Will the towns of England seal Brown’s fate?
October 3rd, 2009
Out at last - the PoliticsHome Marginals MegaPoll
We’ve now got the latest PolticsHome marginals poll which covers 238 constituencies with a sample of 33,610 voters. Apart from the scale what makes this different is that there is a two-stage voting intention question to try to tease out the potential for tactical voting.
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The 2008 version was based on fieldwork at the end of July of that year when Labour was at it absolute lowest so today’s findings suggest that the election will be less of a disaster than last year. Fieldwork for this new poll ended on September 21st so it it quite up to date.
Reproduced above is the main summary panel showing the seat predictions and projected swings in each of the different categories of seat and as can be seen there is a vast difference in the projected movement. In fact in the urban West Midlands and the East Midlands the 13.4% LAB>CON swing is so large that it would bring in nine seats that were not included in the survey. Although it’s not explicit I don’t think those are included in the totals above.
The big switch to the Tories is in the English towns where the poll found a disproportionately large moves from Labour. It’s here where a large number of the key marginals are located and, according to the summary table, where Labour looks set to lose power.
But the poll is suggesting that the Tories are making much less progress in LD>CON marginals than they would have liked and in Scotland, where they have high hopes, they will only put on one extra seat - Dumfries and Galloway
But it’s not all bad news for Labour. The poll found that incumbent Labour MPs were getting less of a swing against them and in Scotland the scale of the party’s projected losses is, at four seats, much lower than many have been predicting. The SNP, in particular will be disappointed by these findings.
For Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems there are eight losses in what is down as the South West segment and that includes Chris Huhne’s Eastleigh. But elsewhere they won’t lose anything apart from Leeds North West and Solihull which is a notional Tory seat anyhow. In Scotland the poll is projecting that the party will be a net gainer picking up Edinburgh South.
The poll predicts from the LAB>LD marginals that the party will only win Islington South and Finsbury. Their targets of Watford , Norwich South,
Leeds North West, Hampstead and Kilburn and Derby North will be taken by the Tories.
The Greens, according to the poll, win their first ever Westminster seat - Brighton Pavillion.
The main link for the poll at PoliticsHome is here.
There will be many more threads on this and the detailed contents, I’m sure, will highlight some amazing betting bargains.
Mike Smithson
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interesting but are the samples in each seat reliable?
Toinen?
So the PoliticsHome poll was conducted between 11-21 Sep, when the Con lead was about 14.5% according to other national polls. My model (adjusted probabilistic UNS) for that gives a Con majority of 67, so very close to the PoliticsHome result. [The LibDems do significantly better and the SNP worse on their model though]
But……………………
the national lead has narrowed to about 11% since then, which, as I pointed out earlier, implies on my model a Tory majority of just one seat.
So if my model is not contradicted by PoliticsHome that’s encouraging that it may be right now also.
Snap reactions.
1.Labour with a new leader is capable of at least denying the Tories a majority, Browns voter repellance was always going to be amplified in the Engish towns where Baisr won more votes than expected.
2.If anyone wants a bet on Eastleigh and the Tories winning, I’ll give them better odds than the bookies are at the moment.
3.Lib Dems winning Eastbourne is a live constituency bet.
4.Scottish Tories can forget lots of Cameron attention
re 3. Rod - wait for the end end of the conference season before talking about current swings.
1. Others on the previous thread felt the answer to that question was ‘no’. I’m also wondering how a poll covering 238 constituencies is extrapolated to predict 650 results? Is it on the basis of broad regional swing? If so, there’s the obvious potential for a lot of false assumptions.
FPT marcia
All I can say is Cunning Little Vixen.
The Labour deficit is 11% straight after their conference Rod.
And Anthony thinks that is likely to be a sampling error.
In his conference speech Brown mentioned Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but not the country that pays the bills - England. England is persona non grata in the Labour party. So I hope it’s the English towns that do in Brown and Labour!
1. No, but the broad picture [is - correction:] was, between 11-21 Sep.
The polls have narrowed, of course, since then….
And 5.The Midlands is the key to the whole thing.
“But it’s not all bad news for Labour. The poll found that incumbent Labour MPs were getting less of a swing against them and in Scotland the scale of the party’s projected losses is, at four seats, much lower than many have been predicting. The SNP, in particular will be disappointed by these findings.”
Mike, I simple do not believe that only four seats will change hands in Scotland at the next GE. In effect, almost no change from 2005. Sorry, but after the Scottish elections and 2007 and the Euro’s this year, I expect more churn under the radar than this poll implies.
8. So you agree the deficit is 11%.
Well, that’s a start, I suppose.
1.Marcia, you are out on the doorstep as others like myself have been. Do you feel that their is no mood to change the status quo up here?
O/T with all the fuss about what to do about the BBC - break it up, sell off bits etc, this may be of a little interest insofar as it shows the business brains at work in the mighty beeb.
BBC America’s HD (1080i) service went live on July 20. The only snag was that they had not negotiated any carrier agreements, so no cable or satellite company carries it - in other words nobody can watch it in HD.
What makes this infinitely worse is that they had aggressively promoted the new service and had lined up lots of new programming for it, including a new Torchwood series (I’ve no idea what that is, but it’s apparently very popular in the scifi world). So instead of a nice HD service, everyone had to watch the new stuff in SD. Needless to say their audience is up in arms, and it looks like at least November before any major carrier (probably DirecTV) will be carrying the HD feed. Their advertisers are not thrlled either, so they’ve managed to upset everyone. BBC America is a fairly small channel in terms of viewers, but this doesn’t help grow it. Talk about incompetence…..
4.You forget one thing, Cameron wants to keep the Union, and I doubt that he wants to be the PM in charge when that 300 year marriage hits the divorce courts. Stop baiting.
According to Uk Polling, You Gov had the Tory lead as 14 on the 11th but 9 on the 21 September.
re 13. All polling in conference season is suspect because of the totally artificial media environment. You have to wait until mid-October.
18 Which polling company have you got to provide the poll?
17 was to Rod.
So since polling for this STARTED on the 11, the figure you should be using is the 9 from the poll out on the 21st.
The 14 pointer covers the wrong period.
Which means at 11 the situation has got worse for Labour.
17. Another poll had a 17% lead. The 9% lead looks like a rogue (certainly the 30% for Labour was rogue) at that point in time…
There was a bit of churn towards the end of the polling dates. Just a gut feeling but think result is slightly better than this 2009 marginals poll but not as high as 2008 result. The small sample sizes per constituency are somewhat worrying, with some as low as 100 if I recall last time.
21 But it was not YouGov Rod.
Hob Nobs all round!
Mr Huhne’s trousers are properly creased.
What this poll does is smash the notion of the national swing.
“Joys of class war put fire in the belly
(…)In private, some ministers talk about a David Cameron government as if it were a certainty but most agreed the conference had given the party something of a cause. “If we can just get through to Christmas without any of the disasters of the last few months, then voters will start to focus more on the choice they have to make,” said one cab-inet minister. Then, gloomily eyeing his poached sea bass, he added: “That’s a big if.”"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a81b7eee-aeea-11de-96d7-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
“the figure you should be using is the 9 from the poll out on the 21st.”
Nope. I’m assuming PoliticsHome polled a roughly equal number of people each day over the period in question.
There were 4 polls between 11 and 21 Sept:
11 Sept: YouGov - C +14
13 Sept: Populus - C +14
20 Sept: ICM - C +17
21 Sept: YouGov - C +9
Average of all 4 polls: C +13.5
Average of the 2 YouGov polls: C + 11.5
So not a Con lead of 14.5.
25. Wouldn’t it take an election to do that, not one opinion poll? Having said that, the notion of national swing ought to have been well and truly smashed by the 1987 election, if not a lot earlier.
12 ChristinaD
I agree with you. This poll suggests that Scottish voting for the UK Parliament virtually replicates 2005. You gain 1 marginal seat in the South, we gain 2 marginals in Dundee and Ochil. Those 3 seats could easily have gone that way 4 years ago.
But you and I know that both our parties have gained support, and that Lab and LD have lost it.
YouGov don’t weight by likelihood to vote, and I suspect that SNP and Con voters are more committed to turning out.
28 The 11 September one will have been concluded the day before in all likelihood with most of the results in a days or so before - in which case it is 9.
Solihull will almost certainly go LD>CON. When prices were first posted a couple o’ months back, I maxed out my position at 1.67 (best now available is 1.62).
If I had more money, I’d back at any price above 1.33
31. I’m not disagreeing with you!
All I am saying is that on ANY basis it is not 14.5.
Mike, what do you get with the September 20 ICM data + The VIPA?
33 I know. I am just yanking Rod’s chain.
**** BETTING POST ****
Some suggested value bets on the strength of this poll:
Chorley Tories at 5/6 PP
Birmingham Northfield Tories at 15/8 PP
Birmingham Selly Oak at 6/4 PP
Greens to win a seat at 9/7 VC
Amber Valley Tories at 4/5 VC
Hyndburn Tories at Evens VC
Luton North Tories at 5/6.
I’m on!
30. “This poll suggests that Scottish voting for the UK Parliament virtually replicates 2005.”
To be fair, the Guardian report seems to imply that the SNP are on around 30% nationally, which is a 12% gain on 2005. There is quite a fine line between the mid-thirties performance that would give them a shedload of gains, and the high-twenties/low-thirties performance that might give them only two or three. Given the unusual methodology of this poll, it would be wise not to jump to too many conclusions.
26 If ‘class war’ goes to lower-middle-class surburbia (ironically more left-wing than many council estates),then,based on oick-up I have received,from pesky lower-middle-classes,their view is often PM Bropwn and Chancellor Darling are ‘the safe card.better the devil you know’,as opposed to leader of the Opposition David Cameron,and his Shadow Chancellor,Mr.George Osborne.
Food for thought,no attempt at controversy.
At the end of the day,there’s only so long we can chat her,before the oistol is fired for a May 6th election -probably on April 6th,the day after Easter Monday.You got it first off West Ham Patrick!
Off to beddy-byees,a pleasant day on the Isle of Wight is my mission of Sat.3rd October-ciao for now!
25. On the contrary, it validates it [in its overall effect in terms of seats.]
The only divergences seem to be an outstanding performance by the LibDems, and a disappointing result for the SNP.
Pretty much everything I’ve ever said on PB is validated by this poll.
Of course we could both be wrong.
35. That should be 9/4 Greens to win a seat with VC.
Its one of the problems: in some ranges a small amount of variation can make a very big difference.
Ladbrokes seem to have taken down their constituency markets and VC have dramatically cut the list available.
What an awful night to be a bookies.
Do we know which constituencies are ‘Ashcroft marginals’?
If so is there any way of determining what differential effect Ashcroft spending has on polled swings?
30.”YouGov don’t weight by likelihood to vote, and I suspect that SNP and Con voters are more committed to turning out.”
oldnat, I agree with that point, but I also think that turnout next time will go up in all those marginal seats. I checked out turnout in these seats going back to 97 last year after the last marginals poll, its worth noting. I just know that more than four seats will change hands next time.
39
Total nonsence. The poll shows the NAT vote touching 30 per cent a huge 11-12 per cent gain on 2005. The low number of SNP gains predicted is a function of allowing for no differential turnout.
For example if the vote moved a mere 2 per cent further then the Labour seats start to tumble or if the SNP turnout is greater as suggested by MORI then the same thing happens.
re 43. I know a lot of the Ashcroft focus has been in the midlands
28. You have to be a little bit more sophisticated than that. You need to also look at where the polls where immediately before and after the period in question. You borrow strength from them to get a better picture. A rolling average will do a reasonable job, or Samplemiser an even better one…
43 Seth, there are no such things as Ashcroft marginals.
We have target seats and target seat funding. Although Ashcroft is very generous to the party, it is not single source funding.
Just a small point I know but one that must grate on the nerves of a lot of hard working Tory fundraisers.
42 Aww,poor little bookies,they may only have a salary pushing £100K if things continue!
Talking of continuation,if Burnley win at home again this weekend,then surely bookies will take the Clarets out of their first three they see dropping-as a 38-year-old pundit,I feel reasonably confident in prdeicting Burnley will finish 12th-16th,with between 38 and 45 points-I know I have given a wide range,but I now feel certain your team will grace the 2010-1 Premiership-fair play! (And I really MUST go to bed now!)
39. Disagree.
First of all I believe a majority of 67 on your model is 62 on a “normal” basis as you don’t count SF.
So your model says a lead of 14.5% gives a maj of 62.
Here we have a survey at a time when the lead was between 11.5% and 13.5% giving a majority of 70.
So a significant difference.
Which is of course blindingly obvious because the swing is higher than average where there are lots of Con targets and lower than average where there are few (eg Scotland).
37 James Kelly
I know that FPTP is easily distorted by small changes in opinion (no doubt why the tweedleedee/tweedledum parties love it so much).
It’s also true that we don’t have the details for each constituency - what a surprise Lord Ashcroft will have bought it from himself!
If Labour is only hanging onto some seats by the skin of its teeth, then the actual results could end up widely variant from this poll.
