literally) keeping the party afloat at the moment. Just as it was the money men that did for IDS in the end, so it could be for Brown.”
HenryG, saw an article in the Guardian online and linked to it on PB.com yesterday (I think?) that neatly ties in with your point. I think that Brown’s authority and Labour party unity has disintegrated over the last year. Add in the pressure from the Unions and its a very dangerous and unstable mix. The money men or the backbenchers could well be the architect of Brown’s downfall. On the issue of the backbenchers, it might those with normally comfortable majorities who see a new leader and an earlier GE possible saving their seats, or it might those on the left determined to go nuclear with their demands as the ship goes down.
273. Do you think the Russian resurgence and possible cold war will affect the demands for Scottish Independence - the SNP want Nuclear weapons out which is fair enough but the threat of Russian aggresion and no nuclear weapons must be a possible cause for concern for the SNP. After all the Russian bears will fly through an Independent Scotlands air space to threat/ attack England!
By the way - good job we did not listen to Ming Campbell on unilitarial nuclear withdrawl i.e. cutting the number of war heads back.
273/278- Come on, you guys have had since 1066 to get on the same page as to whether you’re a country or not! Do you need another thousand years to decide?
246 Rod, the issue is can anyone seriously see Labour getting within 6% of the Conservatives with 1) the state of the economy, 2) the poor image of Brown? The answer is NO. The voters want a change in Govt.
Regarding the article from Mr Worcester the single message is that the pollsters are showing a consistent message that Labour (led by Brown) are going to lose either badly or very badly. Maybe Nick P and his colleagues will finally wake up and smell the coffee because Bob W sets out the scale of their defeat.
224. Chris, here’s the link to the article in the (pro-Union) Daily Record:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/08/27/exclusive-scotland-can-stand-alone-at-olympics-with-enough-investment-says-chris-hoy-86908-20713364/
283. I think it was 1707 when they merged; act of the union and all that!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707
The legislation was partly passed in 1706!
283, we’ve decided. The SNP are like republicans who flounce about proclaiming they’re ‘citizens not subjects!’, happily ignoring reality.
The UK is a country, the Queen is super, and Yorkshire’s better than Lancashire. These are all established facts.
279.”But it wouldn’t surprise me if Brown resigned in October. There would then be huge pressure from the Labour NEC to run the leadership election as quickly as possible ‘for the sake of the country’.”
Got to agree with you there. Despite all the media hype and interest, if Brown is forced to go I can see those higher up in the party allowing him to resign citing personal or health reasons when we are least expecting it. He will not face down a challenge or enter a contest similar to the scenarios we saw with Thatcher and Major.
275 Yes, as NickP has pointed out, if there WERE a plot to oust Brown (which he denies), the most sensible time to spring it would be some time in 2009 - I would think in time for the 2009 Labour Conference, giving the new leader a few months to establish a new direction before an election in 2010, but not leaving it until they are right up against the deadline. So my guess would be either that Brown stays the whole course, or there’s a 2009 change of leader.
That’s assuming they are acting rationally, of course.
283 - S&S stick to the US, you’re a but shaky on British history. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is less than a hundred years old in its current form. 1066 is just one of many dynastic battles for the English (note, English) crown.
@283:
A country is a geopgraphic entity, a nation a cultural one and a state a political one.
Which terms applies to which entities is at best vague, and at worst entirely context dependent.
Certainly, England and Scotland are both Countries and Nations and Kingdoms. Wales is a country and a nation and a principality. Northern Ireland is… a special case. The United Kingdom is a state. It may or may not be a nation or a country depending on whom is asked. Great Britain is an island.
In short, it’s a confusing mess.
286/287- Okay, fair enough guys!
290- I just knew that comment would stir the sh*t! Just have to see once in a while who has a sense of humor!
207 stjohn - you’re quite right, my apologies. I should have known better than to argue with you, having once been a betting shop clerk during your school hols. I believed, rather simplistically, that if two sets of odds, 5-4 and 10-3, were both more than twice the alternative single odds of 1-2, then they must offer a better return, subject to working out appropriate staking.
I now accept that this is not so, I understand not why, but I accept it nonetheless. One of life’s interesting little quirks I guess.
