Should this kill off the Labour “swingback” fantasy?
March 16th, 2009
Is the idea that “governments always recover” a myth?
We are hearing it all the time at the moment from journalists, politicos and pundits who should at least have the basic ability to check some simple facts before publishing wild statements - the idea that governments “always” recover in the polls as we get close to the general election.
One of the problems, as discussed on the previous thread, is that many recall the unreformed polls of the 1990s and compare them with today’s more measured approach. As I’ve argued here before the only pollster that you can make such historical comparisons with is ICM - which is why I’ve reproduced above all its polls for the Guardian in the fifteen months or so before the 2005, 2001 and 1997 elections.
Spend a couple of minutes casting your eye down the table and you’ll find it very difficult to discover evidence to support the swing-back theorists. In the run up to 2001 there was a bit of a blip in September 2000 caused by the petrol crisis and that’s really about it.
What’s surprising about the numbers is the sheer consistency of the Tory shares, whether in government or opposition. There are one or two obvious outliers which you would expect but the overall picture is one of very little variation and the percentages hardly ever deviate from the margin of error.
For Labour the table is not good news for before each election its shares seem to be mostly ahead of what it got when the votes were counted.
There might, indeed, be a Labour swingback before polling day but there’s nothing in modern polling history to suggest that this will happen.
As an addendum it should be stated that on the last two occasions that the Tories came to power, in 1970 and 1979, all the pollsters over-stated Labour.
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first
second?
I do wonder if Labour are being overstated now 30% want a Labour Govt strikes me as incredible.I can see a swingback for Labour to about 25% once the real horror of unemployment hits home over the next few months.
Quite so, Mike. Of course, Labour’s position might improve - but if it does, it will be because of political developments, or because they end up being vindicated on the economy (not that I expect that to be the case, of course). It won’t be because of some mysterious law of psephology.
3. you always have been rooted firmly in the real world
3 - I think we need to wait until after the G20 and budget before knowing where things are heading. I suspect Labour will poll sub-30% in an election as you say, I doubt it will be as low as 25% though.
4. presumably the idea is that these “mysterious laws” are in fact based on that premise, in the same way that “things can only get better” roughly equates to the spurious “law of averages”
FPT, — 357, Stars and Stripes : “…basically FDR’s entire twelve years as president were a “crisis” of one form or another, and his presidency is the closest we’ve ever come to a dictatorship. Whether considering his steamrolling of the Supreme Court or his unilateral decision to lock up Americans of Japanese ancestry, we’ve never seen the likes of it before or since.”
– Indeed. It is why the ideas of Hayek, and all those “neoliberals” were — and still are — such a precious critics of the government — aiming to neutralise effectively the potential abuse of the Executive power by an “ambitious” President.
Democracies can easily turn into virtual Dictatorships in the name of a permanent emergency.
FDR proved it well indeed by actualizing the New Deal through an exceptional provision that allowed him to intervene in every dimension of the economy at will.
Leftwing “Path to Serfdom”.
3. MTF. I know quite a few people who assume that Gordon Brown is going to deliver a recovery. People with no real knowledge of economics or interest in politics - whose assumptions are shaped by the 1997-2006 expansion. There remains this naive group who are giving Gordon the benefit of the doubt. Those that dont trust the Conservatives to do any better. The hardcore of the Labour party.
The big questions are whether anything will irritate the hardcore - as happened back in summer 2008 - or that will lead to the naive deciding that Gordon doesnt know what he’s doing. This latter is one reason why the media narrative is important.
3 - There were millions unemployed when the Tories won in 83. I am not sure that unemployment is a huge issue for anyone who is employed to be honest. Even in the Midlands, where the unemployment rates were very high in 1983, the Tories did well. The difference between then and now is that there is a single, credible opposition. And that is also the difference between now and 2001 and 2005. I guess Labour’s only hope is that more of their voters turn out because they ant to avoid a Tory victory. It does not seem likely to me though.
Runnymed : Come on, you know very well that slavery has nothing to do with dictatorship!
I think Mike has made clear for quite some time that there has been an “overstatement of Labour” effect rather than a “swingback” effect. I think we may have the same phenomenon here in the U.S.; that is, there have been elections where there seems to have been a large last-minute swingback toward the GOP (such as 1996), but that could be just as easily due to flawed polling methodologies overstating the Democratic share of the vote.
6. The G20 will be short term gain - long term loser for Labour. A fanfare of smiles with f-all substance behind it & a smokescreen for an awful budget on 22nd April.
Mike Vs Rod..who will win?
Theres only one way to find out..Fight!
7 ed - Maybe, but there’s no reason I can see to assume that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune will be directed disproportionately at the Tories; indeed, rather the converse, I would say.
11- I’m not sure, but he may also be referring to southerners who believe(d) in Dixie’s right to independence.
It is also worth remembering that in British politics the “anti” vote is always very strong. Just as a lot of the Tory vote will currently be anti-Labour, as opposed to pro-Tory, so a lot of the Labour vote will be anti-Tory and not pro-Labour. Memories are long and recent history speaks loudly still in many parts of the UK.
[3] - Just look at the figures two threads back. 11% of Tory voters think Gordon Brown is doing “fairly well” as Prime Minister.
Given numbers like that, it’s not hard to accept that 30% of people would tell a pollster that they’d vote Labour. I can’t expect them being particularly motivated to do so, given the pig’s ear that Brown is making of things, but people do have an astonishing ability to rationalise events so as to be able not to change their mind or behaviour.
Although, it is possible that, with a Labour victory not being as much of a foregone conclusion next time as it was in 2005, some people will vote Labour who didn’t in 2005. To try to keep the Tories out. 30% for Labour on a 72.2% turnout would actually see Brown’s Labour party receive more votes in 2010, than Blair in 2005.
6/9 I meant opinion poll in the next few months @25%, not at GE They have been there before. IIRC they polled 24% in one poll.
10
1983 had a lot to do with the Falklands war, I don’t think its a straight comparison
FDR, vanquisher of fascism, an American dictator!!!
And the wingnuts wonder why the GOP is running in ever decreasing circles of extremism..!
Develop a political philosophy which accepts, just once in a while, that ‘your side’ has erred while the ‘other side’ is occasionally capable of good, will you?
11. Indeed not. But frustrating the rights of a group of states - by military force - to secede from the Union, was.
The underlying issue isn’t the point - FDR claimed he needed to act in the way he did because of dire underlying issues as well. Today, New Labour claims the right to oppress in the name of countering terrorism.
Just out of interest, how long have polling organisations been asking about certainty to vote? If you just include these figures, does the Labour vote tend to come down and the Tory one go up regardless of when the poll took place?
10 The biggest stick that Labour had to beat the Tories with was 3 million unemployed. All the opprobrium heaped on the Tories by Labour for that massive waste of humanity - now comes boomeranging back to smack them upside the head.
One reason why I still think Labour will go in the autumn - to avoid being tainted with that tag.
No evidence on national level, but on a local level I’ve seen some level of swingback occur, with people on the doorstep saying they’ll vote one way but when it comes to it staying with the incumbents.
Although equally you could put that down to canvassers getting overly optimistic results from people who either want to get rid of them quickly or for politeness etc etc.
There’s another aspect to this.
The current naysayers to a Conservative majority based on current polling figures make much of a presumed imbalance in the electoral system. A bias toward Labour such that even stevens on share of national vote means a Labour lead in seats. And so on and so on.
I believe this to be so fundamentally flawed that I don’t see how anyone can take it seriously.
For it’s based on previous form which, like investments, do not and cannot guarantee future performance.
What these forecasters are saying is that it’s the figure that determine the result. In fact, it’s the result that determines the figures.
Take the so-called bias in the system to Labour. It’s a product of looking at the previous results in votes and seats. Fair enough. But the electorate at a subsequent election is not the same one as yielded the previous result.
People die, people come onto the register, people move between constituencies, previous voters don’t vote, previous non-voters vote next time and so on.
It is entirely possible that a similar result in vote shares yields a different result in seat shares. It is also possible to have a variety of seat results from a single percentage vote share result when the make up of that vote share may vary widely.
40/40/20 on a 75% turnout may yield an entirely different set of seats when that 75% changes to a different section of the electorate.
I short, any bias towards either major party can only be determined AFTER the event and talk of Conservatives NEEDING to be 10% ahead to get a single seat majority is simple-minded and backward looking.
The best that can be said is that parties that achieve a lead in national vote share are more likely to win a majority of seats than not and to claim otherwise is both perverse and wishful thinking.
9 - The various polls seem to back this anecdotal evidence.