No one notice Wales, Its going to be annihilation for Labour everywhere outside their strongest valleys.
Bye bye.
51 Ashcroft gives less money to us than Sainsbury gives to Labour. Its not that one person just pours buckets of money into one party.
What Ashcroft brings to the procees is more than just money. Its extracting every ounce of good from his and other peoples money by making clever assessments as to where to put it and ensuring the constitiuencies have to jump through hoops to prove their are worthy of it.
If he had been running our public services for the last 12 years, we would be getting a lot more bang for our buck.
48 SallyC
I did enclose with single commas but I accept your point. What I was trying to get at was whether you can correlate polled swings to campaign spend. This must be key measurement for campaign fund managers and I guess a core reason for commissioning private polls. The derived data would however be carefully protected. Hence my question as to whether a ROI can be calculated from publicly released polling data.
52 I noticed Wales.
You got to love Wales.
51.I think you need to read Nick Palmer’s post from the previous thread. I think it was said that the Conservatives bought it last year, but he said that they were trying to flog it to Labour this time. It doesn’t sound like the Conservatives have bought it this time, and why should they need it again? We are only up to 7 months away from the GE now, if the marginals have not been targeted effectively by now, they ain’t going to be.
And for all right-wingers (and you take this place over som you deserve one slice of truth),
(i)The Conservative Party will be promoted to govt in spring 2010
(ii)Its form and away will,by mid-season (ie 2012 ish) leave it obvious as a 1/4 relgation cert
(iii)Under new,sharper leadership,the Labour leader of the Opposition will seize his/her moment to rectify their team’s brief relegation to Opposition..
(iv)And in 2014/5 will triumphantly return to the ‘top flight’ of UK politics ie being in government!
We shall see,night all!
54. For those that doubted my theory yesterday morning about Jock-bashing on PB.com that nobody seems to notice, I present Exhibit A.
Not that I would want to accuse any of the regulars of temporarily switching identity for the purposes of an abusive post, but have we ever heard of ‘Orangehater’ before?
“Here we have a survey at a time when the lead was between 11.5% and 13.5%”
Not supported by the totality of the evidence, I’m afraid.
I’ve just refined my estimate to 14.3%, if that helps…
I’ve been saying Conservatives would get a solid 100 seat majority all year and I still believe that. These figures look pretty solid but I think it’ll get worse for Labour here on out and the numbers will change further.
A new leader will make a difference for Labour, if they dare. But the difference will only last about a fortnight and then they’ll implode again.
re 54. ORANGEHATER - that user name is not valid and I am deleting your post.
Betfair most seats market:
As of this minute, I believe Con price is its strongest ever and Lab price is its weakest ever.
Con - Back 1.11, Lay 1.12
Lab - Back 9.4, Lay 10
This poll seems to show Labour picking up Blaenau Gwent but the Doc’ holding Wyre Forest, which is interesting - although I’d take any particular seat forecast with a pinch of salt.
55 I know Seth.
59 I don’t think Mike lets people post under several names from one address.
55.Seth, you missed out the most important fact about the current effective targeting of marginals by the Conservatives in recent years. They have picked many of their candidates early, and I have never seen such effective targeting or organisation of the grass roots efforts in all the time I have been involved with the Scottish Conservatives. The change from 2005 has just been phenomenal. Its an exciting and extremely motivating time to be involved.
And that is something you cannot buy.
59. No, it doesn’t help.
I’ve quoted the figures (post 28), everybody can read them.
54. Yes you can. Very much so. Labour had this down to a tee. See a study by Ron Johnston. I’ll try and dig out the link for you sometime.
The Greens win Brighton Pav?
Naaah
Christina, you make a good point.
It has been very hard for a lot of Conservative PCCs. Some have had a long run up to a GE. By May 2010 our PCC will have been in place for just shy of four years. In some cases they have been bashing away so long in the local press, we get letters from people thinking they are the MPs and they are invited to cut the ribbons at openings!
67 RodC
Thanks. Would be very interesting.
james kelly is right, the snp need 34% to break thru fully, 32% to make good inroads and between 25 and 30% they have essentially the same number of seats.
if it is wet night labour will stay at home, and turnout will be feeble compared to the tories who come out to vote no matter what the weather is. the snp are also more committed than labour, but not like the east coast tories.
71 redcliffe62
True if you assume a Scottish UNS. What we don’t know from the poll is how marginal the marginals are!
Nighty night all.
ps, thank to the optimist who took all of my betfair lay on the greens. I now have a fittingly green book on brighton pavillion and will be up a fair few quid if the greens can pull it off.
GreenGreenGreenGreen>Green!?>GREEN!
69.SallyC, is your seat mentioned in the marginals poll, and if so, is it a gain?
Time for bed I think, it feels weird to have stayed up just to watch a repeat of 2005. Oh well, the real poll will come soon enough, and it just gets you even more motivated.
Nite all.
70. This appears to be the latest study:
http://www.ggy.bris.ac.uk/personal/RonJohnston/CurrentPapers/Electoral/electoral24.pdf
Haven’t read it yet, although there are several by the same author going back many years.
65 Christina
that is something you cannot buy
I disagree with this bit. Good management is definitely something that can be bought.
The Norwich North by-election must be a good example of how this paid dividends. Chloë Smith had been selected early, had moved to the constituency and pounded the streets long before the by-election opportunity dropped into her lap. During the campaign, she was attacked for being “on secondment” from Deloittes (? or similar) to do implementation work for the Tory Party under the supervision of an individual MP. The cost of such an arrangement would be significant, whether it was directly paid out of party funds or received in kind from Deloittes.
70. This appears to be the latest study.
http://tinyurl.com/yfk4lle
Haven’t read it yet, although there are several by the same author going back many years.
a note about fearmongering and negativity, and control of a message by the media, clearly it does work.
it almost got labour over the line in 2007 in scotland and clearly worked in ireland in the lisbon 2 referendum.
the earth was going to fall in if the snp got in, and the earth was going to fall in if the irish voted no despite their finances being locked to the euro in frankfurt these days.
control the oxygen in the debate and you can control the message.
that is why a debate with the 3 big english parties in scotland will have a knock on effect. the snp already get fewer people supporting them at westminster than holyrood because of this “perception”.
72. Good point. This is where probabilistics come in! When the SNP are on 30%+ there are about a dozen seats on a knife-edge.
UNS is not at its best in these circumstances…
76 RodC
Many thanks. Am getting stuck in now.
75.Seth, never under estimate the swing in some seats coming without Ashcroft money etc, a swing that will occur based on nothing more than the national mood for change. It will be seen where the seats are even classed as hopeless for the party. Ask the SNP about in 2007.
# 14
I haven’t been out on the doorsteps here but there’s certainly a change in opinion. My own generation are shifting little, although a few are so impressed by the SNP they may vote for them, but the younger generations are putting their faith in the SNP.
Of course I’m in the east, it may be quite another matter in the west.
But 4 seats only? I think that’s a very pessimistic scenario.
Best ever thread header. I now believe that I know LESS about politics than anyone on this site but that I have the best Distant Early Warning System.
THEY knew about the fall in expectations for the SNP and I posted the bad news for Stuart Dickson long before the Politics Home poll was published.Someone Sold SNP at 11.0 yesterday evening !
THEY knew about the Greens at Brighton Pavillion.An interesting fact about that betting is that Labour are unlayable.
THEY knew all about Plaid Cymru and weirdly enough PC are my only losing prospect on the betfair Line Market.They knew it a long time ago.
So two theoretically losing bets for me yesterday and a third a long time ago.
76 RodCrosby
Thanks for the link. Interesting study.
However, I wonder if one would really also need to factor in the “cost” of the activists time, which is given for free.
Others ( must mean Plaid Cymru) gaining 3 from that study and libs losing 1, which indicates Ynys Mon, Ceredigion and Llanelli gains to Plaid?
Unless they get Conwy which would be a good result for them
- they certainly need to shape up, this is a golden opportunity for them to take seats in new areas which lack an inherent large conservative support. But from the european reuslts, I am not sure they are tking this opportunity. Conservatives may gain all of North East Wales on a good night even Alyn and deeside, thats how much Labours alienated people
83. To some extent, but activists will tend to “follow the money”, and again I think Labour have in the past operated extremely efficiently in this respect. The Tory activist base was moribund and inefficient.
84. Arfon, Ynys Mon and Ceredigion.
85 RodCrosby
The study (understandably) ignored the 4 party structure in Scotland/Wales, and the effects of devolution politics.
It would be exceptionally difficult to disentangle the additional effect of additional constituency spend and/or activist time (I recognise your point about more money/time being concentrated in marginal seats) as opposed to the massive national advertising/media coverage for Lab/Con/LD.
As an academic study it was interesting, but I’m not convinced that its clear conclusions can be transferred to a very different polity such as Scotland.
For anyone who thinks that the SNP will fail, I offer them at 13.0 Seats on the Betfair Line and you can Sell at that figure.
ChristinaD And this is especially for John Loony when he pops along to read this thread later.
DailyMail - Coming to a screen near you, Harry the movie star
Ooh! But, oh, because it’s not actually Harry who’s going to be a movie star. They’re going to have an actor to play him. I think it should be Alex Pettyfer, or if they want an American actor, Austin Butler.
———-
I was also going to write a load of techno-intellectual stuff about the status of the monarchies in Malaysia, Ireland, Spain and so on (from about 8537 threads ago) but it has already been dealt with and it’s out of memory anyway.
(Back on topic) I have doubts about that big poll. It looks too conveniently specific, and I don’t know what the methodology is. Did they squidge a load of constituencies together in groups according to what type they are, and sort-of average them out? Or did they have a separate sample of c.140 in splendid isolation in each of the 238 constituencies? It’s all wrong anyway because by the time of the GE it’ll be 7 months out of date. It’s a bit like the frenzied excitement of the expenses scandal, which seemed huge at the time but was in fact only one relatively medium-sized issue among many.
(Back off topic) Several weeks ago it occurred to me that the Olympics 2016 decision should be due to be made sometime imminently, so I googled to check when it would be.
Having found that it was going to be on 2nd October, I carefully noted it on my calendar.
I was looking forward to it all week.
I went to the cinema in the afternoon. I carefully chose the film at 3pm so that I knew that I would be back home in time for the decision at 5pm.
I got back from the cinema and completely forgot aboput the Olympics decision. I only remembered when it was on the 6 o’clock news.
As a pedant, my joy at Rio de Janeiro (and thus South America for the first time) being chosen was spoilt by the fact that Jacques Rogge went into Spanish pronunciation and said “Rio de Khaneiro” instead of “Rio de Janeiro”. It was almost as bad as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court mucking up the words when he was swearing-in President Obama.
It also looks suspiciously tidy that virtually the only Lib-Dem changes in seats are predicted to be 8 in southern England in LD/Con marginals.
According to this Labour will once again be reduced to 3 seats south of a line from the Severn to the Wash (excluding London), as they were in 1987 and 1983.
Bristol South, inevitably, but this time Soton Itchen and Great Yarmouth replace Norwich S & Oxford E (1987) and Ipswich & Thurrock (1983)
Incidentally, it’s only 5,673 messages to go before we get to 1,250,000.
as per rod, the north south divide would appear to be ever more prevalent. greater glasgow excluded.
Looking at the way they ask the questions, they’re really pushing tactical voting. It would be hard to come up with more pro-tactical-voting leading questions if you tried. Presumably this is what accounts for these very high LibDem figures.
Pasting their questions below - what they’re reporting is the answer to question (4), after the voter has been fully prepped to give the tactical vote answer, rather than the ignorant vote-wasting dumbass answer.
”
1. If there were a general election held tomorrow which party would you vote for?
2. And on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 meaning definitely would vote and 1 meaning would not vote how likely are you to actually cast a vote at the next general election?
3. As you will know, many people cast their vote at general elections for the party that they most support, many other people vote tactically – that is, for a party that isn’t their first choice, but are able to keep an even worse party from winning in their local constituency. Thinking about how you are likely to vote at the next election, will you…
- Vote for the party or candidate that I most want to win
- Vote for a party or candidate that is not my first choice, but who can stop a party I don’t like from winning
- Don’t know
4. And thinking specifically about your own constituency and the candidates who are likely to stand there which party’s candidate do you think you will vote for in your own constituency at the next general election?
“
93. They also win Edinburgh S, Islington S & F, Oxford E and Rochdale (Labour on R&Ts notionals), and lose Ceredigion to Plaid, I think..
94/96. Thanks to our cock-eyed electoral system, of course…
98. Islington S, Oxford E, and Rochdale? Not according to the table above. There are too many zeroes.
100. I don’t think the tables include all seats.
Look at the map.
I predict that Brighton Pavilion will be something like Lab 13k Con 13k Green 11k LD 4k
101. What map? Where?
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/10/02/PredictorMapsWeb.pdf
(OT) 90. Or they could go for the Australian option and choose Chris Toohey who plays Justine in “Neighbours”, although I don’t fancy him specifically
102. Who would finish third under AV, and how would their votes break?
***** Betting Post *****
The biggest surprise for me is the predicted very modest gain of just 2 seats for the SNP in the Scottish marginals, which would result in them winning just 8 seats in total. Even were this to prove a significant understatement, it would seem unlikely that they will win more than 15 seats.