289. Yes, stratigically that is the best time frame for the Labour party; at least in theory - unfortunatly sometimes political parties can be too clever by half: i.e. Portillo excluded so IDS and Ken Clarke get through.
The rate Brown makes mistakes and more importantly the cabinet - from where the likely succesor will come and the collective responibility will just get tainted by the Brown shit stick! Labour cannot get out of what is comming!
On a personal level it is a shame about Nick’s prospects but the rest of them i will watch them get defeated with a smile on my face!
285.”224. Chris, here’s the link to the article in the (pro-Union) Daily Record”
Check out the article that BBC Scotland had up last night. Don’t you think this is getting a bit tedious for everyone on PB.com?
Its why I don’t frequent the threads on any of our Scottish newspapers.
I love the idea of this site. Getting gut instincts on what is actually happening in the world is a God-send.
So why is every thread hijacked by a nation with less clout - thanks to their own - then the Aaland Islands? Green gravel here, black gravel there, red gravel everywhere, and yellow gravel to deposit a string of verbosity upon. Oh, gosh! Blue gravel, how rare and beautiful! Blub, blub, blub!
Not since the Nazis has a political party rapped itself in a foreign flag. Get over it; St Andrew is spinning like a Maltese-Cross. Will the wee Pictish/Uslter-Evicts leave it alone for a while, please…!
291- Thanks for the clarification, Martin! So I guess the answer is that the Guardian cannot be properly said to be wrong in calling the UK a country.
288. A likely scenario, ChrisD. At last you are beginning to see that all is lost for Labour if GB continues on his path of self-destruction.
@298:
In the context, it’s perfectly acceptable, even if it does chafe at the Nationalists’ inner thighs.
294 btw, like HenryG, I still think PP’s 10-3 offering against Brown’s departure during 2009 represents cracking value, especially if 2008 is effectively now ruled out.
284. What makes you think a 6% Tory lead will produce a majority? It’s more like 11%..
When do people reckon we will go to war then?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4621592.ece
301.Why is a 2008 exit effectively ruled out?
Perhaps the polls are even more stable than even Bob says. The only blip was the immediate period after Blair stood down when there was a Labour bounce, but you could argue it returned to trend which has been growing under Cameron.
296. Yes, it’s tedious but you asked for it mate! The Scotsman took selective quotes from Hoy to try and shaft Salmond. Hoy has since distanced himself from the Scotsman’s twist on things leaving the Unionists looking rather silly.
A good example of how the pro-Union, so-called quality newspapers in Scotland are determined to push their own agenda.
I didn’t see many Union Flags at today’s parade in Edinburgh.
I’ve posted another update to Morus’ Denver Diary (click on my name below) or on this link:
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/morus-denver-diary/
as well as my interview with Lord Rennard and Ed Davey, which I hope makes interesting reading:
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/morus-denver-diary/interview-with-lord-rennard-and-ed-davey-mp/
I’ll put up a new main thread shortly, and will add a further diary entry on last night’s fantastic DFA party later on this afternoon.
See you all later.
302. Rod, like when you hang someone different weightings have to be used. Leaders appeal to different parts of the country. Brown will not appeal to the same parts of the country that Blair did even if he has the same policies!
305. Yep i would agree with that!
I would dispute that Wales is a Principality - it was between the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1282 and the Act of Union in 1535, but since then the term Principality has been meaningless - dont confuse the ceremonial title bestowed upon the eldest son of the Queen of England as having any constitutional status in Wales.
Wales is a Country, and a Nation, and a State (in as much as it is a legally recognised entity) - but it is not unfortunately a Sovereign State.
303- I’d say never. Those poor folks are just going to have to get ethnically cleansed out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia so Russia can ensure that there will never be Georgian interests in those regions again. The world has tolerated this sort of thing countless times before, including in more recent history, and I’m sure Russia will endure little more than tongue lashings for this episode too.
306 If anyone saw yesterdays celebrations in Wales ( available on BBC News Wales web site) you will see hundreds of Red Dragons - including draped all over the athletes - but I counted one sigle solitary Union Jack - One.
Please watch and correct me if wrong, but the mood was clear.
309 Will Cameron return to Georgia on his way back from his hols to sort it out.
Pretentious twat.