When people are asked many still seem to think a lot of this is media hype and that we are mid recession already and thus things are going to get better (not worse) in the next 6 months. I think this is probably been exaggerated by the fact that the crisis of the banks was huge and appeared to many normal people to have sort of been sorted (rather than the realisation it hasn’t and besides it takes time for that crisis to hit us in the real world) and the fact that interest rates have fallen, fuel prices have come off the summer highs, etc.
Just to show how much of a cloud cockoo land many people live in the last surveyed I saw asking people about own house prices, many are living in a fantasy land that either their house is still worth the same or the drop is only small and temporary. So many people don’t realise that they have had 20%+ wiped off the value in less than a year, and just because Chez Idiot has new windows or a nice new garden means diddly in the current overall scheme of things.
21 - My guess is that FDR is remembered far more warmly in the US than Gordon Brown ever will be in the UK.
I also have a feeling that 10 years from now Tony Blair will have wormed his way back intot he public’s affections. He will be remebered as the last good times PM before the fall under Brown and the Tory years of austerity.
“FDR claimed he needed to act in the way he did because of dire underlying issues as well. Today, New Labour claims the right to oppress in the name of countering terrorism.”
40s military threat to Western democracies >> 00s terrorist threat to Western democracies
27 Blair will be blamed for the years of Tory austerity. Gordon Brown will see to that! After all, what else will he have left to do with his days other than spend them trying to get the monkey of blame off his back?
27. Re. Brown vs FDR, you aren’t setting the bar very high there, are you?
28. Rather thinking of the New Deal old fellow, not the War. Don’t get so excited.
“Today, New Labour claims the right to oppress in the name of countering terrorism”
Runnymede - how are you currently being oppressed, you old drama queen?
Maybe you should spend some time in a country whose population is actually oppressed to see what it is actually like. Are you one of those people who also say that the NHS is Third World?
Horsey — FDR recognized the true danger of Nazism and Nippon Imperialism. Thank God.
Way better than Brown, who seems blind to the danger of Islamic Caliphaism.
27, I concur, particularly with your assessment of Blair’s longterm standing. The big black mark will remain Iraq and many, especially on the left, will not forgive and not forget that.
He’s still a pygmy next to the likes of Thatcher, Attlee and Churchill though.
28, absolutely.
23 “One reason why I still think Labour will go in the autumn - to avoid being tainted with that tag.”
I believe that Gordon Brown is far more concerned about clinging to power as long as possible rather than worrying about any possible legacy to leave Labour with in the future. Election will be in May/June 2010 unless some seismic event occurs.
28- Friendly note: FDR was arrogating extraordinary powers to himself (as typified by Philippe’s FDR quote) eight years before the U.S. entered into any military engagements. He neutered the Supreme Court four years before U.S. entry into World War II. That’s a nice try to justify a preceding action with a later event, though.
23 - Not the unemployed per se, bu the disdain and contempt displayed towards the unemployed and the willingness to let whole swathes of the (non-Tory voting) country enter into an economic, social and moral decline that we are still paying for now.
Apologies for going off topic, but this this might interest some of of the regulars on here.
Andrew Neil’s Blog - FROM ROBBIE GIBB, EDITOR OF THE DAILY POLITICS.
Battle of the Bloggers
“They have had a go at each other online and now two rival bloggers will face each other for the first time in the Daily Politics studio.
The Battle of the Blogs will see Guido Fawkes and Derek Draper go up against each other on our Thursday 26 March programme.”
You are asked to suggest questions for the pair in the comments thread. Have fun.
I like that typographical thingy you did with the ‘C-word’, P.
29. MM. No. Blair will get off scot-free! He left at the top. The ever-smiling one will go on to become a major world player (if he wants to). Brown will be left to write the most vitriolic political memoir ever. Prime Minister Cameron will happily support Blair’s efforts for international office, but he will never extend any support to Gordo. The Labour party will shun the smug fat one even as the smiling one ignores them.
26: I agree. The recession hasn’t really begun to bite yet. The major casuality was Woolies, which was on it’s last legs anyway. If something like Vauxhall falls then it will begin slowly to get to people.
The low interest-rates, low inflation thing is very important as well. Everyone, in the short-term feels pretty good. Labour have staved off the pain for a bit, but at a huge cost.
Also, I hate to say it. I think people are more economically illiterate than the past as well.
Repost: Stupid post on Iain Dale complaining Barroso should mind his own business about the Conservatives leaving the EPP.
Given Barroso is a leading member of the EPP and his party is within the political family that is the EPP it surely makes it his business when someone leaves it.
On the quiz I scored 289. Guess I really am a sandal-wearer.
37 Bet that’s on a delay, I’ll watch that on iplayer!
36. That sounds word for word like a new labour speech any time in the last decade.
Develop a political philosophy which accepts, just once in a while, that ‘your side’ has erred while the ‘other side’ is occasionally capable of good, will you, Stars and Stripes? Because otherwise not only does it get as tiresome as remonstrating with a psychotic, it’s actually a functional definition of extremism.
39 I agree.
I am very confident in tanned and teethed Tony’s knack of avoiding any blame.
33 - I have a feeling that history may be kinder to Blair about Iraq, although he will never be forgiven by the left. I will remember him as the man who wasted the biggest chance to re-mould British politics any leader of any political party has ever been given since the introduction of universal suffrage.
43.I was just the neighbour next door, he was very private and kept things to himself.
44: Deep down inside. I’ve always liked Blair. Yes he was a showman, but he could turn on the charm, and was always positive in everything. If he was still in charge, I wouldn’t bet on a certain tory victory.
Poor old RodCrosby, what a shame.
S&S : “FDR was arrogating extraordinary powers to himself …eight years before the U.S. entered into any military engagements.”
Indeed. The National Recovery Act was signed in 1933.
Hitler had just been elected.
Wikipedia (FWIW!) on the NRA:
It authorized the President to regulate banks, and attempt to stimulate the United States economy to recover from the Great Depression. To do this it established the National Recovery Administration and the entirely separate Public Works Administration (PWA, which built major construction projects like dams.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Industrial_Recovery_Act
A few weeks ago was there not a graph which appeared on this august site which showed party polling percentages throughout the months for a number of years?
The polls showed a post-Christmas, or perhaps more correctly, a mid-winter slump in government popularity.
If I am remembering correctly, the parties then moved closer, polling-wise, as the seasons changed.
Now the Labour party has moved down in the polls since Christmas, holding steady for the past few weeks. Can we expect a cyclical upturn in Labour fortunes? Has the period when such a
A few weeks ago was there not a graph which appeared on this august site which showed party polling percentages throughout the months for a number of years?
The polls showed a post-Christmas, or perhaps more correctly, a mid-winter slump in government popularity.
If I am remembering correctly, the parties then moved closer, polling-wise, as the seasons changed.
Now the Labour party has moved down in the polls since Christmas, holding steady for the past few weeks. Can we expect a cyclical upturn in Labour fortunes? Has the period when such a
46, I would.
Don’t forget if he hadn’t left the Brownites would be at war with him, he’d have little political capital as he’d pre-announced his resignation (pretty stupid move) and Cameron was beating Blair in the polls.
39- Side note: I have seen many people here use the term “scot-free.” Even though I have read that the term has nothing to do with the stereotypical Stottish tendency to “frugality,” is this term still not off limits in the UK due to a widespread belief that there is indeed a connection to the Scots (I had always thought it referred to the Scots until reading about it)? How about to “welsh” on a deal (apparently derived from a nursery rhyme beginning “Taffy was a Welshman”)? I would think these would be touchy terms in the British Isles.
We’ve been over this before. There could be no swing-back to Labour in those years, because Labour was defying political gravity, and already polling at the outer limits of the possible….
I’ll repost something from the previous thread, which is very relevant here also.
“54. A good post from David there. If you won’t listen to me, listen to him!
70. No-one is going to great lengths to create deterministic models. What I and others are doing is trying to capture the volatility of the electorate and the change in the system, and calculate probabilities for various outcomes. Anything is possible, but some things will always be more likely than others.
Elections are fought over the middle ground, and it is extremely unlikely that in a two-party system either party will obtain more than 60% of the two-party vote. Interestingly, this appears to hold for the US as well as the UK, and for a number of other countries, over a large number of elections. So the “possible” range of outcomes is reduced by about 80% before we begin any analysis.
It is a stark fact that to win an overall majority, the Tories need to win about 57% of the two-party vote - the highest hurdle (except for marginally 2005) that any opposition party has ever faced.
And to get there they need to exceed the swing obtained in fifteen of the last sixteen elections…
Of course the Tories might do it, but reasonable analysis will take these factors into account, and try to estimate a probability, based on past performance, adjusted if necessary for increased volatility.
That is all I do, and all I’ve ever done.”