This produces what I consider is the stand-out betting opportunity resulting from this mega poll:
With Ladbrokes, back the SNP to win 6-10 seats at odds of 9/1 and 11-15 seats at 2.25/1 to produce an equalised return of 1.45/1 by staking in the proportions of 24.5% and 75.5% respectively.
A right cracker imho!
Of course, if you were feeling really brave you could simply lump on the 6-10 band at 9/1, but I prefer the far more cautious approach in backing backing the 10-15 band also, which appears likely to capture the eventual winning outcome.
104. Oh! Ta. But that map shows Croydon North as Conservative, which is ridiculous in any event. If that’s wrong, there must be a few others wrong anyway. And it shows Brighton Pavilion as Conservative, not Green (?). Fife NE as SNP is obviously nincompoopismatic as well.
106. Green would probably be 3rd under AV; the first-round results under AV would have Green and LD closer together because the FPTP is of course not the same as the first round under AV. Green votes would normally split more for Labour, but in 2010 maybe not as much.
On the Scottish results, would the poll’s pro-tactical-voting bias account for the poor SNP results as well as the good LibDem ones, or would we normally expect tactical voting to be good / neutral for the SNP?
4. Labour are stuck with him, I think. But even if they did replace him, I think that any temporary poll bounce would melt away in a general election campaign. The problem is that any new Leader would have to (a) defend a record most people have come to dislike and (b) offer some sort of vision for the future, but with no money to do so.
Matthew Parris is correct to say that low expectations are a blessing for an incoming Conservative government, but they wouldn’t be a blessing for a new Labour leader, trying to explain why his party should have a fourth term.
This poll is another straw in the wind that the Conservatives are putting on votes where they most need to.
the internet is truly marvellous, as i will be sitting in oz tonight my time watching the referendum results live on rte telly. anyone can do it anywhere in the world to be honest if they are even a tiny bit peer to peer savvy.
The poll shows only 4% believed their MP has behaved badly over expenses, according to Sky.
94 Not sure where they come up with that idea really. Great yarmouth will not be staying Labour this time around on this sort of swing - it is target 63 or so and ‘only’ requires 3.7% swing.
Can see several seats more likely to stay red than that one.
I think Labour will probably exceed 3 seats in that area though - half a dozen probably for me.
I would be extremely sceptical that Labour could hold Yarmouth and LibDems gaining Oxford E is also doubtful.
114 yep, there is no real Lib Dem vote to squeeze in Yarmouth (11% or so) and Labour’s general decline would almost be enough on its own
This poll though is further evidence that is in big trouble in the midlands and north.
What is also interesting is the big swing in the Labour marginals in southern England as the ordinary polling regional breakdowns usually suggest a small swing there. This could mean that in Conservative targets in southern England there is a big swing but in safe Conservative areas there is little or no swing. This would follow the pattern in the June CC elections.
Morning all, interesting results. Broadly in line with what I was anticipating to be honest. A result like this would still represent one of the biggest changes in electoral geography since the end of WWII. So even this more modest outcome than shown last year would be a not inconsiderable triumph for Cameron.
I see the impact of Ashcroft has been mentioned above, I wonder if we could keep an eye out for the media numpty who links Ashcroft’s recent funding of PoliticsHome and the favourable outcome for the Conservatives in this survey. We could then give them a pb.com wooden spoon, or preferably beat them about the head with it.
Mike S
You seem to have made an error on your intro.
You mention that the Conservatives wont make any gains from the LibDems outisde the SW but then say they will win Leeds NW which is already LibDem.
Treat the Guardian map with extreme caution.
As JohnLooney says it has many errors.
For example Birkenhead is blue as are both Nottingham East and North but not South.
As I suspected, this doesn’t include even half of Liberal Democrat targets from Labour - and some of the ones on their list (not telling which!) aren’t even target seats!
With only 8 seats lost to the Conservatives in the country, this makes me very confident that the party will actually GAIN seats overall at the General Election.
What the poll has shown is a swing from Labour to “Not Labour” of well over 10%. That vote is there to be squeezed - especially in some seats where the Tories haven’t even bothered to select a candidate!
If you look at the seats the Lib Dems can gain with a 10% swing from Labour, you will come up with a much more imaginative target list…
113 I guess that a very small swing in Brighton & Hove pulls down the average swing for seaside resorts. I also expect Yarmouth to fall.
117 Moderately encouraging for Labour, though. 199 seats must be at the top end of expectations for them. Moderately encouraging for the Lib Dems, too.
Is any one else struggling to access politicshome?
120 - Oh I agree, but it comes to something when we are having to describe a seat tally worse than Michael Foot as ‘encouraging’ for Labour.
120 What do you think of the Wales survey?
Spread bet market for Labour appears bang on then with them at 199?
NPMP facing a 13% swing according to the polhome map - ouch. Darling & Denham both survive on this poll.
119 - It also has Leicester West as blue!
At first glance this seems to confirm the theory that Labour has shored up it’s core vote but it is set to lose heavily in the most marginals rich areas.
I’ve always thought that the sweeping SNP gains shown in last years poll were a bit optimistic, however this one seems to have gone to the other extreme with implausibly little change. I suspect the actual result will be somewhere between these 2 points!
126 How are affairs in Ulster? All the stories were of a big clampdown to stop any trouble with the new Chief Constable arriving.
15. Ben
Leicester West being blue is correct!
So like last year they polled certain Conservative gains and then ended up having to extrapolate further Conservative gains in unpolled areas of the midlands. Nor did they poll South Yorkshire but instead relied on extrapolating West Yorkshire results.
Still some interesting betting opportunities except that Shadsy has taken the Ladbrokes market down.
120. Sean Fear
To puch Labour significantly below 200 seats requires both the LibDems and SNP to make strong gains from them and this poll doesn’t show them.
I must say I’m pleased to have the following bets:
Con
Leeds NW
Darlington
Hemsworth
Wells
Birmingham Northfield
LD
Winchester
Aberdeenshire W
Lab
Copeland
Blackpool S
York
No polling was done in any of the Birmingham seats, which seems surprising.
127. Can I get back to on that later when I’m at my laptop? I would need aproper key board to answer fully!
re 118. Sorry - My mistake. Leeds NW is classified in the poll as a LAB-LD marginal not a CON-LD one.
131. VEVO
They’re down under ‘urban west midlands’ and give Edgbaston, Northfield and Selly Oak as Conservative gains. They didn’t poll Erdington though. Hall Green is a Labour hold from the LibDems.
130 I know the seaside resorts are seeing lower swings against Labour but wouldn’t it be surprising if they still held Blackpool South? Isn’t that the most marginal of the Blackpool seats.
Not sure whether Politics Home has got its populations right - specifically on where they draw a dividing line between Lib Dems v Tories in the “SW” and “the rest of the country”. In that they are showing a 4% swing in the SW and only 1% in the rest of the country (this is NOT a constituency poll, so they cannot be predicting with these sample sizes at that level). I would suggest that there isn’t a great deal of difference between Winchester, Romsey and Eastleigh (in “SW”) and Lewes (rest of country) swing-wise, whereas PH predicts the large difference above. I would also suggest that Devon Cornwall and Somerset would be in the area of larger swing, but areas north and east would be lower swings (if this poll is an accurate reflection of differentiated populations)
Well, I’m disappointed on one thing.
Last year, the poll concluded that the swing wasn’t enough to threaten in South Yorkshire, and Richard made a very good case as to why it would be close there. I’m sure that Anthony accepted this point and suggested that some such seats may be included this year.
None of them seem to have been included and the poll report contains the same, incorrect, statement.
A real wasted opportunity.
134 - Thanks Another Richard. I magnified the report on my screen and didn’t see all those pages to the right. Doh!
135. Punter
Wrong way round
Blackpool N - maj 9.3% UKPR target 77
Blackpool S - maj 17.7%, UKPR target 169
130. Con gain Hemsworth is highly optimistic (or pessimistic, depending which side you’re on).
139 Thanks. I’m surprised at their Welsh results. The elections this year were worse than even 2008 for Labour and yet it seems to show an improvement on their last poll from 2008.
137. KJ
Quite so, I remember the discussion with Antony Welles on UKPR.
Extrapolating South Yorkshire results from those of West Yorkshire is almost as bad as extrapolating Wandsworth from Lambeth.
Why they haven’t done a few easy improvements I don’t know.
For example, Ashfield is extrapolated as a Conservative gain without being polled. So no info about betting there.
Woke up in time to watch the latter half of Q2 and Q3 in a rather stop-start qualifying session for Suzuka.
Things of note:
Vettel was very fast and got pole
Tons of drivers went off and crashed
Hamilton’s in third and has super KERS which might prove useful
Not seen any race weights yet though. I suspect Brawns for podiums (or podia
) might have some value, and I’ll have a look at the safety car and classified finishers as well as, obviously, the winner’s market.
140. DH
It is highly optimistic but good value at 33/1 (now reduced to 20/1) when Shadsy is only offering 16/1 for 450+ Conservative seats.
141. Punter
I believe I said here last week that Shadsy was being generous with the Labour odds on Blackpool S compared to similar seats.
As to Wales I think there will be quite a few seats their with small majorities one way or another.
145 Possibly but given the evidence of the Euros it represents a significant improvement for Labour. While they may well have I’d be surprised if it is by this much. If for instance the Gower has gone from Labour I’d be highly surprised to see them holding Swansea West.
Hmmmm, I have to say that I think some of the findings of this poll are suspect. The idea that Derbyshire NE would fall and Great Yarmouth wouldn’t strikes me as being ludicrous… however I wait to be proved wrong!
Some funny results here, Ashfield which has no candidate goes Tory but Nottingham South with a candidate, campaign and smaller majority stays Labour.
I’m not sure I’d want to rush to add to my bets based on this poll.
146. Punter
Remember that there are many fringe parties in the Euros and I doubt there would be much difference if you had the actual results per constituency.
I’ve always been slightly sceptical that Labour would have an enormous collapse in Wales although do expect heavy losses for them.
One seat I’m a little dubious about is Hammersmith. Notional Labour majority of about 5,500 and yet it is slated as a Labour hold. I very much doubt it.
re 148. Ashfield was NOT in the poll but if it had the the 13.4% LAB>CON swing as other East Midlands marginals then it would go Tory.
146-Gower is a more likely loss than Swansea West simply by reason of a split vote.
What the poll cannot yet take into account is the loss of incumbency in many seats. About 1 in 4 Labour seats will have lost their incumbent at the GE. Similarly in the real South West there are several LD MPs standing down.
This wil open up additional opportunities to the Conservatives and LDs in Labour seats and the LDs to lose a few in the South West.
A few people here seem to be paying rather more attention to individual constituency numbers than they should be. The sample size per constituency must be something like 140, not all of whom will vote. MOEs on these must be getting on for 10%…
252. Is that the same for Leicester West?
re 150 James - you can doubt it as much as you like but the poll found that the LAB>CON swing in Inner London marginals was just 6.1%
To answer Mike’s question in the leader, yes, the towns of England are likely to seal Brown’s fate - but not just the towns.
Labour have recovered a little since the same poll was conducted last year, with a net improvement in the difference between them and the Tories in all the divisions of the poll except the the East Midlands (NPMP’s canvassing notwithstanding).
What is still striking from the map though is Labour’s almost complete absence in the Euroregions south of Yorks+H and the NW. There’s a clutch in the Valleys, as to be expected - they stayed Labour in 1931, after all - the (mostly) usual suspects in London and Birmingham, but after that, close to nothing.
What’s not striking from the map but is from the figures is the rise in support for Others. This is one thing I do expect to change somewhat as the election approaches and the choice being offered to the public becomes more stark. The marginals are, naturally enough, where the fight will be hardest and I’d expect minor players to get squeezed. To illustrate, the figures are:
LY TY Chg Division
7 9 +2 Inner London
7 10 +3 Outer London
8 12 +4 London commuter belt
11 19 +8 Seaside towns
8 12 +4 Labour’s Southern bastions
11 16 +5 Urban West Midlands
8 13 +5 West Midlands hinterland
8 10 +2 East Midlands
10 14 +4 West Yorkshire
7 12 +5 North West
6 8 +2 Cumbria
6 10 +4 Con v LD (SW)
6 7 +1 Con v LD (elsewhere)
8 11 +3 Lab v LD
6 8 +2 Wales
4 6 +2 Scotland
So, right across the country, there’s been an increase in support for minor parties, in some cases, to high levels despite the ‘bigger fight’ going on. The ’seaside towns’ figure is affected by the Greens being genuine players in Brighton but there are 11 marginals in that group so even excluding that, there’d have been a substantial increase. Also, apart from Inner London, all the 2008 scores for Others were up on 2005.
Finally, and slightly counter to that last point, the map has Kidderminster as remaining Independent. I’m not sure that’s justified given that the Lib Dems will be fighting the seat and the Conservatives weren’t a long way from winning in 2005.
150 the betting odds in Hammersmith will be interesting. A tired and defeated CLP will struggle there.