306.”296. Yes, it’s tedious but you asked for it mate! The Scotsman took selective quotes from Hoy to try and shaft Salmond. Hoy has since distanced himself from the Scotsman’s twist on things leaving the Unionists looking rather silly.
A good example of how the pro-Union, so-called quality newspapers in Scotland are determined to push their own agenda.
I didn’t see many Union Flags at today’s parade in Edinburgh.”
Priceless, can we please have a little less of the chippy nationalist diatribe on here, and I am not your mate!
When Salmond and the SNP won last year I repeatedly said that the other opposition parties were wrong not to bounce into an immediate independence referendum. That was the last thing that the SNP independence strategy team wanted, it was always their plan to go long in this parliament and try for the referendum in a blaze of glory after a successful four years.
The one danger for them in that strategy has always been the over enthusiasm of some in their own party to push it to unattractive levels thus turning voters in Scotland off and causing more discord UK wide, so knock yourself out.
308. See the article on regional swings. Regional Swings alone aren’t going to make much difference, and certainly can’t bridge a 5% vote gap (or 40 seats)…
311. Very True.
313. Cameron is back in blighty! He was on News 24 earlier talking about this very same issue in a westminister TV facility (The Big Ben Clock was behind him!)
315. That’s assuming the same drivers are in place that motivate the electorate out. All the party leaders have changed and they can make a dramatic difference through differentiated turnout in particular regions that go way off the scale.
I am not disputing what you are saying because the facts you use support your case. What i am saying is the leadership driver in a much closer election may well have major implications that would allow a Tory Maj. on 5% lead.
314. I’m not a hard-core nationalist Chris (is that better?) but I get a bit upset when the clearly impartial Scottish media tries to twist things. It’s not the kind of reporting I want to read.
I agree with your point on the referendum. It’s not a vote I think the nationalists can win so why not go ahead and call his bluff?
316 Cameron should stick to the agenda of telling everyone its their fault , fat people, poor people, the unemployed, George W Bush and a georgian president.
Answers everything easily.
Just in case anyone missed Wales Olympic celebrations, watch here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7581178.stm
Not as big a crowd as in Edinburgh, but impressive.
304 Chris - I did say IF a 2008 GE is ruled out. Upthread PtP reckons there’s now only a 1/100 chance, whilst stjohn goes a more modest 1/10. Paddy Power, au contraire, continues to offer 10/11 that there WILL be a GE this year. You pays yer money, etc …..
319. Splendid, your insight, political accumen and balanced views will get you far my son! I salutte your you sir!
319, dez…. browne?:p
319. if you happen to disagree you are “a liar” or “a joke”
318. Impartial = partial (obviously!)
283. Since when has the UK existed since 1066?
321. 10/11 that there WILL be a GE this year:
If i understand that correctly they are saying there is so much risk that an election will be this year that they offer odds of £10 for £11!
My view is even if the Labour leadership changed, there is no way there will be an election this year. Not enough time left!
327. Sorry £11 for every £10 you put on!
325, can’t see things from your perspective (not disagreeing, but we don’t get many Scottish papers in Yorkshire) but I share your loathing of blatantly biased news. One of the good things about freeview is that I can watch Sky News now, but I still watch the BBC occasionally, when I want to know what the government wants me to think.
317. Regions can’t “go way off the scale” without either:
i) largely cancelling each other out, or
ii) moving the average, so they are no longer off the scale….
Sorry, regional effects simply cannot produce a Con majority on a 5 or 6% national lead…
277- One distinction, Punter. New York and Texas, as different as they may be, are both states with roughly co-equal status and standing. Neither is any higher or lower than the other in its sovereign rights within the context of our system subject to the supremacy of the federal government. On the other hand, Scotland and England do not have co-equal status, which creates an inherently unstable situation (which I guess you refer to as the West Lothian question). I don’t know how you’ll manage to resolve this problem this side of Scottish independence.
331. Incidentally Scotland’s population is less than 10% of the UK’s. We’d still overtake Germany, it just might take a bit longer.
O/T, the Scots [and their Quislings] are bright, right…?
http://www.order-order.com/2008/08/bag-lady-has-strop.html
326- I was making a bit of fun, Socrates, which you’ll see if you read on through the thread. I hope you’ll see the humor in the spectacle of subjects of the Queen debating whether the UK is a nation, given the long and proud history of that state/nation/country…
330, we might find out.