50 Curse of the ‘Bad Keyboard’.
Has the period when such an upturn was likely already passed?
O/T - MP’s tell political leader he is a psycho… unfortunately it is in the Ukraine!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7942338.stm
52. ’scot’ in scot free refers to an archaic term for taxation
Well this table blows another favourite myth out of the water, too.
“Lib Dems vote share always goes up during an election campaign”
Not according to ICM it doesn’t.
NRA’s first phrase :
A national emergency productive of widespread unemployment and disorganization of industry, which burdens interstate and foreign commerce, affects the public welfare, and undermines the standards of living of the American people, is hereby declared to exist.
http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/recovery_act.html
44 and 33 - agreed. Mr Blair had the longest honeymoon I can recall and was too timid by half. Huge majorities that redefined the word ‘landslide’.
Iraq will be a very sore point for the lefties for a very long time - for everyone else it’ll fade when the troops are home.
Personally I think that its the Good Friday Agreement more than Iraq as something that he’ll be remembered for.
*puts on tin-hat and waits for incoming*
Israeli military contractor finds innovative new way to market cruise missiles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktQOLO4U5iQ
Socrates, Aristotle, and now… Plato!
What? I for one hope that Diogenes will come to beat the hell out of ‘em! Or bite ‘em!
53. “It is a stark fact that to win an overall majority, the Tories need to win about 57% of the two-party vote - the highest hurdle (except for marginally 2005) that any opposition party has ever faced.”
How many more times….b*ll*cks.
You simply cannot know what distribution of the share required until AFTER the vote.
Nor can you guess.
You’re talking out of your arse (again) because that’s what you want to believe.
42- Bush and the GOP Congress erred massively by failing to control spending, and actually expanding entitlement programs, in a way that made the party effectively ideologically rudderless and vulnerable to a Democratic takeover. Does that “admission” give you some warmer, fuzzier feelings toward me?
Meanwhile, about the only issues I can identify on which the Democrats COULD do some good, but don’t seem to have the guts to act, would be legalization of at least milder drugs like marijuana and legalization of assisted suicide. If they ever grow the cojones to act on these matters, effusive praise will be coming their way.
I thought that Andy Cooke comprehensively destroyed the “Swingback” myth in a seminal PB post a year or two ago?
Why not just link to that post Mike. Credit where credit is due etc etc
Anyone got the link to Andy’s PB post?
53. And what’s more, describing your ‘methods’ with ‘deterministic’, ‘probablistic’ etc is mere jargon designed to dress up a poo argument in perfume.
53. yes yes, the model always works except when it doesn’t…the benchmarks are always beyond achievement until they are achieved, at which point we invent new ones…. etc etc.
Rasmussen rocks!
Obama’s Approval : 56%…
I know, Gallup is way higher than that… but hey, it makes me feel good…
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
59 - I have seen the future and it works like this …
Generally people will remember the Blair years as a time when they had money in their pockets and the PM was a player on the world stage. There will be nostalgia for all that because we are not going to see the former for a long time and we will probably never see the latter again. Brown will cop 95% of the flak for everything that went wrong and we will enter a new period of politics in which the parties will swap power on a more regular basis.
59. I remember reading an article that said Blair would regret having large majorities but small mandates. By making his tent so big he had less authority to make big radical decisions.
The big what if of the Labour times is of course if Gordon had been picked instead of Tony, I think he’d have won smaller but still good majorities in 97 and 01, probably 05 aswell if he stayed that long. And if Blair’d come in to fight an 09 election I think he’d have a decent shot at winning it, or at least NOM.
Often note with these things how easily history is changed, had Gordon called the election when he came in I think he’d have won it, had time to ride out the recession and have a strong argument to win a 2012 on the back of the Olympics feel good factor and a revived economy. He may not have won but it’d have been fairly close.
So many what ifs/
60 - Hmm that is just weird.
63 — They should also legalise prostitution.
‘Problem is, American White chicks are so fat as a rule — and even still eating sundays and sausages while drinking Cocas–, the industry would have to import females to do a job Americans CAN’T do!
More on my point at 57.
Lib Dem vote shares exactly 2 years out, 1 year out and election day:
1985 32 1990 9 1995 19 1999 19 2003 21
1986 26 1991 13 1996 21 2000 17 2004 22
1987 23 1992 18 1997 17 2001 18 2005 22
So accurately in 1992 and 2005 the Lib Dems got a poll boost but in 1987, 1997 and 2001 they didn’t.
68- That sounds very plausible… maybe the thirty-year period featuring only two governments, spanning 1979 to 2010, will be viewed in retrospect as the UK’s version of France’s “trente glorieuses” (1945-1975).
Huffington Post : How the Fed Can Stop the A.I.G. Bonuses and Thus Avoid a Series of Riots
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-zelinsky/larry-summers-stop-the-ai_b_175151.html
71- Yes, Philippe, I should have added in legalizing prostitution. If anybody were to legalize it, it would be the Democrats. That said, I don’t see any likelihood that they’ll do anything about it in the foreseeable future. Come on, Dems, win my vote!
On the test, took it again to see if it was consistent. Got 93, first time 111. But pressed wrong button first time round….
So guess about 100 is ball park figure. Less than ATID.
Foul play?
The detailed sheets are up now, and the figures in the Sunday Times Scotland yesterday were WRONG!!
Published figures (in the last hour):
Westminster:
Lab 39%
SNP 29%
Con 17%
LD 10%
BNP 2%
Grn 2%
Respect 1%
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Scottish_ST_March09.pdf
Labour remains on 37% and the SNP on 27% for Westminster.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5908726.ece
Anthony Wells reported:
“Westminster voting intention: CON 20%, LAB 37%, LDEM ? - tbc, SNP 27%”
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1989
“Does that “admission” give you some warmer, fuzzier feelings toward me?”
You say that as if “warmer, fuzzier feelings” were a *bad* thing. Life can’t be lived with the unwavering monochrome certitude of the North Korean Minister for Propaganda — and that applies equally to adherents of *any* religion, politics or philosophy.
62. GeoffH. It’s not bollox. It is almost certainly wrong, but there is a justification there. The point is that RodC gets his 57% from extrapolating from previous elections. The point is that previous election results include large numbers of absent Tory voters, middle class Blair voters and thus a tactically substantial swing towards Labour. With sentiment against Brown and a revived Tory ground war operation in many areas (thanks to years of winning local elections), most people assume that the tactical bias will swing toward the Tories. RodC doesnt.
In many ways his methodology with regard to this and his argument with MikeS on poll merging are similar. MikeS examines each individual poll in isolation to tease out the delicate little shifts in opinion, the “true” shifts in opinion since the last poll. He uses the differences between polls to garner more information. RodC likes to merge all the numbers together, by doing this he gets a statistically larger sample and ths more reliability, but he sacrifices the nuances. MS is more likely to spot last minute shifts and important shifts. RC relies on the past and bigger sample sizes.
“As an addendum it should be stated that on the last two occasions that the Tories came to power, in 1970 and 1979, all the pollsters over-stated Labour.”
You can’t have it both ways, Mike. Either the polling methodology has changed, in which case this data is irrelevant, or the polling methodology hasn’t changed in which case you are being selective with your facts.
In 1979, half the pollsters over-stated the Tories as well,
but only one (Marplan) got the result significantly wrong.
and in 1951 all the pollsters significantly over-stated the Tories and hugely under-stated Labour.
Relevance of any of this to 2010? Zippo…
Southern Observer - the best Blair can hope for is that he’s seen as a PM unable to fully control his Chancellor. Otherwise his legacy looks pretty weak. Having been re-readng Bower’s biography, I wonder why Blair was so in thrall of Brown in his early days of the leadership. I suppose he needed a moderniser alongside him and there wasn’t really anyone else who he thought could do the job.
US Industrial Production
The Federal Reserve reported that industrial production fell 1.4% in February, and output in February was 11.2% below February 2008. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell to 70.9%, matching the historical low set in December 1982.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
GDP’s going down, down, down…
The Holyrood numbers in the Sunday Times were also wrong.
Published figures (in the last hour):
Scottish Constituency Vote
Lab 37%
SNP 36%
Con 11%
LD 11%
oth 6%
Anthony Wells reported:
Scottish Parliament constituency voting intention: CON 14%, LAB 34%, LDEM 12%, SNP 35%
73 - I think that we will see the main parties actually come a lot closer than they are already so that any differences will be about tone - we will become much more continental in that respect. Labour will have a lot of hard lessons to absorb when in opposition, but I have a feeling that most of the younger big guns - for want of a better term - are pragmatic enough to do that. The Tories will also learn a lot when in power, especially about the UK’s place in the world and our relationships with the US and Europe.