‘The polls are remarkably consistent..and remarkably boring. So where is the value on fixed odds? The Tories look next to unassailable and their odds reflect that, the Lib Dems are static. That leaves the Nats and perhaps Labour themselves as sources of bets?
A bet on Labour sounds suicide but its not necessarily meant to win, it’s meant to exploit any kind of late Labour boost that may move the markets even temporarily (like Gordon being shifted out). Risky but maybe plausible?
The other option is the individual seats. Surely there will some spectacular hits on Labour and I’d suggest the Midlands is the place to look…any others?
by Yokel September 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
This poll certainly makes me feel better given what I posted above.
If this poll is in anyway correct that the Midlands will see some disproprtionate swings my analysis was bang on. Ive already had my odds on a few Midlands seats on the outer edges of Tory expectation, thankfully before any rush of betting following this poll.
As a result I’ll sit tight on the individual seats market for the moment.
Does anybody have a good source for chatter and rumours on the Lisbon referendum results?
re 154. But on top of the individual samples in each seat there is also the general swing in that category of seat. This poll takes into account both of them.
To achieved what you want would require a sample of 240,000 and even Michael Ashcroft could not afford that.
Irish Ref.
Count is actually under way.
–> Any link toward a web-forum discussing live tallies results?
Last year was great for that!
I havent got time this morning to run thro the figures, but I did wonder about whether expenses figures in some of the stats. Is there any effect where Mp’s are retiring due to the expenses scandal? Anyone got a quickish answer?
re 160. Double Carpet will be putting a thread up shortly on Ireland to run alongside this one.
MIKE,
YOUR LINK TO POLITICS HOME AT THE TOP OF THE THREAD DOESNT SEEM TO WORK, WELL NOT FOR ME ANYWAY<
149 On that scale I agree. Nevertheless this is not only better for them than that it is better even than last year which is the surprising bit. Wales did count its Euro results by Westminster seats so there is a direct comparison.
152 In what way? The Conservatives are clearly the lead challengers based on the last General Election as are the Liberal Democrats in Swansea West.
147. Voice
I’m sure that Yarmouth is a rogue - the Conservatives led there by almost 20% in the local elections and I don’t think Labour had a single councillor elected.
Derbyshire NE is an extrapolated result but a Conservative gain there is not impossible as they led there alost at the local elections.
148. woody
Nottingham South was polled and is a predicted Conservative gain. For Ashfield see OGH’s comment.
153 – TC, Re: “1 in 4”, the tally of Labour MPs that have announced they are to stand down at the next G.E. stands at 70,* at present.
*Caveat, may have missed a couple but don.t think so.
Ireland thread now up - please stay on this current thread for UK politics - many thanks.
149 Read this for Wales Euros http://waleshome.org/2009/06/the-narrative-of-decline/
MTF:167, there’s a space at the end of the link - delete everything beyond the “.html”.
Jan From Norway @162:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=lisbon
???
Morning Everyone.
I see Ahmedinajad is Jewish
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/evidence-surfaces-to-indicate-that-iran-president-ahmadinejad-is-a-jew-by-birth_100255538.html
Thats either the least or most surprising story of the day.
168. Punter
But you can’t compare Welsh local election results last year with Welsh Euro election results this year.
As to Gower being a more likely loss than Swansea W I would agree as Gower is a Conservative target and Swansea W a LibDem one and it is the Conservatives who are gaining ground in Wales not the LibDems.
To lcarify a point made by Christina - what the salesman told me is that the they wanted to offer the full data set to all three parties: the first to offer £30000 would get it (probably exclusively, like last year).
This will be very useful for reference as we look at the national polls. At first glance it’s very encouraging for the LibDems, and mildly so for all incumbents.
146 - Another Richard. I can see your point but my own take is that 16/1 for 450+ Con seats is way under what I’d want.
There are 650 seats in the Commons. Of these, 18 are from NI and even if UCUNF are included in the Tory total (unlikely but not impossible), at least a dozen won’t be. Add to that 50 from Scotland and that leaves Lab, LD and the rest with only 135 to take across the rest of the country to make the bet a loser.
As someone quoted a figure yesterday of 130 seats in which Labour have a 50%+ share and with the Lib Dems looking extremely safe from a Tory challenge in perhaps 40 of their current constituencies, I struggle to see how even in the most favourable circumstances, the Tories could get to 450.
175 Why not? Across Wales that is correct. However the Lib Dems have only 2 targets in Swansea West and Newport East. The Euros indicated significant increases in support in both even as they made no headway more generally.
Um - I wrote this last night before this poll came out, but it seems more relevant to ask this now on this thread. So apologies to those of you who have already read this and ignored it, but I simply couldn’t be bothered to write it all again.
“222.Mike - this marginals poll - how accurate is it likely to be? On the forefront 33610 interviews seems a whopping amount, but on a constituency level that would make approx 141 interviews - which actually isn’t that reliable sample level (CI around +/-8% @ 95% level). I would have thought that this is a wasted opportunity. If they have the budget to do that extensive a fieldwork operation then it would make more sense to do 100 constituencies and try to get a more meaningful sample of 300 or so (+/-5.6%).
This of course is all assiming that the 141 interviews are all voters. One of the overlooked problems in modern political polling (with low turnouts) is that effective sample sizes are often much smaller than the quoted 1000 (often 650 -700) giving wider margins of error (closer to +/-4%, rather than the stated 3). If that effect is replicated in this poll, then we might be looking at effective samples of around 90 for individual constituencies - with a CI of approx +/-10%.
My concern would be in betting is that, although it will be a great overall poll, and give a good guide to the trends, that it will be a wildly inaccurate guide at the individual seat level.”
174 - Tim, I class it in the same catergory as homophobes who then turn out to have latency issues.
Re our Bet from last night, I’ve not emailed Peter yet, I’ll do it tomorrow night. I’m on my mobile, and my email is playing silly beggars at the moment.
To download the full report click here.
Even more than before, and we had their behaviour at the conference to emphasise it, this proves that the Lib Dems are the Provisional Wing of the Labour Party. Their reason for existence is to help the Labour Party.
re 179. I’ve already answered that earlier in the thread.
On top of the individual samples in each seat there is also the general swing in that category of seat. This poll takes into account both of them.
To achieved what you want would require a sample of 240,000 and even Michael Ashcroft could not afford that.
180 - And Nick Griffins Gypsy heritage.
I’ll email Peter today as well.
Although if I can’t trust a corporate lawyer then who can…, oh.
These results need to be read in aggregate for digesting the betting implications. It’s entirely possible to believe that individual “Conservative vs Liberal Democrats elsewhere” constituencies might fall to the Tories in defiance of the polling evidence for that seat, but it’s hard to argue with the general proposition that such seats will be a relatively tough nut for the Tories to crack since the pollsters didn’t find a single seat in those it polled that would fall to the blues. Equally, JackW can and no doubt will continue to maintain that Watford is a nailed-on yellow gain, but it’s hard to argue with the general proposition that the Conservatives are likely to do well in three-way marginals, given that the poll found no fewer than 5 Tory gains in supposedly “Labour vs Liberal Democrat battlegrounds”.
The Scottish poll results are the most surprising, but I do note that they broadly match the Scottish Lib Dem take on what’s happening there. They get a lot of stick on here, so it’s only fair to note that.
On a general point - like with all polling this is the best that we have. These things are never perfect but an attempt to understand more within the budget that the commissioning organisation has available.
This project was the brain-child of Anthony Wells of UKPolling Report - someone whom I have an enormous amount of respect for.
185. antifrank
I believe that Jack W also believes that Winchester will be a Conservative gain
186 - Any thoughts on the Seaside Towns swing being low?
Is it age related or am I repeating an urnban myth.
183. Mike S
“On top of the individual samples in each seat there is also the general swing in that category of seat. This poll takes into account both of them.”
Do you what proportion of the calculation is based on the individual seat and what proportion on the general category?
170. SimonStClare it will be at least 1 in 4 by the GE. I said “about”.
slightly surprised by the Ld/Con marginal data.
A vote Ld get Brown mantra has traction in the suburbs.
Not saying they will all go blue but Carshalton and Wallington for example only needs a swing of 1.1 pct,
Should be achievable.
This is Anthony Wells’s explanation on sample sizes in each seat -
What with them going to all the trouble of polling over 30,000 people, you kind-of which they’d done an extra 600 or so interviews in the non-marginal constituencies so that they could tell us what national figures the marginal figures they’re getting correspond to. Without that the poll’s great for telling us about regional variations in marginals, but it can’t tell us who’s doing better and worse in their marginals overall. (Although we can guess at the national picture based on other polls from the same period, like RodCrosby does upthread.)
I have a couple of reservations about this poll, which I think have not yet been mentioned here.
The first is that the sample of “target seats” has been identified by somebody who presumably does not have inside knowledge about at least two of the major parties. I assume that “targeting” implies an extra concentration of effort and resources.
So some of the seats on the list will have received extra effort from both leading parties; others from just one, but others again from the other.
For example, the Conservatives might be putting extra resources into a constituency, though Labour is not, because they have already written it off. Conversely, Labour might be shoring up a seat which is not yet on the Tory radar screen.
And yet the results from these three types of seat are being averaged out and applied across the board. Hence the predicted result in Ashfield where it appears the Tories do not even have a candidate yet.
re 189. Having now read Anthony (see post 182) I think my initial explanation was incorrect. This is all based on a uniform swing projection in each category of seat applied to all in that category.
190 – TC, I agree that there is every chance of it reaching 1:4, just keeping you up to date with the ‘scores on the doors’ so far.
The poll is folly - ignore it !
188 Changing demographics. People take holidays abroad now and the resorts have taken a hit.
188 Changing demographics. People take holidays abroad now and the resorts have taken a hit as a result.
107
There is a rather large fly in your oitment Peter.
It is the case that the politics home poll would put the SNP somewhere in the region of 30 per cent - a massive gain of 11 pe cent - and Labour just a point or so more.
On that basis few Labour seats would fall, as Politics home suggests. However if that were to change even by a couple of points ie if the swing to the Nats became 11 per cent rather than the 9 per cent suggested in this survey then a series of ninepins start to go down.
Furthermore a rare Scottish MORI poll of last month suggested that this could happen without ANY change in voting preferences. When MORI factored in “certain to vote” figures a projected SNP lead of 2 per cent in that survey became 6 per cent.
This doesn’t mean that your suggested bet is silly just that it is no certainty.
188. There’s been an apparently direct swing of no less than 8% from Con to Other between the 2008 and 2009 surveys in this category, which accounts for the resultingly small Con to Lab swing based on a 2005-9 turnaround.
In fact the main net movement now in the Seaside towns is a swing of 11% from Lab to Other, with the Tories and Lib Dems within MoE of their 2005 scores.
195 - That explains Eastleigh.
199. Yes a lot of these places have become very down at heel over the last twenty years or so. The scale of social problems in some of them is quite startling - a long way from the ‘quaint’ image many people might have of these towns.
195. Mike S
That’s how I read it as well but that doesn’t explain Yarmouth as a Labour hold while Blackpool S and Morecambe are Conservative gains.
Treating all the LibDem battlegrounds as categories rather than individual seats would IMO make those results almost worthless. It explains for example Eastleigh being predicted a Conservative gain and the only LibDem gain being Islington S.
The Scottish and Welsh results also become highly dubious too.
183. Mike. I accept those two points. However, my point was not to undermine the overall attempt of this poll, more to throw in some caution about the individual seats. For example this poll has seen a large reduction in the overall majority of the Tories in a general election based on the individual results in seats a year ago. But if we are talking about CIs of +/-8% or more, then changes in the answers of no more than 10 respondents could have the desired effect of turning the results around completely - in otherwords ‘noise’ can have a strong effect on the overall headline.
Furthermore, coming back to antifrank’s point - yes there is some mileage to looking at ‘regional’ or ‘type of seat’ patterns. But again, we must remember that this technically is not one poll, but 238 little polls. This fact will have the tendency of increasing the noise effect.
Mike 186. I don’t think that Anthony Wells would mind someone offering critiques of his poll or methodology - it is his job after all to do the same. I am not at all denigrating it, more just pointing out some of the dangers of reading too much into it for people using it as a guide for betting and other purposes at a constituency level.
197 - Trust your judgement, or trust Anthony Wells judgement… Hm no contest.
204. There does look to be something odd about the Yarmouth result.
198 etc
I think my previous positive noises(from a Labour point of view)may be proven correct.Where can I get a price on llanelli.Doesn’t seem to be in local bookies.
ps More generally I do not expect Plaid to do as well in Wales as survey predicts.
195 - That explanation means that the categorisation itself might have effects on the predicted results. For example, Birmingham Hall Green has been treated as a Lib Dem / Labour battleground and is a Labour hold, the Lib Dems apparently failing to press on in such seats while the Tories have been reviving in them. If it had been treated as an urban West Midlands seat (a category in which the Tories have actually strengthened their relative advantage over the last year), might it have emerged as a predicted Tory win instead?