The system shifts in bias. Attlee won a majority in ‘45 despite it being heavily in Churchill’s favour. Thatcher benefited from a large bias too.
Now it’s reversed and is pro-Labour. But it isn’t set in stone it’ll stay that way, particularly with Cameron’s offset by Brown and Clegg. If the bias is to change in the near future, the next election may be when.
Classic post from Guido:
This just forwarded to the inbox:
“I was one of the lucky BA passengers who got to fly home with the Olympians - an incredible honour. We were thrown off first and after we walked down the steps and past the paparazzi I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the Prime Minister standing in the doorway shaking hands with my fellow normal pasengers. I walked up to him and shook his hand and asked where we went to collect the bags. He was dumbfounded and the wifey minister* standing beside him with the t-shirt said rudely to me “that is the Prime Minister, ask someone inside”. It wasn’t as though I asked him to carry my bags. She is one ugly cow.”
*Tessa Jowell
334- sorry, “in debating whether the UK is a country”…
334, don’t forget that the Queen is also Paramount Chief of Fiji. Bet you didn’t know that!
333. Damn you fluffy, you beat me.
#339
Sorry, only thread I could find without Stuart Dickson discussing the placement of gravel within the Scottish goldfish-bowl. Blub, blub, blub…!
321.PfP, loathe to put up this conspiracy scenario because some bright spark will use Mike’s excellent archives to quote it back at me at a later date causing me to blush with embarrassment.
But what the hell, here goes. If Brown survives the Autumn season and things don’t improve with the economy or politically, remember he has been quoted as saying that things will start to improve in months, the polls just keep delivering very bad news and the rumblings continue unabated after Conference.
There is no evidence or comfort that things will improve in the Spring, does he carry on trying yet again to shore up his position as he did over the summer in preparation for the conference season, return of Parliament and an Autumn relaunch?
Or does he finally except the game is up and that he has to stand down, if so what about the Christmas period as a date that will catch everyone off guard? It would certainly mean the chance of the least media scrutiny for a man not renowned for meeting failure head on in a glare of optimum publicity like a GE?
327 Martin - you got it in one. Have you ever thought of slipping round to Hills, Ladbrokes, Corals, etc in Hudds to see whether they might have an opening for you. Just get the numbers right, no need to worry about spelling and those damned apostrophes!
327
Agreed Labour might be regicdal but not suicidal.
They would be better waiting to see the outcome of the USA election, if the governing party wins in a recession, with a grizzly 70 something, against a 40 something charasmatic elitist leader.
They might have a prayer even if it is a longshot.
331 - The only American parallel I can think is remotely justified for the West Lothian Question is comparing the States to the the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico. In both cases, budgeting is approved directly by Congress and there is limited ability to change that by local secondary legislation. The difference of course, is that England is about 85% of the UK population, where as DC or PR are very small fractions of the total US population.
Even Morus agrees with me the the Obama bounce will be tiny.
And if he uses a Greek Temple facade as the background for his major speech, Any bounce could end up as a jump off a cliff.
335. In 1979 there was a pro-Labour bias. 1945 looks pro-Labour to me, although it is not covered in the following paper…
See
http://www.essex.ac.uk/bes/EPOP%202005/Papers/biaepop.pdf
New Akron Buckeye poll for Ohio :
McCain 40% .. Obama 40%
http://www.uakron.edu/bliss/docs/AkronBuckeyePollSummer_08_.pdf
Note - Polled 17th July - 17th August.
344- The people of D.C. are generally hopping mad that they’re not a state, but they’re certainly not agitating for independence (mainly because they would have no reason to want to be independent!). Puerto Rico periodically has referenda on whether it wishes to become independent, remain a commonwealth, or become a state. In the last vote about ten or so years ago, it narrowly favored commonwealth over statehood, with independence receiving only about 3% of the vote. If it ever voted for statehood, it would then be up to Congress to handle the hot potato.
345- If the bounce is tiny, it will be panic time for the Democrats.
341 Chris - we just don’t have GEs during December - in fact IIRC they are never between Nov-Feb, nor July-Aug. I do see the economy worsening considerably over the next few 6-9 months at least and for that reason I’m quite keen on PP’s 10-3 odds for a GE next year. Once we get past June however, there seems little point, Labour (and Brown) may as well stick around until May ‘10.