Oh, and the UK itself will almost certainly change fundamentally. The old union will be dead by 2020. I say that with some regret, but it seems inevitable to me.
83: Those figures are nasty….
52 “How about to “welsh” on a deal (apparently derived from a nursery rhyme beginning “Taffy was a Welshman”)? I would think these would be touchy terms in the British Isles.”
Origin uncertain.
I believe that Welsh derives from Anglo-Saxon meaning stranger. And so, it is quite plausible that to welsh (or welch) is a cognate word, derived from the same Anglo-Saxon root, without it actually being derogatory to the Cymraeg.
However, like niggardly, it is probably a word best-avoided.
71-Think it’s a class thing rather than race.
81 - His legacy will b argued over forever. I am talking about how he will generally be remembered and most people will relate it to how they were getting on, not on whether he controlled Brown. How many peple now remember Thatcher’s fall-outs with Howe and Lawson?
46. if he was still there, the main opposition would be within the Lab party, and the Cons would still be a sideshow.
Published figures (in the last hour):
Scottish Regional Vote
Lab 36%
SNP 32%
Con 11%
LD 9%
BNP 2%
Grn 2%
Sol 1%
UKIP 1%
Libertas 0%
SSP 0%
oth 0%
Anthony Wells had reported:
Scottish Parliament regional voting intention: CON 15%, LAB 32%, LDEM 11%, SNP 30%
The Sunday Times had reported:
“… on the regional vote Labour is on 32% and the SNP 30%.”
Good grief. WHAT A BALLS-UP!!
Both the Sunday Times Scotland and Anthony Wells (who was relying on information “acquired on the grapevine”) have some explaining to do this evening.
84. How much closer can they get? Same policies, but sold with different advertising campaigns?
86 On the contrary, one should niggardly as often as possible. It’s an excellent word, and it should not be allowed to fall into disuse.
15. two words: media narrative
they have a built-in incentive to back the underdog most of the time (generating a close fight), which could easily be one of the main reasons why swingback occurs.
Repost from end of last thread, partly on topic -
Turnout: in reply to the post asking for evidence that voters are mainly 10/10s, one of the other institutes found that this wasn’t the case - quite a few 10/10s didn’t, quite a lot of others did, all the way down to 0/10 (perhaps it depends on whether you happen to pass your polling station). They concluded IIRC that weighting with the claimed probability (e.g. if you’re 5/10 sure, you count 50% of a vote) was as close as they could get. That’s kind of like ICM/Populus/Comres, but I think they give up on anyone under 5/10, don’t they?
In 1997, I think the Tories did manage some swingback - people thought we were pretty cool, but they had qualms about giving us a ridiculous majority. [Added on this thread - the effect was to reduce Labour turnout, not increase the Tory share]
77: Interesting and curious, but not exciting enough to be foul play - say it not 37/27/20 but 39/29/17 - not wildly different.
BTW, anecdote alert - excellent canvassing all weekend - best activist turnout outside elections that I can remember (they’re still fired up from getting a pro-Labour swing and a BNP slump in the by-election), very good doorstep response in a LibDem-held Guardianista ward. Another chance to be proven wrong in tomorrow’s poll
72.”So accurately in 1992 and 2005 the Lib Dems got a poll boost but in 1987, 1997 and 2001 they didn’t.”
That will be an interesting if Labour loses the next GE.
81. A positive left-arm spin on Blair: He kept the Tories out for a decade. His second term will only be remembered for the war. In reality, what else happened in his second term?
86 - Wales/Welsh indicates foreigner or slave. You see it not only in Wales but in Cornwall and Wallonia, and in a few Waltons in various parts of England.
For my sins I studied Anglo-Saxon history and English place names as part of my degree. Actually, it was very interesting.
72. That’s not accurate to an electoral campaign though.
2001 election was declared on 8 may with the LDs gaining 4-5% over the campaign.
In 2005 (11 april) they gained maybe 1% or so.
1997 declared on 17 march so no real change. 2005- 11 april so likewise a slight uptick, probably not significant though.
Challenges the conventional wisdom certainly though.
Southern Observer - ‘The old union will be dead by 2020.’
I’m not so sure. The oil is running out. Scotland gets a lot of government money. NI - I’m not so sure.
With Love from S0malia
The NHS is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated.
…A study by the Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development (Forward), estimated that 66,000 women living in England and Wales had been circumcised, most before leaving their country of origin. The government-funded research also found that more than 7,000 girls were at a high risk of being subjected to genital mutilation in Britain.
…”What the communities do is they gather together and collect money to pay for the ticket for a ‘doctor’ to come from S0malia, Sudan, or whatever,” she told The Times. “And when she arrives here, she goes to a house and has the girls brought to her.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5913979.ece
Multiculturalism rocks!
86. cf also “to pull yorkshire” on a person meaning to trick or deceive them.
90. Flippin’ ‘eck (to coin a phrase). It’s even worse for the SNP than was previously reported.
Mike, the last column of the graphic, top three reading down need a “Minus” sign (unless you won’t to re-write the election with Tories winning by 3% in 2005!)
Interesting that the results of the poll sin the March before the year of the election were in all three cases within the margin of error! Looks like the voters make their mind up some 14-15 months out - and stick with it.
85. Slackbladder - “Those figures are nasty….”
Indeed they are!
If you pump them into the Scotland Votes seat calculator, you get:
Lab 57 seats (+11)
SNP 46 seats (-1)
Con 14 seats (-3)
LD 12 seats (-4)
Grn 0 seats (-2)
Ind 0 seats (-1 Margo Macdonald retiring)
http://www.scotlandvotes.com/
100. Anyone involved should be prosecuted.
102. rullko
Exactly!
That tends to support the cock-up rather than the conspiracy theory.
But I am more disappointed in Anthony Wells quite frankly. I trust him. I do not generally speaking trust thicko journalists.
79. Ken. I’m afraid it is bollox, despite your rationalisation.
What RodC does is manipulate figures to give the answer he wants.
When you say “The point is that previous election results include large numbers of absent Tory voters, middle class Blair voters and thus a tactically substantial swing towards Labour” you are saying what I said earlier (but with a specific characterisation) that is, no two electorates over two elections are ever exactly the same.
He relies on an assumption that figures DETERMINE the result when, in fact, it’s the result that determines the figures.
I don’t dispute that our electoral system yields a perfect balance between vote shares and seat shares, only that asserting what will happen in advance is just pie in the sky.
Any biases are only revealed AFTER the event and relying on past biases to predict what will happen next time (especially after boundary revisions, etc) is complete claptrap, since “no two electorates over two elections are ever exactly the same”.
There’s a further point. When I started reading his contributions some time back. The ’swingback’ theory was grounded on by-elections. Now, all of a sudden it’s morphed into opinion polling.
By-elections are especially useless for forecasting, since in any parliament they occur completely randomly and there’s never any correlation between the by-elections in one parliament and the next.
How would it help any predictive effort and so-called ’swing-back’ analysis if all the by-elections in one parliament were, for instance, in seats held by the opposition or all grouped in one geographic area?
RC is a charlatan accorded far too much attention on PB.
Thanks Mike for the table, can we please have it as a permanent link on the site to use to refer all the proponents of “Govt swingback” and “mid term blues” to. aka the pollsters equivalent of snake oil salesmen?
If we’re no longer allowed to say ‘niggardly’, where does one draw the line? Should colours not be described as ‘day-glo’ when one is talking to Hispanics, or ‘decaffinated’ avoided in the presence of South Africans?
Pump the REAL Wetminster numbers into Baxter and you get:
Lab 41 seats (+1)
SNP 8 seats (+2)
LD 7 seats (-4)
Con 2 seats (+1)
Speaker 1 seat (n/c)
105: Umm I was talking about the US production figures, but same applies.
77.Stuart, I am lousy at reading the internals of polls, another reason why I love this site. But, my reading of the data put up by YouGov indicates that the Times and Anthony reported the correct figures on Sunday and you have looked at and quoted the wrong ones???
Apologies if I have got this wrong.
94 Nick P - Thanks for the info on the ‘certainty-to-vote’ question. That certainly supports the commonsense view, namely that both YouGov (who ignore this factor) and Ipsos Mori (who count only those who say they are ‘certain’ to vote) are likely to be less reliable than the others, all other things being equal.
With the exception of an STP poll, (Sunday Times Poll done by STP staff) which gave Labour a 12% lead, I’m not sure that the polls did get it wrong in 1970. I’m quite convinced that a very effective campaign by the Tories, coupled with some poor economic news, swung it for them in the last week or so.
From memory: on the GE day, an ORC poll in the ES gave the Tories a half a percent lead, as the polling was done a few days previous, I think it proves that opinion was shifting to the Tories in the closing stages of the campaign.