206
TSE
Agreed. Wayne every time…
204 See 172 for Wales Euros and see what I mean. Unlike England they broke it down by Constituency.
208 - Valleyboy, can I ask, why you think PC wont do as well as the survey suggests?
208 Try Ladbrokes.
Good Morning Rio Voters For Nick Palmer Worldwide - Rumba !!!
Meanwhile ….
**** EXTREME CAUTION URGED **** EXTREME CAUTION URGED **** EXTREME CAUTION URGED
In light of Mike’s post on the methodology of this poll I urge punters to observe the greatest caution if betting on individual constituencies.
You have been warned !!!!
208 valleyboy. Victor Chandler go……..
4-9 LAB
13-8 PC
66-1 Bar two.
I value your contributions on here.
192. Sorry - was writing when you posted that.
Well at least Anthony Wells comes to some of the same conclusions - but to a certain extent it undermines the point of the process. Why not do 2000 interviews or so to determine the underlying factors (i.e. Lib Dems have a better local following than national) and then just build it into a national 2000 or even 4000 national poll, and apply that UNS across the seats?
Which comes to my original point - why not do this number of surveys across a smaller number of seats, and get a more accurate picture at the micro level - and then look at the patterns. You would have both a more accurate set of data - and have the patterns to build a model.
When is Shadsy going to put the seat markets back up?
217 timmo. When he’s picked over the bones of the best analysis of this thread.
214. JackW
I echo your warning.
The bright side could be that Shadsy is now changing his odds to make some places more generous than they should be.
214 Any tip on HH & K. I wonder if further to BC Teather will be proved doubly right by opting for that if HH & K sees a Conservative gain.
218. JackW
In that case lets all make crap predictions:
Con gain Sheffield Hallam
Lab gain Wirral W
LD gain Liverpool Wavertree
212 Did not do very well at euros, and just an instinct that they have not made the progress that they looked like making a few years ago.Do not fall into the trap of comparing Wales and Scotland. Things are very different politically here. Dare I say it, but Wales is a very conservative(with a small c) country.
215 Thanks. It will be a modest bet, but hey ho I only bet what I can afford to lose.
I think this week’s local government byelections illustrate the point.
Labour seemed to do very well in the byelection in Preston. Presumably their organisation is working well there. I have no idea whether anybody else is targeting this seat, nor if, under current circumstances, it is considered to be a marginal. But it would be unfair to Labour prospects to apply data derived from a group of seats where they are not working.
Likewise Broadland, where there were two spectacular Liberal Democrat gains this week. If the Liberal Democrats are working seriously here, it could be one to watch out for.
The inference I draw is that not all the Tories’ anticipated gains will be made; and they will have to fight harder than they seem to think to protect their held seats.
218 - Huhne is finished in Eastleigh, wouldn’t you agree?
222 - Thank you for that. I’ll take that into account when betting.
Is that the same Wayne that predicted a win for the No vote in Ireland?
Hmmm so the marginal poll has halved the expected Tory majority.
The Libdems will hang on in seats that many will expect them to lose and even pick up a few from both Labour and the Cons.
All the evidence I have suggest Leeds North West and Solihull are comfortable Lib Dem holds, the substantial Labour vote in the latter has collapsed, almost all to the LDs. Eastleigh is now a safe Lib Dem hold as well, they are a very dominant force in the area, again a large Labour vote collapsing to them. Therefore do not bank too much on this poll.
It does however indicate trends, moving to a large Conservative majority, the huge scale of which is reducing, and will probably reduce further in tre next 7 months. Of course as that gap narrows the number of seats not changing hands grows in reverse proportion, moving the scene close to or an actual hung Parliament.
Where Labour will lose badly is in those seats focussed on a town of moderate size, but which includes a large surrounding rural area. They will take a hammering in areas like Staffordshire, losing 5 seats there alone to the Conservatives.
219. ar. We live in hope !!
220. HH & K. Too close to call for comfortable betting.
There’s a great interactive map of the poll here.
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/electoralindex.html#
224 tim. No. Huhne is as safe as (all his) houses !!
221 ar.
re 216. Paul - PB gets its own poll in a couple of weeks and we are planning a survey for the marginals.
Any advice would be most welcome.
re 214. But I still disagree with you on Watford.
232 Mike S. Ah yes Mike …. your Watford blindspot.
re 233. My information is better than yours Jack.
I was amused to note from the map that Brighton Pavillion was previously known as Brighton Pavilion - that’s one ‘ell of a difference.
231. Mike S
Larger samples in individual constiteuncies and if constituencies must be grouped then only those with very similar electoral and demographic statistics
eg Batley, Dewsbury, Halifax and Keighley together
LibDem seats must be sampled individually and not grouped under any circumstances.
231 Mike S. On your marginals poll might you consider instead of a generic marginals poll, just polling two different seats every month until the election ??
How much have Politics Home paid for this poll?
234 Mike S. My dad’d bigger than your dad …. So there !!
231. Mike will that be freebies between friends, or at my professional rates ;-).
TBH I think that this is a mammoth task, and very difficult to get right. I think the underlying method that PoliticsHome have used is very helpful i.e. to try to determine the different swing types in different types of contest and get a sort of baseline swing for different kinds of seats (which has to be more accurate than a simplistic UNS) - however I am unsure as to a) why they needed to use up so much interviewing to determine this and b) represent it (on the forefront) as an individual seat by seat guide, rather than what it is.
Personally, I have always, in these sort of circumstances favoured bigger sample sizes with fewer areas covered over smaller sample sizes spread more thinly - if that answers your broad question.
231. Mike will that be freebies between friends, or at my professional rates ;-).
TBH I think that this is a mammoth task, and very difficult to get right. I think the underlying method that PoliticsHome have used is very helpful i.e. to try to determine the different swing types in different types of contest and get a sort of baseline swing for different kinds of seats (which has to be more accurate than a simplistic UNS) - however I am unsure as to a) why they needed to use up so much interviewing to determine this and b) represent it (on the forefront) as an individual seat by seat guide, rather than what it is.
Personally, I have always, in these sort of circumstances favoured bigger sample sizes with fewer areas covered over smaller sample sizes spread more thinly - if that answers your broad question.
Finally the marginals poll arrives! And to be pin-pointing a Tory majority of 70 with just six months to go before the election is excellent news! I reakon this will probably narrow a bit more between now and next May and the Conservatives will finally finish up with a majority somewhere between 20-40 seats. I never expected a Tory landslide, just a smallish, workable majority, thats very much on the cards based on this poll.
#218, by Jack W October 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
217 timmo. When he’s picked over the bones of the best analysis of this thread.
Surely it would be quicker to look-up Mike’s and URW’s numbers from his mobile…?
Whats special about 21 Sept where labour were behind by 9% on yougov, and 20Sept where labour were 17% behind on ICM ?
Presumably the non marginals can be ‘guaranteed’ not to change hands - so these polled seats will determine the election.
The fact Crosby has to face is that after the 2 weeks of opponents conferences tories are +1%, labour are -1% and LDs are ‘zero percent decrease’.
“199 seats must be at the top end of expectations ” — surely 199 is a disaster for labour?
I see Iain(the Daily Mail are picking on me)Dale is a little worried, about Europe upsetting Dave’s apple cart.
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Shame!
Labour 199.5 Under or Over is a fab’lous proposition.If Betfair were to make a two-way market on it I guarantee there would be plenty of action.
My own thoughts are that TODAY I would be forced to be an Unders punter because the Tories have the ball and we all know that Dave is going to be simply wonderful.
As a ‘Desert Island’ bet I am less confident and a lot depends on the performance of the minor Parties. That is where most of my interest lies.
To sum up my attitude there, I remain bearish on the Lib Dems and bullish(but not as bullish) on the NATS and OTHERS.
#229, by Mike Smithson October 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
There’s a great interactive map of the poll here.
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/electoralindex.html#
With all due respect: utter shyte!
From said site:
# Bridget “Jockanese Midget” Prentice is the current member for Lewisham East, and will be standing down at the next election.
# Joan Ruddock is the sitting member for Lewisham Deptford and - IIRC - is standing again.
# Jim Dowd is the sitting member for Lewisham West and I would expect him to stand for Lewisham West & Penge.
Lewisham Deptford, Lewisham East and Lewisham West & Penge are the local constituencies for the next election. Well that’s the errors [within the map] from my neck-of-the-woods.
Maybe AStateOfDenmark should check his…?
244
coldstone
Most Tories go rabid when you mention Europe.
We should all remember that this poll is only a snapshot at a particular point in time. For this reason alone the final result is very unlikely to be the same as that shown.
The Tories are shown as winning 360 seats. Were they to fail to secure just 11 of these, their tally would fall to 349, giving them an overall majority of 48, sufficient to win Paddy Power’s offering of 1.5/1 against the Tories achieving a majority on <49 seats.
Quite tempting, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend this bet right now as I suspect that the Tories’ lead in the polls will increase in the run-up to the GE.
I suggest that the SNP vote will be substantially influenced by whether or not Labour are seen during the campaign as having any chance of winning the general election.
If they do not, a great many Scots may well think that voting Labour is a wasted vote, as Salmond and the SNP are likely to have more influence on Cameron than a demoralised Labour opposition. Cameron has promised meetings with Salmond to discuss Scottish matters. He won’t be meeting with Brown’s successor to discuss Scotland (or anything else).
The SNP will, afer all, still be in power in Holyrood.
Even if this poll proved absolutely correct, and due to the ridiculous FPTP system, 30% of the vote gave the SNP only 8/59 of the seats, even this poll strongly indicates that many, many seats would turn from “safe” Labour to marginals for future elections.
Comment by Anthony Wells on UKPR:
“Richard & Runnymede – it is indeed all done on uniform swings within those groups, data on individual seats weasn’t involved at all. Looking back at it, I think Great Yarmouth is a mistake and should be a predicted Tory gain.”
248. I expect the polls to tighten during the campaign. At the moment the Tories I think are slightly boosted by a far greater propensity to say they will vote. The Lib Dems strengthen with greater exposure. I tend to agree with Gin at the moment - Tory 20-40 maj - although I would be tempted to think it would be at the lower end.
Maybe this is wishful thinking, but my belief is that the Tories may get the worst possible result for them - a small overall majority - a nightmare for all parties politically, as they have to be the Government so get all the ‘blame’, but are continually under threat in vote after vote. Not a good scenario when your agenda is ‘tough decisions and savage cuts’.
@fluffy
They’ve also got Pelling in Croydon Central down as a tory and notionally Croydon Central is very narrowly a Labour seat.
10/10 for effort though.
231: Mike, It will be very important to see if you can separate the “will not vote” from the “don’t knows” from those who will eventually “handsit” as it appears that these will vary across the political make-up across the country.
This poll made the point of incumbency but felt its importance or not was not revealed in the results.
Also that any apparent rogue results should be re-examined for the reasons for that result before publication of those results.
252. Remember though, Maggie didn’t get that big of a majority in 79 and look at everything she was able to achieve in her first term….
Oh God, it gets worse: London Constituency Map!
Lewisham Easy [Lewisham East]. But for whom…?
255 Good point.
@fluffy
They do seem to have got a bit confused with the Lewisham seats. Lewisham East was tory in 1992, but tbink Labour will be safe next year.
Labrokes Constituency prices back up.
A tipping service has advised their clients to back the SNP seat bands 6-10 and 11-15, consequently we have seen a flood of money for those from people who don’t usually bet on such things. Big changes in all of the prices in that market.
22, 225 et al: re Wales and PC
PC seems to have lost momentum as it appears to be waiting for the results of the All Wales Convention that is due to be published in November. This should indicate the feelings of the Welsh electorate on having (or not)additional law-making powers, and by implication tax raising, for the Welsh Assembly Government.
Labour is now in a state of flux regarding a successor to Rhodri Morgan and the right coice may give them a short term boost.
In general, however, the economic outlook for Wales is poor as businesses tend to close or are transferred to Eastern Europe and no party has a real economic plan for Wales.
Regarding Ceredigion, it is vey likely that the highly visible and well regarded LD MP will retain the seat and the invisible PC candidate will not make the expected impact.
255. I agree. Also, there are some pragmatic people in the Lib Dems and Labour who would support a Tory government on essential cuts.
259 - Have you just shortened Huhnes price?
257. Really, I think the situation now is very comparable to the situation in 78/79. Labour have gotten themselves into a huge mess. People are ready for change. But they know that change is going to be tough so theres no real excitement about it. Tory governments are never elected on a wave of euphoria because theres always some crisis or other that brings them to power.
Key differances between now and 79 are that Brown is much, much less popular than Callaghan. Cameron is more popular than Maggie (most of Maggies early unpopularity was sexism of course) These are the key differance in the Tories favour, but against them is the fact the Conservatives are still shockingly weak in Scotland and not doing that well in Northern England and of course Labour has a huge, inbuilt bias in terms of seats and FPTP.
This marginals poll is actually the dose of reality the Conservatives needed. Whilst its fun for us Tory supporters to sit on here all day fanticising about Labour being destroyed and the Tories being elected with a landslide, its almost certainly not going to happen like that. The Tories have got a slog to achieve a majority and the election will need dedication and hard work. Cameron is not going to be able to just coast to victory - I think he is well aware of that, but some of his supporters have no doubt become complacent. This is a wake up call at just the right time, IMO.