318.”I agree with your point on the referendum. It’s not a vote I think the nationalists can win so why not go ahead and call his bluff?”
Stickers, because for one thing we have been all over the place with the leaderships of a couple of the opposition parties. I don’t see Tavish Scott being on board with the idea, and we don’t know yet who will be the new leader of the SLP and what they views are.
I also think that the Tories might be loathe to test the water within in their own party as well.
242.
Interesting idea! I’ll get something soon! Determind to move forward! My problem is because i have moved around due to circumstance and got qualifications off my own back; people think i will not stay! They are wrong because as long as it is not a dead end job i would love to stay with the same employer! Having just gone 32 the other day, I want to settle down and start fathering children etc! 
Somebody earlier mentioned that a tiny bounce for Obama wouldn’t be a big deal since normally conventions are the time when people get to know candidates and, presumably, come to like them, except that there’s no reason for an Obama bounce since people already know him.
But conventions are about more than getting to know someone; they’re also a feel-good moment when a party can put its best foot forward and convince people, if only momentarily, that they really are the best party and best candidate for America. To get little or no bounce means that this effort has failed, whether people more or less knew the candidate before or not.
350.You are right, it would certainly drive down turnout.
341 Chris - I’ve just re-read your post and see you were referring to Brown simply quitting, as opposed to calling a GE. This is entirely possible at any time, although unlikely given the nature of the beast. I don’t think he would need to feel sensitive about the timing - once you’re gone you’re yesterday’s fish and chip wrapping.
341. “If he survives the autumn…” Looks like he might, though there were the usual verbals from the usual suspects earlier in the summer along the lines of “He has until Conference to show improvement in the polls, otherwise he’s a very naughty boy and we will make some more empty threats. So there.”
But there’s still a chance that events may hurry things along a bit. Can but hope.
Well I’m off to watch some Golf.
But 2 things to say:
1..Cameron is getting a bit pretentious with his rabid anti Russian stance.
2.. Remember what I said about Palin for Mac’c VP.
With regard to the “can the Conservatives win with a lead of 5/6%?” question, how often has a party not won a majority with that sort of lead.
Although there is certainly going to be some bias towards Labour in the system, I’d have thought it would be less than expected based on recent elections. The tactical vote against the Conservatives will at least be less than the last 13 years, and may even have reversed, to go against Labour
357. On number one; not so sure - people want to stand upto things like this!
Labour got good write-up’s for their intervention in Kosovo - whilst this may have greater ramifications i believe Cameron is speaking for the silent majority!
353 SaS. Convention bounces rarely last more than a week or so, even more so with the most unusual situation of back to back conventions. FWIW I doubt either candidate will rate much of a bounce because of the drag on the ticket of the respective spectres at the feast - Hill and Bill and Bush and Cheney.
It’ll be interesting to see the market reaction to Obama’s speech tomorrow. I’m assuming he’ll give his usual polished performance and the price will come in accordingly. I’m looking to lay a bit more on him as the race is clearly tightening and he surely can’t remain the favourite for too much longer if the GOP convention goes well.
351. Good point Chris. Annabelle Goldie can’t really be seen to be pushing for a referendum and the other parties are in no state to make such a decision.
On thread
Perhaps the opinion pollsters should ask the question of those being polled as to whether they believe the results of said polls. Not sure what answer they would get????
302. “What makes you think a 6% Tory lead will produce a majority? It’s more like 11%..” - RodCrosby
Curious how the lead that the Conservatives need to have a majority seems to keep increasing as the Conservative poll lead increases.
Far more likely is that the required Conservative lead is actually decreasing as at the next election there will not be anti-Conservative tactical voting. If anything the tactical voting will be anti-Labour.
362. Intesting poiny! Polls do tend to be accurate unless the two main parties are within the margin of error within the uk. are
Off thread
Ben Brogan says DC’s sppech will have to be in a larger hall due to demand for seats.
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/
I wonder what size hall Gordo will have… Answers on a postcard….