94 - (Nick Palmer)
“people thought we were pretty cool, but they had qualms about giving us a ridiculous majority.”
We often say things like this, but is there any evidence at all of people actually having anything like that sort of thought process.
People only have one vote (except of course for the only political person in a large household that has arranged postal votes). They couldn’t say “I’ll give most of my vote to Blair but let the Tories have a little bit so it isn’t too big a majority”.
Of course, the only way that this would work is if some people voted against their real preference as they decided they would definately win. Has anyone ever come across any evidence, even anecdotal, that this happens?
So-called ‘female circumcision’ is illegal in Britain and rightly so, and Germaine Greer, for all her intellect, ought to be ashamed of herself for defending the practice.
115. collective thought.
94 ’twas a sunny day.
114 - And England lost in the quarter final of the WC against Germany, compounding the bad economic news and making everyone grumpy. That was Harold Wilson’s excuse at least.
Re certainty to vote, I think that the policy of one of the pollsters (can’t remember which offhand, maybe Mori) to only include those who say they are 100% certain to vote is, in theory, fundametally flawed.
I’m an activist but I’m not sure I would say that I was 100% certain to vote. Anything could happen on the day to stop me so if asked I’d say the chances are 9/10. In fact, it’s quite likely that I will miss voting in one of the next 10 elections due to unforeseen circumstances. So my input would be ignored.
Meanwhile, someone who never votes but doesn’t want to admit it may as well say they are certain to (if you’re going to lie, may as well make it a big one).
Of course, this flaw is only theoretical. It could well all even out in the end.
107. Rod Crosby, in my opinion, falls foul of (a) curve fitting (b) being more confident in his results than the inputs merit.
the fact remains that he raises interesting and valid points about statistics quite regularly that are very uncomfortable home truths for some of the more rabid posters (on all sides)
109 - There is hope …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm
117 - Yeah, but that relies on people having that thought, whether collective or not.
I just can’t see any significant number of people voting against their real wishes, just to avoid a landslide.
107. GeoffH. Actually there is probably quite a lot of information in past results - while the last election isnt a perfect predictor of the next one, it will have some predictive effect. Yes, the population changes, but not that much. Unforunately for RodC, a 5% shift in turnout in favour of the Tories will make his entire analysis Bollox. At present 10/10 certainty to vote is up by from 48% to 53% (ish) on ICM.
RodC has not been doing his actual analysis on polling, he keeps his swingback analysis on bye-elections, but he has naughtily been using the word swingback when talking about polling. Actually with his methodology, I would say that if all bye-elections occurred in opposition areas, this wouldnt matter so much - he is only trying to catch the shift between the two major parties. However, you need both timely and sufficiently representative populations to do this analysis. The number of Scottish bye-elections and events like H&H mean that he lacks both timeliness and representativeness. At present, I’d say it has almost no real predictive power for these reasons. He really needs a couple of decent bye-elections in England, preferably the Midlands.
62. Unfortunately, while I can’t know precisely what will happen, I can model just about every variable, if I choose to do so.
So, for the benefit of Geoff, I flick every switch in the Tories’ favour…
Low LibDem score (17.2%, they finish on just 33 seats)
No LibDem incumbency
Favourable regional distribution.
100% tactical unwind.
increased variation in Tory performance/decrease in Labour
And … the TPV required falls from about 57% to 55% (only exceeded in 2001 and 2005)
and the swing required is still greater than that obtained in fifteen of the past sixteen elections…
Happy Now?
Whichever way you slice it, the system has moved sharply against the Tories since 1992, and that must be taken into account.
121. ed. Crosby’s ahistorical views on a topic that we are not allowed to mention rule him out completely as a commentator on anything except the state of his own navel.
99 - Remenber it is a two way street. What the English think willalso carry a lot of weight. An increasing number of English people will come to question the value of the union, as they will be fed a diet of dodgy economic statistics about how much more money the Scots get (mostly rubbish) and more and more stories about how much the Scots dislike the English (mostly true). The political pressure in England on a reworking of the union will get much stronger. It will all be very unpleasant.
121 (ed)
I was going to write a long post saying just about that.
A lot of what Rod says is interesting and obviously has factual basis in historical fact. It is ignored by people at their peril, and I’m not going to say that he is wrong. However, at times it looks to me as though he is basing his conclusions too much on theory and past performance which may miss practical issues that could cause his conclusions to be wrong.
In fairness, he does often admit as much.
Personally, I’m looking forward to his next article. Not to unhesitatingly agree with or to dismiss, but to pick through the information and his conclusions and decide for myself whether I think it is right or wrong. I suspect I will agree with some and disagree with other bits.
125. I don’t care what you do.
Your ’switches’, ‘modelling every variable’; what pompous prattery. Jargon, jargon, jargon. The last refuge of the snake-oil salesman.
77. Stuart , thats much more like what I would have expected to see, its amazing how they always manage to get it so wrong in Labour’s favour.
123. no it doesn’t. study financial news if you want loads of examples of collective reactions to seemingly minor events
also, when you say “voting against their wishes”, i think you are attributing a certainty that doesn’t really exist - a good proportion (a majority?) will go into election week or even election day uncertain what they want, and a good proportion will come away thinking “i hope i was right”. maybe you have been too exposed to political activists.
97 “Welsh” means foreigner, I think the meaning “slave” was derived from this, as after the migration period, bondsmen (or women) would have often been of British origin.
It is an interesting word used in many languages to apply to whoever the local non-Germanic peoples were. So Wallonia (Latin-speaking Gauls), Vlachs (slavs), Wallachia (Romanians - Latin-speaking Dacians) and Welsh (Celtic-speaking Britons).
“Crosby’s ahistorical views on a topic that we are not allowed to mention rule him out completely as a commentator on anything except the state of his own navel.”
I totally agree with this comment.
Interesting that the poll shown in Mike’s table that was furthest in time before the GE in question is pretty accurate - within the MoE (often well within) for all three main parties. Looks as if the die is already cast for a GE in spring 2010.
126. be careful there. lots of interesting facts have been uncovered and useful discoveries made by people with some extremely unpleasant personal views.
“Crosby’s ahistorical views on a topic that we are not allowed to mention rule him out completely as a commentator on anything except the state of his own navel.”
Ignorance is ahistorical; denial is immoral. There’s a difference.
CLEGG = :LOL:
135. ed. But not by people who spend all their time in their pyjamas at a computer screen in their bedroom eating Marmite sandwiches delivered regularly by their Mum.
136. and such ignorance/denial may well be a smokescreen for approval of that which is denied.
125. all of the last 16 general elections have been historic, unusual, interesting, record-breaking, and unpredictable in some sense. why should the next be any different?
claims that you can model every variable and cover all the bases weaken your argument, rather than strengthening it.
94 Nick P.
Don’t know which ward Nick was canvassing, but if it’s a ‘Lib Dem held Guardianista’ ward, he probably get a better response there than most of the others. Busy drumming up awareness of ‘vote Lib Dem in this constituency and let the nasty Tory in’ Nick?
Another explanation for Nick’s claimed positive canvassing might be that many people in the constituency will be aware that both the Labour government and Nick as the local MP are almost certainly gone sooner or later, and we’re all just largely waiting for the near-inevitable, and just hoping the worst case scenarios for the economy don’t materialise before Brown is booted out and the country can start on a more painful but sensible recovery.
People might be being nice to you Nick, because they know you’ll soon be gone, and there’s no point arguing with you and your canvassers about anything they care about. If you’d knocked on my door, I’d be less likely to engage or be interested in any discussion or debate than I would have done in the past. And I’m speaking as someone who voted for Nick in at least some past elections, but sees the overwhelming need to get rid of Brown and the current government as soon as possible, and for at least 2 or 3 terms, to give the country a chance to recover from the mess it will have been left in.
BTW, did anyone else notice how quickly a certain contributor’s ‘People-think-Obama-a-foreigner’ posts dried up?
132 Oops, I’m sorry, the Vlachs are Latin speakers too. My mistake.
“denial is immoral.”
Nope
“Denial” is just NewSpeak for “Thinking.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness..”, Orwell
131 - That’s not my point though.
I’m well aware of the aspects of collective thinking, especially in regard to financial events. However, this is different in my opinion.
I can perfectly well understand the result of collective thinking when it comes to various aspects of voting intention. Peoples vote is based on a huge number of things. In the end, most people vote for the party that best fits all the things that concern them, whether it be the ecomony, education policies or the amount of hair that the leader has compared to the smile of his opponent.
The overall result of an election is based on the collective thinking of everyone who votes, taking into account of all those issues.