24 - GIN
A fair analysis. I would be happy with any majority between 2 and 10, but given the dire state of the economy a bigger majority would be preferable.
However having said all that - I repeat we have had 2 weeks of their opponents conferences and Tories came out up 1 labour down one and LDs ‘zero % increase’.
So I think if the tories can go into the campaign with a projected majority of 60-70 then they they cpould quite easily build on that. A 100+ majority is still quite possible but in the great schem of things it is not important.
The question is one for the electorate - if they think that labour deserve to be punished for their mistakes and the mess we are in (I call a deficit of 200 billion a mess as is an increase on national debt of a trillion a mess) then they may vote accordingly. I am not sure polls would pick this determination up nor parties campaign for or against it.
259. No changes in Eastleigh, tim
265 - That says a lot.
251. Aha. I wonder if any other errors have crept in?
264. Hopefully the Tories can achieve a bigger majority than 2-10. I’m thinking somewhere around 20-40. Very governable, but small enough to keep them on their toes.
259 Shadsy - a tipping service? Are you referring to my betting post at #107 above?
Wait until Blair is striding the world stage as President of Europe. It won’t just be Tories foaming at the mouth.
270. Sorry, that was in response to madasafish at 248.
264 IIRC, Tony got fewer votes than Major did but ended up with a cracking majority - was this because of tactical voting/Labour love in by the middle classes rather than an increase in core Labour voters turning out?
If Cameron keeps up a good lead, and dislike of Labour stays as is - perhaps the majority could be 80+.
The stay-at-home Labour vote is going to be key, me thinks.
Punter, your question upthread about NI.
It’s been a bad week politically because of an extraordinary public slanging match between McGuinness and Robinson. McGuinness is angry because he says he has no working relationship with Robinson and in response Robinson sarcastically referred to him as “The Deputy.” It’s primarily about the devolution of policing, the DUP have been rattled by the Euro results and they’re trying to head off the challenge of TUV and they’re playing hardball over it. In response SF are also hardening their position on the issue and they are quite frankly sick of the DUP treating them like kids.
Some people like Alliance leader David Ford, are now openly saying that the Executive could collapse, personally I think the chances of that are less than 50% but it’s a lot more realistic than it was a few weeks ago. As well as policing, the Executive has to make some £300 million worth of cuts and none of them have the political stomach for that. If we did find ourselves needing a new election there’s a very real chance that SF, mainly thanks to the DUP’s tactics at St. Andrews, could be the largest party and have the right to nominate the First Minister, if that happened then we be back to direct rule.
I know a lot of people here would actually welcome the return of direct rule as the Assembly has been an absolute circus. I also work in the NI Civil Service and my colleagues and I are quite frankly fed up with the juvenille antics of some of the Ministers, including my own, the creationist head banger Edwin Poots who wanted the Giant’s Causeway Visitors Centre to have a creationist exhibit! For all it’s faults people remember that things did get done under direct rule!
269. I know that your platinum service is very influential, Pfp. However this is not your client base getting stuck in.
6-10 SNP seats was 9/1 this morning and we are now laying it at 7/2. Bit of an over-reaction, I would say.
260 I think Plaid have been very low key since they went into government with Labour.
I live in Preseli,but work in Ceredigion and am watching that one with interest.Would not be at all surprised if Liberals held on.
Shadsy
Another big reduction in the LibDem odds for Ashfield.
Looks in general to be slight odds shifts to the Conservatives in Con/Lab areas and to the LDs in Con/LD areas.
Conservatives now 5/4 in Birmingham Northfield, I got 2/1 before.
276. Yes, Ashfield is an interesting one. I’d be interested to know what precedents there are for a party in third place on 14% winning next time.
Gin. A couple of points. Thatcher’s first majority was 43 - which is way higher than the 20ish I was talking about - Major really struggled on 17.
The Thatcher was deeply unpopular by 1981 - they were bailed out by the Falklands War in electoral terms.
In political terms there was a strength for Thatcher being personally unlikable - in as much as making upopular decisions re spending etc had less impact - if anything bolstered her reptation. Personally, I do not think that her approach was correct, and the economic restructuring that Britain undertook led us to an overreliance on financial services rather than a more progressive economy…but that is a bit of an aside.
Cameron’s problem will be - and I know we all hate Polly on here, but her article today has an element of insight - that his popularity relies on this benign, cuddly image that he has developed, and ‘tough decisions’ could hurt the tories and focus people on ‘the nasty party’ behind him again. If this were to be against the backdrop of seat numbers I am talking about, Cameron would have to be a far more skillful operator than either Blair or Thatcher was.
Just an aside - I am pretty sure that you have been reading the Tory Party’s website far too much for your view of history. The two great crises of the 20th Century - WW1 and WW2 - saw a Liberal led coalition Goverment and a Tory rebel who had to bail out the faltering Tory Government. Hardly the picture of the Tory Party riding to the rescue that they try to paint.
Yes we’ve won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
274 “However this is not your client base getting stuck in.
Shadsy - maybe not, but I’m certain it was someone nicking my spot, which I posted on here at 5.07am this morning.
BTW - Please would you confirm the duration of the ovation for Brown’s speech last Tuesday, I’ve looked everywhere but can’t find, having convinced myself it was <5 mins.
Morning all,
Well I don’t think that the marginal poll take us further forward except seemingly providing a level of confirmation of what we already know and perhaps providing a marginally greater granularity (although not a granularity that can be compared with other sources) and perhaps better certainty (is it weighted by regional sub-group?)than we see elsewhere.
Hopefully they will provide some sort of high level detailed data summary at a later date (along the lines of their national polls) otherwise from what I can see it doesn’t tell us much else given the local considerations in each constituency which potentially could significantly influence the situation (I note Anthony Wells comments on the Greens in Brighton for example).
Given it is now a couple of weeks old as well I really can’t get that excited about it. Of more interest is what actually happens at the Conservative Conference, the reaction in the polls (in particular the Yougov Daily tracker and other polls) and what happens when Parliament returns.
Possibly the biggest problem with this is the timing. IMO it was a bad idea planning to sample it immediately prior to the conference season, as the potential for change is significant during the subsequent period. It seems to me it would be better to have timed it earlier in August when the political scene is relatively quiet or perhaps in January/ February after the winter term of Parliament as these seem to be the least likely periods for day to day volatility in the polls and therefore give the poll some longevity.
Furthermore, I find the lack of context being considered in the year to year analysis by the media purile. 2009 has been a abnormal year for politics with the expenses scandal, the recession and the European elections which provide a clear variance to domestic attitudes to voting. How much of that will remain next year is hard to predict but I suspect much of it will be forgotten (excepting the economic situation).
All in all whilst it was an interesting novelty last year, I’m not sure how much value it has in its current form and timing as an ongoing activity…….
270
I doubt that Tony Blair being President of Europe - IF he wins - will impact anyone but Tory activists.
LDs will support him as they always have, Labour will go tribal - they always do , UKIP will hate it - so no change there , and Tory activists who are ardently anti Europe will have a field day.
The vast majority of the UK - sane people who do not sleep, eat or breath politics will say “another job for the greasy pole climber” and give it no other thought.
Outside the UK, it’s a brilliant choice. Well respected world statesman , well love din US gets top job. Good for Europe.
Look at how GIN above thinks about a Tory win and take off your blinkers.
I think Gin is right in that this could be a very useful wake up call for complacent Tories, but at the same time the uber optimistic Labour and Lib Dems (and Rod Crosby)need to recall that when the poll was taken The Tories were hardly in the news at all.
274. shadsy
From what we now know of how this poll was conducted 6-10 SNP seats looks a lot less likely than it did at 7am.
278. I don’t think I’ve ever read the Tory Party’s official web-site to be honest.
… And infact, I barely even visit ConHome.
280. I’ll have another look at the ovation market. Sky News was showing pictures of people still standing and applauding after five minutes, but I suppose it’s possible that those were not live.
If there’s any doubt, I’ll refund stakes.
24 - GIN
A fair analysis. I would be happy with any majority between 2 and 10, but given the dire state of the economy a bigger majority would be preferable.
However having said all that - I repeat we have had 2 weeks of their opponents conferences and Tories came out up 1 labour down one and LDs ‘zero % increase’.
So I think if the tories can go into the campaign with a projected majority of 60-70 then they they could quite easily build on that. A 100+ majority is still quite possible but in the great scheme of things it is not important.
The question is one for the electorate - if they think that labour deserve to be punished for their mistakes and the mess we are in (I call a deficit of 200 billion a mess as is an increase on national debt of a trillion) then they may vote accordingly. I am not sure polls would pick this determination up nor parties campaign for or against it.
287 - Has Gordon resorted to having the dead applaud?
283 I think it will be very hard for Cameron to make people realise the inbuilt mountain the Tories have to climb.
I heard him mention the number of seats they need to win just to get a majority of one - he needs to keep saying this whenever he can.
That will be the only way the Tories can GTVO on polling day in sufficient numbers. The prospect of a near miss must feel real.
260 Financier How do you see the Lib Dems in Wales. I have a suspicion that if they can hold Ceredigion they could be net gainers as I think they have a good shout in Swansea West and half a chance in Newport East. If they gained both they could still be net gainers even with a shock elsewhere possible i.e Lembit
Re Economy I rather think that explains Kirsty William’s swift correction of Vince Cable don’t you.
285 - sorry that was shorthand for me arguing that that particular view of history has become the ’standard line’ of lots of Tories, but like all ‘truisms’ rarely stands up to factual analysis. i.e. it is trite to claim that Tories have historically ‘ridden to the rescue’ when the nation is in crisis - especially from ’squandering lefty governments’.
My point was - define a ‘crisis’ - analyse who was in charge at the start of the ‘crisis’ - and who was given the opportnity to handle the crisis. The two cases that I have given - and ones that have a strong claim to being the two greatest national crises of the past 100 years - do not fit the pattern that you describe.
ComRes Poll tonite:
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/176707.html
273 Yes but how are things outside Stormont? As I say those reports were of a big effort to stop people trying anything.
293. Rentoul still banging the Alan Johnson drum, even though Al has done pretty much everything he can to rule himself out.
I am somewhat surprised that the poll sees the lib Dems holding on in Carshalton, Richmond and Sutton in SW London. The bookies view is somewhat different.
‘Has Gordon resorted to having the dead applaud.’
I’ve heard he resorted to having the dead vote in Glenrothes.
291. Lembit Opik will not lose his seat.
296. MK
The poll was not done by individual constituency but by categories of constituency.
The LibDem predictions are therefore worthless.
298 I don’t think he will. But there is a I’d say a 10% chance it could happen.
294. I certainly noticed a lot more police out on patrol. There does seem to have been a major effort to disrupt any dissident activity.
299 see 172.
300 - 10% - well there is always a chance - I’ll split the difference and say 5%
Paul Lloyd
The Liberals provided feeble leadership during WW1, the coalition which replaced Asquith was Lloyd George led but dominated by Conservatives.
What both world war governments demonstrated was that the type of leadership you need in wartime is different to that of peacetime.
But I think there is a greater chance of him increasing his majority if the truth be told (again not saying he will)
293 They seriously use leading questions like this?
Talk about story creation fodder.
304 - Thankfully Attlee and Greenwood rescued the country from Chamberlain and Halifax, the Hurd and Rifkind of their time.
Off-topic, but Gordon Brown has just agreed to take part in TV debates with the other UK party leaders come the election.
305. PL
That sounds remeniscent of the Liberal complacency in Montgomery 1979.
2/1 on a Conservative gain seems about right to me.
308 Did he say he’d participate *before* the GE?
Hopefully stjohn’s there!
Who had studied his finals at ten to one? (4)
307. tim
I rather think Chuchill and Eden were of more importance.
299 - Thanks AR.
301. I saw two police stop checks with 3/4 of a mile of each other last week.
I noticed a police land rover has taken up regular residence near a primary school that lies on an interface zone. It had me wondering if theres been a few issues related to the kids going to the school or not as I dont pass the area every day.
308. Where Cameron leads, Brown follows…….
309. Not at all. Just giving a personal opinion. I don’t think that would be any more complacent than any other prediction.
308 - And other ministers
293. This brought a wry smile to my face:
so that the political world can crunch something that isn’t carried out by YouGov
Oooh snippy!
307 Actually IIRC In the crucial cabinet meeting that made the decision to carry on after the fall of France although Attlee and Greenwood supported Churchill that support was insufficient and the real decisive support that enabled Churchill to override Halifax and others came from Chamberlain. It is also argued that as he only became PM in 1937 he had simply played for time to ramp up armaments production and remedy chronic weaknesses.
Re 138.
Is it me or has the Indy become even more invisible over the last couple of weeks or so.
Halifax was a traitor and far more dangerous than Ozzie Mozzie. If his first name hadn’t been ‘Lord’ he would have been dismembered,disembowelled and hung on public display on the gibbet.