363. Indeed, why would somebody vote tactically against the tories especially on current Labour/LD figures?
365. Any claping for Gordon will be seen as being rigged aka. IDS 2003!
365. MTF. There is a rumour they’ve ordered one of the old Red telephone boxes (must be on Britishness again……
;0)
357. Hawkish foreign policy is never a bad thing for an opposition leader. Most voters aren’t interested in specifics on foreign affairs- but they like the idea of Britain punching above it’s weight.
359 Cameron is pretentious as I said earlier in 313.
They don`t want publicity stunts and showboating regarding Russia`s sphere of influence.
Under strong advice I did bet on Gordon making it into 2009 and it looks like coming off. BUT, this idea that September will see serious pressure emerge on Brown if the polls arent improving(and the general Labour feeling improves as well)is something that I can’t quite get shot off in my head.
We will soon know.
OT did any hear the Geraldine Ferraro interview on Radio 4 this morning. That woman clearly wants Obama’s head on a pole. One of her comments that the main reason behind the overwhelming black Democratic vote was simply because he was black was no doubt controversial, even thouigh its perfectly logical.
360- You’re right, and it’s still so early in the real election season that it is hard to say if any of the convention effects are really lasting, or are merely subsumed into what follows. But if Obama fails to get a bounce and McCain somehow manages one to pull a bit ahead, this would be very demoralizing for Democrats and could adversely affect them psychologically going into the heart of the election season.
345. This is such bizarre criticism. Half of DC is done in Greco-Roman style, including, notably, the Whitehouse.
370 errrr Dez…. what is Milipede doing in the Ukraine then, it wouldnt be showboating as you put it would it???. If DC hadnt gone to Georgia you no doubt would have criticised him for that, but because he did go, its showboating. Your point is not well made, in fact its not a point at all.
355.PfP, I reread your initial when you replied to my post and realised you were talking about the GE rather than Brown’s exit!
Although to your other point, remember how Brown announced that he would not have a GE in the Autumn.
375.Should have been initial post. Doh.
374. Agree - Dez is a reactionery Socialist! It does the Labour party no good, critising Cameron for leading where Labour follow.
Cameron has made the political weather whilst Labour can be creditied for making the Economic weather!
A row has broken out about the provenance of Lord Snooty at the Cartoon Olympics.
Stuart Dickson, SNP Spokesperson for Animated Characters, said that Lord Snooty is clearly a Scottish Character, published as he is in Dundee by Thomson Newspapers.
A Mr SeanT, a self-appointed expert on Britishness, speaking from between the legs of a Thai dancing girl, disputed this. “Lord Snooty is as British as Biggles, Minnie the Minx and cow-pies. Snootyshire is in England”
327 Quite right, Martin. And even if Brown resigned tomorrow, it is far from clear that a GE would be held this year.
378. Never underestimate SeaT - He keeps the British end up, entering chambers that have scant British presence in the past and forwarding the British presence!
262: “For goodness sake, get a grip. Sean’s vicious savaging of Mr Dickson and The Scotch are clearly meant to be humorous. Humour: it’s a fashionable concept, look it up some time.
I realise that SeanT as a wealthy, over-indulged, well-travelled, filthy, trash-talking Cornish sex memoirist and quasi-deity must threaten you as a shrivelled, depressed, humourless leftie, but don’t take the misery of your empty existence out on innocent Tories.
Try masturbation. It should help. And if it doesn’t, at least it keeps your hands busy so you can’t post more of your self-pity.”
Fair comment.
379. Highly unlikely as it would take a while for Labour to pick a replacement and you would realistically look at a GE (providing Labour caved into the pressure) by June 2009!
I just do not see an election this year - too late!
381. To be a fly on SeanT’s wall would be most interesting! Personally shagging loads of different women does not appeal to me as i don’t look for that myself! But as long as SeanT enjoy’s it and writes books that the British economy benefits froml who cares?
http://www.visitingdc.com/images/national-archives-washington-dc.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/godc/1/5/_/-/-/-/ustreasurydept.jpg
http://www.destination360.com/north-america/us/washington-dc/images/s/washington-dc-jefferson-memorial-s.jpg
http://www.visitingdc.com/images/lincoln-memorial-picture.jpg
http://www.mhpstudios.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Cuba/Capitol_Building.jpg
These Greek temples. They’re just so unAmerican!
But thankfully, the media is all liberally biased, so they won’t be repeating GOP talking points all day…
381, don’t overdo it though.