However, my question is, what evidence do we have that concerns of a large landslide come into the thinking of any but a tiny number of people, and if so that it effects their vote. My gut feeling is that it will have extremely little impact.
If it isn’t an issue to anyone then collective thinking doesn’t apply.
I think that NP’s statement above (of which you hear similar from other people) gives far too much emphasis to this point.
130. Malcolm - is that really in Labour’s favour? Both versions of the Westminster poll have ten points between them and the SNP.
138. Glad to see someone’s been watching my webcam.
139- Creating models to project outcomes in politics is mainly a science, but also an art to some degree. Back in 2000, some genius political science professors collaborated to create a super stupendous model that, by the spring of 2000, was used to predict that Gore would win easily (I believe with about 55% of the two-party vote). That was based on dozens of factors, derived from and tested through over a hundred years of presidential elections. Guess what? It was completely wrong. Lesson: you have to have an appreciation for “other” intangibles and can’t rely completely on models.
re 114. There were four pollsters covering the 1970 election.
Gallup under-stated the Tories by 4.2 and over-stated Labour by 5.2
NOP under-stated the Tories by 2.2 and over-stated Labour by 4.3.
Harris in the Express overstated Labour by 4.2
ORC got the Tories almost spot on but over-stated Labour by 1.7.
The problem as I see it is not guessing the voting % transfers into seats. Given that it often seems quite variable even if you nail the %’s on you might well not get the seat numbers close.
Since most if not all the betting markets are based on seat numbers rather than % outcomes I don’t think we pay nearly enough attention to the conversion method.
Surely worth an article Mike?
Maybe a guest one, it’s LS who does such conversions isn’t it? Could we prod them into giving an insight into a much neglected part of making predictions.
I think a Tory majority at the next GE will depend on the % of the minor parties. If they take more of the Tory vote than Labour it will be a hung parliament.
The BNP have decided to go after the Conservatives rather than Labour. Interesting.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/pdf_files/BNP%20CONservative%20leaflet.pdf
Nick @ 94:
I’ve got a graph based on the BES cross-referencing how likely people said they were to vote on a scale of 10/10, with whether they actually voted according to the marked register here
Good pie chart of Lottery spending,
http://croydonian.blogspot.com/2009/03/other-national-lottery.html
So much for legacy of sport funding for the Olympics via the lottery etc. All down from 10 years ago. Sports, Arts, Heritage all down, and guess what “health and education” (that thing the government are really suppose to use the lottery for) way up.
Would like to see a similar bar chart for the cost of admin of the distribution of lottery funds. As I understand it the Big Lottery Fund eats up way more than it predecessor in admin costs.
government are really -> government aren’t really
151.Its something that John Major feels strongly about.
Sometimes gut instinct is best. And mine tells me that the Tories will come close to a three figure majority at the next eleciton. Labour will be wiped out in the South and Midlands outside of the big cities and even in some of those they will all but disappear. If the Tories hammer the LDs as well, they will win a majority that will look very much like Labour’s in 1997, especially if the SNP picks up seats in Scotland.
“Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness..”
Hasn’t every tyrant and revolutionary throughout history (not to mention their apologists) regarded themselves as free, unburdened and innovative thinkers? I believe serial killers and sexual predators use a very similar line of reasoning.
153 - Absolutely, and I completely agree on him on that. Major didn’t do many good things while he was in charge, but the way in which the lottery was handled was very well thought out. Camelot have done a decent job of running the show and the first x years the money was distributed to “good” causes with little political fiddling.
The BIG lottery fund is just a disgrace. Packed full of Labourites, and pushing money at all sorts of things that the lottery money is definitely not suppose to be going towards.
Further to my point at 144, I have to clarify that there are two different impacts of the knowledge that Labour were very likely to win a big majority in 1997.
There was the feeling amongst Labour supporters that they were obviously going to win so it didn’t matter whether they bothered or not, so why not just stay in and watch TV instead. I suspect that this will have had an impact on the result, as quite a lot of people will have thought it. Conversely, many Conservatives may not have bothered voting as they knew it was lost.
This is an important issue, and one that both sides have to try to avoid in the next election.
Secondly there is, as Nick said above the thought that people “had qualms about giving us a ridiculous majority”. This is the factor that I’m talking about here and I suspect the impact is overstated. I’m willing to be proved wrong though, if anyone has any evidence.
If this does prove to have an effect then the Conservatives will need to beware of it if the polls show an increased lead for them. Many people don’t understand the vagaries of the electoral system and will believe that a 10%+ lead will result in a landslide.
155. Charles Manson..?
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, called for society to recognise the consequences of one person’s drinking on another’s well-being - a phenomenon he labelled passive drinking
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23662758-details/Public+%27must+be+protected+from+passive+drinking%27/article.do
What a load of crock. Passive smoking was something you could argue people had little to no personal choice over if you wanted to drink in a pub (you could go and sit in the non-smoking bit by even then can still get smoke filled). Even worse for the serving staff, they had no choice if they breathed in passive smoke.
With drinking, I don’t have to inhale somebody else pint. It is called personal responsibility, if choose not to get hammered every time I got to a pub, regardless of if others in the same place choose to do so. Nobody forces me to have a drink and how much I consume!
Yep, Manson comes to mind and I believe Ian Brady has expressed opinions along the lines of “Wolves are freer than sheep” as well.
As much as the election will be about who forms the next government, it will also be about Rod Crosby and his swingback theory. Either he’s going to come out of the election as an all knowing guru on matters political or he’ll come out of with egg on his face.
Its all part of the election fun.
Why doesn’t Donaldson just call for Prohibition and be done with it?!
Is anybody hungry for some Obama fingers?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,612684,00.html
159. My first thought to the suggestion of minimum alcohol prices was “aren’t students in enough debt as it is”
O/T A sign of the times - we have all our insurance arrangements with Direct Line (aka RBS). A month ago we saved around £105 (from £420 to £315) off our Buildings & Contents cover, simply by asking for a discount. Encouraged by this, today we saved a further £40 (from 340 to £300) off our motor and roadside breakdown policy, again by simply asking. This, despite all the recent scare stories that motor insurance premiums were set to rocket.
This may have something to do with the fact that RBS are known to be trying to offload their insurance side and are especially anxious, therefore, to retain their existing customer base. It certainly seems to pay to postpone renewing such policies until as late as possible so as to persuade them to sharpen their pencils.
157 Keith - I think the reverse might happen, for example I can well imagine someone voting Labour in 1983 on the basis that, although they didn’t think Michael Foot would be a competent PM, they wanted to limit Maggie’s majority. So they could safely vote Labour knowing there was no risk of ending up with Foot. Equally, I think I might have felt similarly if IDS had still been leader of the Conservatives in 2005. Such an effect might limit the magnitude of a landslide, and help explain why apparently hopeless parties and party leaders end up with reasonable vote shares.
159 - Of course there is a big difference between passive smoking and what he calls “passive drinking”.
With smoking, it is the cigarette itself which causes harm to other people, whereas with drinking it is the change it causes to an individual.
I have known quite a few heavy drinkers and the ones that are a problem when they have been drinking are almost always a problem sober as well. It is just amplified by the drink.
Restricting access to alcohol may ease the problems a little but if you want to solve the problem you have to deal with the people.
160: The guy is an idiot….
I know…lets have a new problem. Lets call it ‘passive stupidity’, which is the effect of other people being stupid on me.
144. i think there are more uncommitted and floating voters than you realise. i think a good number of Lab supporters in ‘97 will have sat in and watched telly instead, as you say, or voted for other minor parties knowing that Lab would win. i also think a lot that actually voted for them will have been thinking “i hope i haven’t just made a huge mistake”. conversely some loosely Con-identifying voters will have given up beforehand, others will have been more motivated to prevent a Lab victory or landslide. and of course it all varies by constituency.
you just can’t tell, it isn’t even that useful to speculate. i doubt that opinion polls cover this very well either, i am talking about the large number of people who would consider answering a poll a waste of time. i think the polls are far more likely to get input from people who are really opinionated.
what we do know is that the phenomenon that NP mentions does appear to have happened on occasion, not necessarily in a predictable way.
There’s a couple of good articles on ukpollingreport, this one http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1989#comments on the Scottish poll and a new one on the front page http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/ about, er, swingback I suppose. It’s got some nice graphs on it so a bit easier to get an overview than Mike’s table of numbers.
165: My thought was ‘arn’t the supermarkets making enough cash at the moment as is…’
138. lol, although eccentricity does sometimes go hand in hand with genius (i am not saying that is the case in point)
92,86 I’m quite surprised that ’sniggering’ is still allowed. Surely it means laughing at, or like, a black person?