Only the Labour presence saved Churchill from a similar fate at the hands of Nazi collaborators within Tory ranks.
There was a motion to depose Churchill which only fell because the Tory choice of successor was such a joke.
It is right that there will be a strong focus on the leaders’ debates and it is right that in a Cabinet system of government that ministers and opposition ministers also debate the issues in a series of debates on television and radio too.
I relish the opportunity of making our case directly to the people of this country.
Gordon Brown
http://www.labour.org.uk/the-leaders-debate
Re 138 WTF I meant 315. doh! time for lie down I think……
321 I assume Labour’s tactic is to use ‘we are the party in government’ and the Tories ‘are novice school boys’.
Can’t see it working myself as they have a very large ball and chain to contend with.
Can anyone tell me where I can find a link to registered electors by constituency or local authority? Just wondering if the Tories win and do cut the number of MPs by 10% what the quota per seat would be.
Finally the Great Lumbering Fist agrees to a debate, or does he…..
“Gordon Brown has confirmed he is willing “in principle” to take part in a TV debate ahead of the election.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8288424.stm
That is leaving about as much wriggle room as possible without saying NO! Everybody is telling him one big chance to change the game is to do the debates and he is still dithering!
“Gordon Brown says he wants a series of debates on specific issues including the economy, public services and foreign affairs.”
The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson said agreeing the detail could be “easier said than done”.
“I doubt that Tony Blair being President of Europe - IF he wins ” — that implies an election, but in fact it is an appointment. thus emphasising the joke that is the EU.
The president has no nominal power - it all depends what the countries parliament and parliament do.
But France and Germany do not care - they intend to carve up the EU to suit themselves and want a compliant President. Blair is just after the vainglory.
and
“The Thatcher was deeply unpopular by 1981″ - the party were suffering from the hang over of the disaster they inherited. In fact their economic policies worked through during the Falklands era and that as much as the Falklands (and Foot) gave them their victory in 83.
In WW1 Lloyd George split the party and relied on the Tories. In WW2 the Tories had a big majority to start with. The coalition was one of deliberate national unity at a time of crisis
“Brown does not mention the involvement of Nick Clegg but, as I wrote last week, he’s said to be keen to go head-to-head with Cameron and to be prepared to agree to debate with Clegg on his own in order to allow that to happen.”
I SEE TROUBLE AHEAD….
308 Actually the betting possibilities are endless:- how many porkies Gordon tells, How arsey Clegg gets, How many times gordon says “its the right thing to do”, How evasive Clegg gets when Lisbon Referrendum is mentioned to contrast his calls for voting system referrendum.
What I really fancy seeing is Yvette cooper vs David Laws. Laws will completely lose it in about 2 seconds flat with his uber agressive tendencies and Cooper will just about say anything a focus group has told her, and with poor old theresa May modelling her latest shoe collection and staring in incredulity.
I am actually looking forward to these they could be very funny.
As with all Gordon announcements the devil is in the detail. It seems that he wants to attach conditions and set the terms etc. What a……….[add as appropriate]
I hope Sky, BBC and ITV have the balls to set the terms and to say like it or lump it.
Boulton reported that the debates would be between all three main party leaders so Gordon can’t do 1 on 1’s with Cameron in that case ??
328 So basically it is just a ruse to make the whole thing so ridiculously pro Labour that no one in their right mind would agree and then paint them as bottling out of the head to head debates. Cameron (and Clegg) need to put their own completely reasonable rules for debate and watch Gordon’s ruse unravel (as usual). Still it is a real shame and had loads of potential.
“Gordon Brown says he wants a series of debates on specific issues including the economy, public services and foreign affairs.”
It should not be up to Brown, or any of the other leaders, to decide the agenda.
291 Punter:
You pose a difficult question as the LD’s are in transition in Wales.
They are still recovering from the weak leasdership of Mike German and their last minute opt-out of the “Rainbow Coalition” which they allowed PC to bolster a failing Labour party.
Also in the country areas they are more old-fashioned Liberals without the SD option. Thus Lembit is not well regarded in a conservative area (small c) for discarding Sian Lloyd in favour a a Cheeky Girl and could well lose to Glynn Davies who is a former AM in that region.
Kirsty Willims has yet to make an impact, but coming from the Brecon area could well save that MP from the Tory advance.
To take seats in Swansea and Newport, they need more publicty and prominence and policies that may suggest a solution to the peculiar Welsh problems.
Shadsy’s weekend shift continues.
Now he’s got the Debate Specials market down.
I also notice that Apu Bagchis odds in Bedford have halved again to 8/1
I think the message is for all those with their betting slips on the things to do with the debate, don’t get too excited…..
I have a sneaking suspicion that this announcement from Brown has actually made the prospect of a debate less likely. It is clear he is going to try and impose a huge list of conditions / demands, which will result in endless of arguments. Furthermore, if Brown really will only do it if it head-up against Cameron, then Clegg, it is just going to end in a stalemate.
336 Does anyone know if the seat bands odds have changed recently?
335 Well they run or help run the Councils in both places so that should ensure publicity. Unlike the Tories they hardly have a stack of targets so have the advantage of concentrating in just two seats against a Labour Party that will be stretched all across Wales.
Jon:
I don’t know whether the current figures are available (do councils all update their electoral registers in the autumn?) or easily obtainable but you can get a feel using this summary from the Electoral Commission 2005 GE summary which gives the electorate sizes on tab 10
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/document-summary?assetid=47265
Basically, by using the above figures reducing the number of constituencies by 10% will increase the average size of constituency from just over 68k up to 75.5k. Now assuming that there will be a band of seats with electorate sizes close enough to the average that they are not worth altering (say 5k) then using the 2005 figures there were 354 seats with electorate sizes below 70,000 and 51 above 80,000.
Of course, how they set what would be the acceptable bandwidth will decide how many seats are impacted. They set it wider and fewer seats are affected. They set it narrower and more seats are affected.
Of course that is assuming that they use a generic rule. If they take a more selective and intuitive approach (quite likely IMO) then who knows what the impact will be?
My assumption is though that the majority of seats would have their boundaries changed noticeably and if something more ambitious was attempted (the Libdem idea of cutting 150 seats) then all the seats would be significantly impacted.
Of course beneath that there is then the consideration of how they might change the boundaries. To be honest doing this will basically mean that in looking at individual seats it may well mean that in a large number people would be starting at square one again. On the other hand using a selective or intuitive method it may do much more to retain the status quo but with fewer participants.
All in all until we have an idea of the detail of the approach they are going to take to achieve the reduction I think it is purely speculative to project how it might affect constituencies.
304 307 319 —– tim rewriting history again.
Lloyd George refused to reinforce the Western Front in January 1918 and also agreed to the British taking on greater frontage. All of which contributed to the initial success of the German spring offensive.
Only Halifax considered ending the war after Dunkirk.
337. Brown is so inept in so many forms of discourse - PMQs, tv interviews, radio phone-ins,kitchen chats with Obama, youtube comedy speeches - that it is very, very difficult to imagine any stipulation about format, content or whatever which would give him an unfair advantage, short of rules that the fattest contestant is automatically the winner or that people whose surnames begin with C are only allowed to speak in Aramaic.
341. Core criteria for the debate:
Non-PMs to wear nothing other than black socks
On that thought, lunch….
340 Not entirely true. There were others. It was true though that Chamberlain’s support for Churchill’s argument to carry on was vital.
Re Lloyd George. Entirely understandable. The French army had mutinied the year before and with the example of Russia fresh too it was hardly a voluntary decision. As for reinforcements after the promised progress by Haig had delivered nothing but record casualties in 1917, wouldn’t you have felt a request for more men being just another way to for Haig to try and launch more frontal and massively costly attacks? In any case I think the new German tactics to be refined twenty years later with the crucial new ingredient of tanks into Blitzkrieg and all the divisions arriving from Russia played a rather bigger role than anything the Allies id in the initial German success.
325. Jon
I don’t know whether the current figures are available (do councils all update their electoral registers in the autumn?) or easily obtainable but you can get a feel using this summary from the Electoral Commission 2005 GE summary which gives the electorate sizes on tab 10
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/document-summary?assetid=47265
Basically, by using the above figures reducing the number of constituencies by 10% will increase the average size of constituency from just over 68k up to 75.5k. Now assuming that there will be a band of seats with electorate sizes close enough to the average that they are not worth altering (say 5k) then using the 2005 figures there were 354 seats with electorate sizes below 70,000 and 51 above 80,000.
Of course, how they set what would be the acceptable bandwidth will decide how many seats are impacted. They set it wider and fewer seats are affected. They set it narrower and more seats are affected.
Furthermore, that is assuming that they use a general rule. If they take a more selective and intuitive approach (quite likely IMO) then who knows what the impact will be?
My assumption is though that the majority of seats would have their boundaries changed noticeably and if something more ambitious was attempted (the Libdem idea of cutting 150 seats) then all the seats would be significantly impacted.
Of course beneath that there is then the consideration of how they might change the boundaries. To be honest doing this will basically mean that in looking at individual seats it may well mean that in a large number people would be starting at square one again. On the other hand using a selective or intuitive method it may do much more to retain the status quo but with fewer participants.
All in all, until we have an idea of the detail of the approach they are going to take to achieve the reduction I think it is purely speculative to project how it might affect constituencies.
338. Richard, there have been some major changes in the SNP bands, but nothing much elsewhere.
It would have been hard to predict yesterday, but today has been one of the busiest days we’ve had in terms of numbers of political bets in the last two years.
337 I think Brown’s response is very revealing. His intent, IMHO, before Sky wrecked it, was to challenge Cameron in his Labour Conference speech to a set of head to head debates starting October, in different regions on particular subject areas with questions from the public.
Brown’s strategy wa/iss to regain control of the agenda, disintermediating the professionals (who he views as concentrating on unimportant and peripheral issues) through taking questions direct from the public and through choice of specific areas exposing Cameron’s weaknesses in those. He wanted these direct confrontations early in a 6 month campaign, looking perhaps to be able to take advantage of success to call an election in March rather than May/June.
It reveals someone who firmly believes he can win if he is given the chance to show directly his strengths, dismissive of Cameron as an opponent and (as he showed in his interviews this week) feeling he is being misrepresented and obstructed by the media. It doesn’t look like someone likely to throw in the towel before the GE.
340
Not true at all, there were others.
Butler disliked Churchill. Jock Colville recorded in his diary in May 1940, when Churchill was replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister:
Rab said he thought that the good clean tradition of English politics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, had been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history. He had tried earnestly and long to persuade Halifax to accept the Premiership, but he had failed. He believed this sudden coup of Winston and his rabble was a serious disaster and an unnecessary one: the ‘pass has been sold’ by Mr. C., Lord Halifax and Oliver Stanley. They had weakly surrendered to a half-breed American whose main support was that of inefficient but talkative people of a similar type.
Quite a few others.
311. Jonny Jimmy. Odds.
346 - If that is really how Brown is thinking he is in real trouble. If he still thinks Cameron is a walk over he lives in la la land. Cameron maybe not be in the same league as Blair in the political operator stakes, but he is easily the best out there at the moment.
Secondly, taking questions from the public in QT style with feedback. The few times Gordo does take question, he does seem genuinely shocked at how negative the questions are and the attitude towards him. I don’t think he quite realises that, and on most occasions his answers to the public make the situation worse not better (thinking about R4 interview in particular). On the other hand, Cameron has had loads of practice at these kind of things, and having watched a couple of the interweb he is very good at them.
As for “misrepresented” by the media, well again la la land thinking.
Gordo’s best bet is for US style debates, where he can try the substance over style, but still think Cameron will at the least do enough.
185.”The Scottish poll results are the most surprising, but I do note that they broadly match the Scottish Lib Dem take on what’s happening there. They get a lot of stick on here, so it’s only fair to note that.”
antifrank, which Scottish Libdems? I think only think of No offence Alan who posts here. This poll indicates that there will be basically no change in Scotland from the last GE in 2005. So, I think its only fair to note that most non Libdem Scottish posters on here have been saying that the political landscape has changed quite dramatically since that GE, and the real elections appear to bear that point out.
You pays your money and you take chances when it comes to predicting what will happen in Scotland on the night. 4-6 gains for the Conservatives is in my a very realistic target in light of the current situation we find ourselves in.
346 He’s definitely trying to regain the initiative with his letter - however in his attempt to ignore Clegg, he’s cooking up a load of trouble.
I can’t see any reason why Cameron would play ball with Gordon’s tactics, and since he’s already come out as firmly in favour of the 3-way debate, he can’t be credibly criticised for saying No Thanks.
200 ex-pat - You’re quite correct of course. I should have “Remember the 32%-34% Scottish tipping point” branded onto the backs of my hands, so that I see it when I think next think I am onto free money online. Serves that bastard right who stole my betting post in the early hours!
350.Apologies for errors, skimming the thread and posting while trying to cook is not the best.
351 - Won’t this news be lost in the ether when the Lisbon result comes through, then Marr does Cameron tomorrow morning, then a week of Tories in the media? Still think he would have been best issuing a “LETS GET IT ON” challenge during his conference speech.