When at school, a friend of mine got a sprained wrist, possibly the most amusing of all injuries.
It is a curious psychological question. Of all those who want to lead Labour (and be PM), who would have both the guts and ability to depose Brown, AND want to lead the party right now?
The only person who cannot afford to wait but might want it is probabl Jack Straw. Milipede is only 12, so can wait three or four decades, and Harpy, although trapped in a 1970s feminist timewarp, isn’t 60 odd either.
Let my post out!
384. Didn’t straw demonstrate he was up for the top job by arranging that photo call, which was unexpectedly recorded by sky news?
Ha. Just realised in my captured post, my last link was wrong. It should be this one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/US_Capitol_Building_at_night_Jan_2006.jpg/795px-US_Capitol_Building_at_night_Jan_2006.jpg
358. The answer’s never, although it would have occurred in 1992 had the Tory lead been that narrow, and we cannot entirely exclude the possibility in 1979 either…
Martin, Hattie is 61 isnt she?. I dont actually think there will be an election. I don’t think Labour has the balls to depose him.They will sink with the ship slowly but surely.
The only possible scenario I can forsee (as I have said before) is if the Tories hit 50%+ and Labour were 21/22. I feel certan that would induce panic in the ranks of the PLP.
My view is a Mcain victory by 46% to 43% in the polls, the actual result may well see Mcain nudging 50%.
387- What’s your point? Obama isn’t making a speech in front of a Washington building or monument, he’s making a nomination acceptance speech in Denver. 70,000 people? Grandiose Greco-Roman props? I’m not sure which audience this spectacle is targeting, but probably not lunch pail Joe in Pennsylvania. It’s just strange and somehow unsettling.
389 just looked it up she is 57…
***NEW THREAD*** Who thought Greco-Roman was a good idea? ***NEW THREAD***
Cheers,
Morus
389. Yend to agree - would be great to see the tories at 50% plus though! Before i thought it unlikely but now - there is no ceiling, well until about 55-60%! Things will get very bad for Labour once the economy contracts! No doubt about it! Maybe the Tories would consider me for Huddersfield! At least i would have a good job once the election has ben decided! (Hell would freeze over first - but actually i reckn i could do exceptionally well here! It is all about knowing the voters!!!
MTF - She looks over 60!
389 - It won’t be down to percentages, it will be down to events, if it happens. The trigger event might well be trivial, but plotters need an excuse. Glasgow East was a possible excuse. Losing a by-election that Gordon Brown took personal command of might be an excuse. But too many in the Labour party are still looking for excuses not to act.
Re Hattie - I am 61 and she was President of the Cambridge Union when I was an undergrad. I think she is probably 61.
Having just caught up with this thread,
ed’s point dwells on the difference between precision and accuracy. Precision is to do with random statistical error and is accounted for by the MoE calculations expressed above (the “traditional” +/-3% which is refined by others above (38, 54). this depends, of course, on the process not being subject to a systematic error or bias - and calculating the precision carefully about the wrong value.
One nice simple test for systematic error is to see whether the variations fall roughly equally above and below the true value (for example, if there is no pro-Labour bias, you’d expect to see equal understatement of the final value as overstatement when compared to the election results).
Re: “inbuilt bias” and required Tory lead - I’ve mentioned before that Baxter has done a “Gap Analysis” article, which I summarised on an earlier discussion
In effect, a Tory lead of 9% is required to win the 2005 General Election - which is now a bit of a tough ask in any case
We don’t actually know how big a Tory lead will be needed to gain a majority at the next one, but unless you postulate anti-Tory/pro-Labour tactical voting exactly as much as last time, and Brown having a similar advantage over Cameron in the middle-class marginals as Blair did over Howard, it’s fair to say that it will be less than that.
A bit late commenting on the original topic of this thread - but MOE of approx 3% on both Con and Lab percentages does not account for the fact that one pollster more or less consistently gives a higher score for Lab and less for Cons compared to another pollster. e.g. compare ICM and YouGov in the table above [and without checking a similar result over many months]
So there is still a case for saying that one pollster is all over the place compared to another pollster which must be methodological and not accounted for by statistical random fluctuation in a limited sample size
374 Yes it is they are both at it.
But you as a tory boy cant see how it is.