143. BS. being unorthodox does not mean you are right or interesting or more of a thinker.
154 SO - The SNP picking up seats in Scotland would not affect the Tories’ majority - think about it!
173 in the States it became ‘Snicker’ - I don’t think they use snigger at all, I may be wrong though
159. Donaldson strikes me as an ideal candidate for New Labour.
159 The bit about rstricting new on-licences where alcohol-related deaths are high is bizarre.
For a start, I bet most alcoholics die in hospital, so you’d just be discriminating against districts with big general hospitals. And secondly, most people who drink themselves to death do so on off-sales, not in bars & clubs (as it’s too expensive).
178. restricting on-sales within hospitals
whatever next
Inflation alert!!!
Imminent Global QEasing!
IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’
Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, said: “The principle behind it is that everyone would get bonus dollars and instead of the Federal Reserve having to print them, everyone gets them.
“The objective is to create a windfall of cash. However if everybody goes out and spends the money it could be very inflationary.”
Very reassuring
S&S - Scot Free, choice of origin
= not paying taxes (Scottes) from Scandinavian word which covered a tax levied in medieval England
= from an Old English word meaning “reckoning” or “payment”, especially pertaining to a tavern or entertainment expense
= from scotch meaning cut, gash, score, wound; presumably usage extended to mean kill/put and end to as in scotch the rumour. The cut/score usage still exists in Hopscotch and Butterscotch.
Tend towards third as escape without a scratch or mark comes close to get away scots free.
164 - Interestingly lots of student unions, in conjunction with the universities themselves, already have implemented minimum alcohol prices or average profit on drinks policies. I know some also have policies of more expensive as the night goes on in combination with free / discounted softies.
Drinks in SU’s are nowhere near as cheap as they used to be for some.
Result, definite trend for people to “load” a lot in halls / houses before going out. Plus, lots of pubs / bars do a roaring trade on there £1 a drink nights and other sorts of promotions.
I can imagine students, being students, simply doing massive booze runs to Europe is minimum pricing came in.
Amusing story
————-
When I was doing my first degree, and more restrictions on late night drinking etc, then the uni brought in minimum pricing. I know of at least one guy who paid for all his uni costs by running an after hours offy from his room in halls. Clearly just went to France and stocked up, then flogged it off to drunk students. I reckon the cleaners got a nice kick back to keep them quiet seeing that his room it was like a fully stocked Threshers and he had to live in his girlfriends due to the lack of space!
181. Surely we have to at least mention the possibility of it coming from escaping across the border, especially pertaining to cross border cattle raids?
173 Another niggling tripwire.
re 170. We are all different and I find charts like Anthony’s very difficult to comprehend which is why I don’t use them often.
The point here is that both of us come to the same broad conclusion.
181. There used to be a class of parliamentary boroughs called ’scot-and-lot’ boroughs where the franchise was dependent on having paid certain taxes.
182. i used to smuggle a pint glass of sherry into the bar: it costs £3, gets you drunk, and looks exactly like you are just nursing a pint of beer.
Another thought about if minimum pricing on booze ever did come in, do we think that parliament would be exempt (in the way they get subsided booze)? Don’t think we need 3 guesses do we!
I don’t disagree with Rod Crosby’s point about the Conservatives need a 57%-43% split of the electoral vote compared to Labour. Truth is I haven’t researched such things in that much detail to say. However, I think that only sets the target for the Conservatives to achieve.
What it doesn’t do is say is how well they are doing in achieving it. Now in my mind recent polls suggest they are on target to achieve it. Having done some extrapolations IMO the share of the vote could be Con 11 million, Labour 7.9 million which gives a 58.2%: 41.8% split on a national vote share of Con 42 Lab 30 LD 17.
The thing that strikes me is that the strongest Labour areas Wales and the North East are the smallest in voting electorate terms and the polls indicate that in most of the larger regions their vote has shrunk significantly and the Conservative vote has increased significantly (Libdem vote is down across the board). The exception is in Scotland and there the Labour vote has shrunk significantly with the SNP being the beneficiaries.
Again if you look at the swings from LD to Con it seems to be occuring where it needs to occur in the South.
Now that’s not to say that things will remain this way. However, at the present time they are on target and the longer this position remains the same or improves for the Conservatives the more likely a Conservative victory is.
124. I may have done plenty of “naughty” things in my time, but I still don’t recall applying swingback to polls. I have stated why I think this article is based on a false premise [party performance has a practical ceiling], and I have suggested that a careful swing-back analysis may be applicable to polls, but to my knowledge have never tried that analysis myself. Too many ifs and buts over changed methodologies, etc.
Re the by-election analysis. We have gone over representativeness before. Within limits, by-elections are referenda on the government/opposition performance, especially when measured by neutral two-party swing, and are selected randomly by either the Grim Reaper, Scandal and the Gravy Train, from a pool of 650 possible seats, all of which we know will broadly move in the same direction at the next general election…
They have been recognised in time immemorial as such, and it should come as no surprise that they have high predictive ability.
One possible reason, which no-one has so far mentioned, why this accuracy may be even higher than statistics could account for is:- the PM has control over the election date. Hull North 1966 is a classic example.
And the solitary 1974 by-election did a good job too in predicting the “next” election. Therein may lie an explanation.
So the PM has the power to catch what the by-elections are telling him, and adjust the general election date to fit the most favourable circumstances. They don’t always get it right, but this feedback mechanism may in large part explain the excellent predictive record of by-elections. If we had fixed-term parliaments I would expect their predictive ability to decrease.
176 Disws, I’d never realised that about snickering! It seems that some people in the USA do think ’snigger’ is racist. I found this blog
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×1857820#1858398
which refers to this article
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297393,00.html
which has had its title changed.
And this blog
http://www.ivygateblog.com/2008/10/oh-yes-she-did-madonna-constantine-sues-columbia-university-for-firing-her-sorry-ass/
where a few commenters complain about its use.
181- And none of the three possibilities being offensive! I guess that’s a safe one then…
183 first used in print in 16th century towards end of the Reivers period so possible but the Reivers were common on both sides of the border and families lived on both sides being Borderers first before being English or Scots, so doubt it was ever a matter of escaping across the border, more escaping back into the Borders.
Richard N at 113 - yes, agreed, and Anthony Wells’ extremely convincing graph downthread suggests that weighting all the way down to 10% sure is the way to go.
Keith J at 115: You’re right to challenge it as it’s unproven, but you do quite often meet people who don’t favour enormous majorities. I don’t think they’d switch parties, but they might stay at home if they felt Labour (in 1997) was going to win by a mile anyway. I used to know a far-left candidate caled Ted Knight in Hornsey whose campaigning technique was to bellow “Labour’s going to win, yes that’s sure, but let’s make it a BIG win” - he never won, and I sometimes thought he wasn’t doing his effort any good.
Broxtowe Cat: it was Beeston West, which you’ll know - lecturers and teachers and rerired professionals as far as the eye can see. They weren’t being especially nice or anything to me - we weren’t primarily canvassing for me but for our county candidate, and all the canvassers reported similar responses. The LibDem incumbent is confident enough, but we want to give him a run for his money so Labour voters don’t get into bad habits.
190 Rod - The point about the PM choosing the most favourable date is fair enough, and that might indeed have been a factor in the past - increasing the predictive significance of by-elections.
Trouble is, this time around it looks as though Brown has missed the boat on that one.
191- A Houston city council member resigned under a hail of protests after he used the word “niggardly.” The same fate befell a Washington, DC city councilman after a similar invocation of the other n word.
104. Its hard to believe those figures, reckon if that was the case I would be emigrating
194 Nick P - Yes, Anthony’s article is excellent, as so often. But did you notice the point he makes right at the end, implying that YouGov might not need to make such an adjustment: “perhaps people who don’t bother to vote also don’t bother to join a survey panel”?
165. PfP. RBS have pretty well concluded that DirectLine/Churchill are not for sale.
161. GIN. I’ve just taken my dog for a longish walk in the woods. At every junction in the paths, he ’swung’ to the right. The Tories are a certainty
As for RC, I’ve said it before, 2009/2010 election night will offer umpteen opportunities for ‘Crosby moments’ when seat after seat falls to the Conservatives.
As for seat share/popular vote share, I recall a posting somewhere (can’t recall the link and may have been on some other forum) but the Conservatives fell short by something like only 5000 votes distributed across some key seats where they came second from denying Labour largest party status in 2005.
The point about that is that, those additional votes would hardly have registered, even when stated down to two decimal points, to national party vote shares but would have made a big difference to the seat distribution.
This is why bold, emphatic statements about electoral bias etc are riven with error or, in some cases with wishful thinking.