Betting Post
Ladrokes has Greens to win a seat at 2/1 but Greens to win Brighton Pavilion at only 13/8.
354 (cont) That is if he really wants a debate, rather than just to sound like it.
Just reading Toenails blog on debates and Gordo wants lots of debates, in lots of different places with lots of different members of the cabinet / shadow cabinet. He wants the public to ask the questions rather than a host.
Errh, don’t we already have that? Its called Question Time, and is every Thursday on BBC1!
WTF,
World Bank could run out of money ‘within 12 months’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/6255816/World-Bank-could-run-out-of-money-within-12-months.html
350 Christina D
Anthony Wells has confirmed that the Scottish marginals were not matched by any “similar characteristic” other than they are in Scotland, and accepts that “It’s the area where I think that assumption is weakest, and if designing it again from scratch I’d have split them up somehow.” Or in other words - they’re mince. There is no way that the small numbers in such a disparate range of marginal seats can be aggregated into anything meaningful.
I see Shadsy has been chopping odds on Dimbleby and Sir Trevor.
350. I think Brown’s tactics to the debate’s are rather simplistic and transparent.
Rather than have one, two or even three significant debates, he seems to prefer to diffuse the potency of such debates by multiplying them as much as possible in order that they become increasingly trivial (much as PMQ’s has become generally). Similarly by introducing public interaction and ministerial dimension he achieves the same aim.
Basically, he’s obfuscating and his approach is a spoiler to take the importance out of them or hopefully make them unachievable. If they are diluted by volume and by broadening participation then whatever happens at each of them doesn’t matter anywhere near as much.
359. oldnat
The greater the variation between the individual seats in each category the less useful the results are.
I would discount those in Scotland, Wales, inner London, seasides and those that are LibDem based.
346 Ted - I think that is very good analysis. It also shows up a major failing of Brown - having laid what he thinks are his cunning plans, if something comes along to wreck them he doesn’t back off and adapt. Instead, he puts his head down and charges on regardless.
361 - That is my thought exactly, but from his and Labour’s perspective what good is that going to do them? What good is QT doing them every week?
The positive spin of a leaders debate for Brown was that most expect Cameron to woooph his behind, but if he doesn’t and in fact Brown does quite well vs Cameron imploding it COULD be a game changer. This way I can see it just being like a long serious of QT, with maybe a slightly higher audience, but many thinking that watching Strictly Come Dine With The X-Factor on Ice is a much better use of their time.
361 Agreed - and it doesn’t take away from the fact that there wouldn’t be a ‘leaders’ debate’ if Clegg was absent too.
The fact that he wants to disintermediate the political journalist class speaks volumes.
If you didn’t see the DP on Friday - there is a very interesting 5 mins at the start with Brogan/Richards about Brown’s poor relationship with the lobby pack.
serious -> series
Cameron emailed message that he is sticking to his line on Lisbon / Europe this week. Wonder if it will be enough?
http://order-order.com/2009/10/03/cameron-we-want-a-referendum/
Does James Kelley have a sister? From Sophie Pangloss at the Speccie
“…..These debates are anti-democratic and should not go ahead. Apart from their quasi-presidential nature, they are Anglo-centric and must not be shown in Scotland Wales and Ireland. Why should a leader (Cameron) be given this sort of platform in Scotland on the basis of ONE MP? If candidates wish to hold debates in their own constituencies they are welcome to.
Can these debates be stopped in court? If they could, then they should!……..”
Referendum tracker stuck below 65% at the moment.
16.18% poll. 63.95% Yes, 36.05% No.
Common you Dublinners!
370. Oops! Wrong thread.
361 - I wish there was a betfair market on this, it’d be about time to lay Sir Trevor.
370 stjohn
Why are you calling Dubliners “common”?
370. oldnat. Apart from being on the wrong thread, misspelling Dubliners and calling them “common”, that was a near perfect post.
**** BETTING POST ****
Birmingham Northfield is set to go Tory on the marginals poll. Still available at 15/8 with Paddy Power and only 5/4 with Ladbrokes.
374 - I’m getting confused.
Which thread to I smear Camerons homophobic racist allies on?
376 - Maybe you could respect Shabbat?
377 - Its pleasure, not work.
Sky News’ ticker has a statement saying that the ‘latest’ poll predicts a Conservative majority of 70. Does anyone know if this is an old poll they’re rerunning because of the Tory conference or a new one today?
378 - I believe you are also suppose to rest, spend time with your family and contemplate the spiritual aspects of life.
379 - Isn’t that just the predicted majority from this new “marginals” poll?
379 Marginals poll.
380 - We’re atheists.
I have compared the 2008 report with the 2009 report and find that there are errors in the Swing Column for 2008 as given above.
In 2008, the following are given in the 2008 report.
Seaside towns: 10.5 and not 13
Urban West Midlands: 13 and not 16
East Midlands: 16 and not 10.5
West Yorkshire: 10.5 and not 13
North West: 13 and not 14.
I have not read both reports fully and so am not aware of any previous errors being corrected.
383 - Must have been another version of the TimBot that claimed he was a Jew!
Reading the comments on Brown’s decision to accept an invitation to take part in these debates in ‘in principle’. I am more convinced than before that they are not going to happen. Looking at the Brown shopping list laid out in a bid to set the agenda, you are left wondering why anyone has fallen for it.
Sky set the ball rolling with an invitation to all the three main party leaders to take part in a leaders debate. That has now been widened to include three debates with Sky, ITV and the BBC holding one apiece at prime time. At every corner in this story, Cameron and Clegg have accepted the challenge. We had the Brown ‘will he, won’t he’ story all the way through the Labour Conference.
This latest twist is a simple ploy to make sure that his dithering and reluctance to take part doesn’t continue throughout the Conservative conference further adding to the already negative media coverage Brown has received. Not going to happen. He should have either taken the gamble and accepted immediately, or shut it all down by refusing. And neither does it imply that he is definitely going to be around to fight the next GE.
381/2. Thanks. I wasn’t sure if there might be a conference tracker out as well.
386 - Does seem that way, and I have a feeling that the original the master plan was for him to issue the challenge “first”, then at a later date if necessary try and spin it as Cameron / Clegg fault for not agreeing to his demands after initially been so keen accepting the challenge.
When Sky threw a spanner in the works, the dithering started and it has taken them weeks to work out some sort of fudge.
360.oldnat, thanks for that response to my appallingly untidy and almost incoherent post. Much appreciated, not had much time today to glance around the relevant sites.
227. shadsy.
Apart from by-election results confirmed at the GE and defectors, these are the ones since the war where the winner started with less than 20%.
Hastings & Rye, 1997: Lab gain from 15.7% and third
Ceredigion & Pembroke N, 1992: PC gain from 16.2% and fourth
Leeds W, 1983: Liberal gain from 19.5% and third
Clackmannan & E Stirlingshire, Feb 1974: SNP gain from 15.5% and third
One has to assume that Brown in his heart does not want any ‘debates’. So he has to try to get the format he prefers, to at worst limit the damage, and at best, try to sell his ‘vision’ in a manner that’s easier for him.
Cameron is quick on his feet, is great speaking off the cuff, delivers great ripostes and can come up with sound byte one liners. Brown is a poor impromptu speaker, can’t think up a riposte if his life depends on it, and just sticks to the script.
He will of course want the debate limited to certain subjects, one after the other, or have several debates with each having a specific subject. This way he gets to dictate the content (to some extent) of the questions.
He will also want the format of the debate set up to halt, or limit, any interaction between the candidates.
So Brown will want a series of single subject debates, and the format will be that the question is posed, candidate A responds, then B, then C. He will probably have to give ground a little so that A, B, C in turn has say 60 seconds each rebuttal time for each question. That way he doesn’t have to joust with Cameron or Clegg, and there will be no back and forth between them. It will be stultifying TV.
Brown’s nightmare would be a debate where there is no predefined subject area, and questions are posed by members of the audience and / or a moderator, on any subject, and allow for discussion between the candidates. Even worse – 3 debates like that.
As the TV companies are staging these debates, it is up to them, not the candidates, to come up with format and structure. It may be that there will be 3 different formats on the 3 networks.
One thing is for sure – Brown will be negotiating like mad to get the format locked down to negate Cameron’s perceived advantages and strengths in the debating arena.
On past performance, he’ll do it all wrong – or even worse, haggle and haggle and keep the suspense right up until the end, and then back out because the networks have made unreasonable demands or he could not be assured that there would be enough policy discussion.
389 ChristinaD
You were cooking. I was dealing with mince. We should have got together!
On Topic, I think this poll may be of some value as an overall guide to the bottom line total of seats likely to change hands between Labour and the Conservatives. I think it is much less reliable as a guide to individual seats.
In terms of whether Anthony Wells or posters on here can be trusted: he obviously puts a lot of work into many aspects of his calculations but equally obviously is not well informed about the situation in some individual seats or counties. I may be a little jaundiced about his local calculations because the analysis he posted on UK polling report and which informs the assumed starting point for the seat predictions associated with both this year’s and last year’s marginals poll, made a complete horlicks of the impact of boundary changes on the seat where I live and am standing.
FWIW if the swing in Cumbria really is a uniform one of the size projected in the marginals poll, the prediction of no change in seats would be reasonable. But Cumbria is a very diverse place and doesn’t always get uniform swings - in this year’s locals we got a superb swing in Barrow, fairly good swings in Copeland, Workington and Carlisle, but lost seats to the Liberals in Penrith & Borders and Westmorland & Lonsdale. And the sample size even for all the marginals in Cumbria will not have been large enough to avoid a significant margin of error - e.g. larger than 50% of the predicted % majorities in at least half the seats in Cumbria.
Therefore in a statistical sense it is likely that most of the marginal constituencies in the county are too close to call and hope for their sakes that neither “Another Richard” or anyone else has bet their shirt on them.
393 made a complete horlicks
- product placement on PB already?
Yes, Brown is going to propose 3 debates, ie:
Brown / Cameron
Brown / Clegg
Cameron / Clegg
He is not going to risk a 3-way debate as he’s frightened he’ll do worse with 2 people attacking him.
It is blindingly obvious that the chances of these debates happening has fallen massively.
Further to 395, Brown’s proposal wil also lead to disagreement between BBC, ITV and Sky because they will all want the “best” debate (ie Brown v Cameron).
The Sky debate will get a much lower audience so whichever two candidates are in the Sky debate will be at a massive disadvantage.
eg If Cameron / Clegg is on Sky, Brown gets two appearances with big audiences (ie BBC, ITV) whereas Cameron and Clegg only get one each.
Totally unacceptable. Won’t happen.
395 a Brown/Clegg one would be entertaining - would they both bash the Tories ?
It’s quite obvious that Brown is imposing a condition which he knows will be unacceptable to everyone so the debates won’t happen.
Let’s hope the media don’t fall for this hook, line and sinker.
A five year-old should be able to work out what is going on here.
379. DH
It must be a reference to this marginals poll.
Except that it now predicts a majority of 72 as Anthony Wells has comfirmed that Yarmouth should be a Conservative gain.
+Financier+ See 339.
393. Chris Whiteside
No risk of any shirt loss by me, whatever the outcome of the election.
FWIW my predictions for the chance of Conservative gains in Cumbria are:
Barrow 75%
Carlisle 60%
Copeland 50%
Workington 30%
Westmoreland 10%
If the TV debates are before the 9pm watershed, I don’t think Mr Brown should be allowed to smile.
Think of the children!
401 “Westmorland 10%”
You may well be right but there’s a threat of a Liberal Party candidate and BNP candidate which may well tempt some of Tim Farron’s erstwhile Liberal supporters in one direction and ex-Labour supporters in another.
His sub-1000 majority is sensitive to this sort of intervention.
Eew - someone at the Telegraph has it in for Sarah Brown
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6256082/Sarah-Brown-Behind-Gordon-all-the-way.html
I think trying to break down the country into seat types and try to derive a UNS for each is a good idea. Obviously it’s tricky to pick the right categories and then to assign seats to each category but i’d guess that would lead to the value being in spotting the places where there’s some kind of misalignment.
One example would be in the category of LD seats outside the SW. If you think there’s likely to be a major difference between those seats with a large muslim vote that went LD over Iraq and seats without that dynamic then you could see the UNS of that category as possibly being an average between two very different values.
OT Ben Bradshaw on Straight Talk says the Megrahi affair/Libya is a ‘fantastic diplomatic success story’
Really.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nbz9w/Straight_Talk_Ben_Bradshaw_MP/
329.oldnat.
351. The sample of Scottish seats included in the PH poll is much more Conservative (22% in 2005) than Scotland as a whole (16% in 2005). So it should be a good indicator of Tory prospects in Scotland i.e. not particularly great.
NEW THREAD AGES AGO
409. Yes but on Europe. zzzzz…..
The results from the category entitled “Con v LD elsewhere” are pretty amazing. No interest in the Tory vote since 2005 and only a 2% drop in LD support. Very bad for the Tories and good for the LDs. The only problem is that it doesn’t really fit in with an enormous swing to the Tories in the West and East Midlands.
Meant to say increase not interest. Sorry about that.