What we do know from previous elections that governing parties (of all stripes) eventual lose vote share in successive elections and when they do, they never recover. On that basis Labour cannot and will not exceed their 2005 share (35.3%) At the rate of decline between 97 and 2005, they’ll come in at 30ish %.
To suggest that, in the current phase of party balance between Con and LibDem, that 30% is a winning share is plain daft.
194. I voted Tory in 1997 for precisely this reason. I could foresee a landslide and wished to make a token effort to block it, or express my disapproval, or avoid the herd, or something…
A very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today, penned by a black man, gives some keen insight into the mentality that breeds hysteria the likes of which destroys careers over proper usage of a word such as “niggardly”:
“[A]merican minorities of color — especially blacks — are often born into grievance-focused identities. The idea of grievance will seem to define them in some eternal way, and it will link them atavistically to a community of loved ones. To separate from grievance — to say simply that one is no longer racially aggrieved — will surely feel like an act of betrayal that threatens to cut one off from community, family and history. So, paradoxically, a certain chauvinism develops around one’s sense of grievance. Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement.
And this identity calls minorities to an anticonservative orientation to American politics. It makes for an almost ancestral resistance to conservatism. One’s identity of grievance is flattered by the moral activism of the left and offended by the invisible hand of the right. Minorities feel they were saved from oppression by the left’s activism, not by the right’s discipline. The truth doesn’t matter much here (in fact it took both activism and principle, civil war and social movement, to end this oppression). But activism indicates moral anguish in whites, and so it constitutes the witness minorities crave. They feel seen, understood. With the invisible hand the special case of their suffering doesn’t count for much, and they go without witness.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123716282469235861.html
127. You are wrong in thinking that most Scots don’t like the English, plenty of sporting rivalry etc but the majority of people do not in any way hate them, it is a small minority of idiots, similar I am sure to the opposite of English hating Scottish. It is blown out of all proportion.
145. Rulko, My mistake, disaster.
199. most of that vote share decline is down to apathy and iraq protest votes, as it happens. it is easy to imagine either of those scenarios reversing.
but then what does vote _share_ really tell us? turnout will be different next time, an entirely different set of seats is the “marginals” battleground.
185 It wasn’t meants as a criticism, although in retrospect it could have looked that way. I’m usually OK with tables of numbers, although in this case there’s rather too many of them! And indeed Anthony comes to much the same conclusion as you. I’m looking forward to Rod’s article which, presumably, won’t.
201 - Last Nov, I spent 3 weeks in the Deep South. What struck me, compared to spending a lot of time in other parts of the US, was how race was overtly still a huge issue (in comparison to much more covertly in other places). That isn’t what surprised me, it was that rather than it simply being the white discriminating against black, but also strongly the reverse, blacks discriminating against whites (I assume for exactly the reasons given in that article).
I personally suffered direct discrimination from black individuals without opening my mouth, and the only reason I come up with was due to the colour of my skin.
192 also have doubts about the “Welsh on bet” deriving from Taffy was a Welshman etc. I always thought it was welch when used in that meaning rather than Welsh which was the nationality and much more likely to come from a particularly person’s name (which of course could be from Welsh). Bit of googling seems to indicate it was 19th century, a bit late for the English to find a new insult for the Welsh - would have thought it would have turned up early in the 1400 years of Anglo-Welsh interaction.
“the Conservatives fell short by something like only 5000 votes distributed across some key seats where they came second from denying Labour largest party status in 2005.”
It could not have been so, since Labour’s majority rested on 16,434 votes, and therefore its largest party status must have rested on considerably more [closer to 50,000 than 5,000 I'd guess].
But it was ever thus under crazy FPTP.
John Major’s 1992 majority rested on just 1,241 votes and Wilson’s 1964 majority on a microscopic 42 votes…
207 Etymonline dates it from 1867 and reckons it does derive from Welsh http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=welch&searchmode=none
Re 190.
And the solitary 1974 by-election did a good job too in predicting the “next” election. Therein may lie an explanation.
Of course Rod doesn’t highlight the fact that the 1974 election was three months after a general election which elected a minority Labour Government on less than 50% of the Con/lab vote. As it was the subsequent election 5 months later only provided Wilson with an overall majority of 3.
That is a significantly different scenario from today and in anycase
when is the next bye-election? The most recent show Labour got beaten in four (losing two seats) and held on in one (which happened to coincided with a a temporary boost for Labour in the polls which has now dissipated).
Now as far as I can see there are no likely bye-elections in the next 12 months so how on earth will that help the Prime Minister to decide when the call the election?
All it says to me is that he will hang on to the bitter end.
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said Mr Cameron was “planning for today’s headlines instead of the future of the BBC”.
He said that if he “really wants to help families he should back our cut of £5 a week off the average household VAT bill” rather than using the BBC as a “political football in this way”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7946080.stm
Is this the best Labour have these days? I don’t think people are going to be impressed by £5 a week (on average) either Andy!
Gordon Brown pledges G20 massive stimulus to get world trading again
Gordon Brown has said that he hopes next month’s G20 gathering of global leaders will secure a comprehensive deal to stimulate trade and help the world out of recession
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4999773/Gordon-Brown-pledges-G20-massive-stimulus-to-get-world-trading-again.html
Gordo better hope he manages to be involved in a big agreement, cos he isn’t exactly being gun shy about what the G20 meeting is going to do. Talk about building up expectations!
I JUST DID THAT SURVEY ON How right Wing ‘you’ are! It was on Iain Dale’s site! I got 117!
The lower the number the more right wing you are! The average american is 209.5!
I would be interested to know if Ave It 09 has done it I am sure he would be in single figures!
Commies, Socialists and LD’s - Lets round them up………..
But between 11995 and 1997 the Tory vote share did increase slightly and thus the Labourlead declined by c 5%.
rogerh
208. “Labour largest party status in 2005″ In my haste, I mistyped. As I recall the original article/post, it was overall majority.
But nonetheless, it still illustrates that small shifts in national vote share can produce major changes in seat distribution and, thus, any understanding of bias in the electoral system to one side or another in advance is silly.
As for Wilson’s narrow majority in ‘64. That rested rather more on the fact there were a dozen or so safe Ulster Unionists returned who were allied to the Conservative cause. Overall he had a comfortable national vote share lead of 200,000(almost 1%)
Nowadays, Northern Ireland returns a more eclectic bunch who are oppositional rather than Conservative allies. If that had applied in 1964, Wilson’s majority would have been a comfortable 20 or so.
211 - I think we saw the depth of Dave today.
A first Queens speech aimed at White Lightning Cider, the BBC and Alcopops.
Inspirational.
207. Welch is an old way of spelling Welsh. The proper name of the army regiment is actually The Royal Welch Fusiliers
Mike,
I guess with today’s 2 excellent threads we are all now waiting with baited breath for Rod Crosby’s “the world is full of Hung Parliaments” analysis.
On a more serious note, any chance you could write to the BBC, ITN and SKY News pointing out that when either their broadcasters or their paper reviewing guests, especially that moron from the Mirror MacGuire talk about 30%+ Labour leads pre 1997 that these refer to a totally different polling system which has since been discredited and reformed.
I’m not Cameron fan boy, you have the wrong guy if you think I am.
However, just out of interest, remind me when Gordo was last inspirational? Never?
I definitely have never been inspired by anything that comes out of the Churchill dog look-a-likely.
217. Further to that, the Fusiliers were formed in 1689 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Welch_Fusiliers
“But nonetheless, it still illustrates that small shifts in national vote share can produce major changes in seat distribution and, thus, any understanding of bias in the electoral system to one side or another in advance is silly.”
It show nothing of the sort - it is just an artifact of FPTP.
The chances of those few voters being instrumental by changing their votes, while no-one else changes in the opposite direction, are infinitesimally tiny…
218. Yes I could, provided you recognise the electoral system has shifted in Labour’s favour, thereby [in effect] cancelling out some of the perceived polling bias…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7946964.stm
Is this more Hansard-esque alterations, sooo weak!
223. Hansard is not supposed to be a verbatim account, never has been. It’s always been edited to take out mistakes and general features of speech (errs, umms, etc) in favour of making the meaning/intentions of the speakers clear.
224 - It was a joke!
221. Ah well, nothing like a reference to a past election to get Mr C hot under the collar.
He’s happier prognosticating about an unknown future.
Has your Mum STILL not delivered your 6o’clock Marmite sandwich, yet?
The Basildon South and East Thurrock, 464 more Conservative votes just from those who didn’t turn up and the seat would have switched. Of course, small shifts can make a difference.
Or Battersea, 263 would have done the same. Nothing to do with artifacts of FPTP.
Turn out was less than 60% in both and would still have been if those votes had been cast.
Political betting mentioned in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/mar/16/labour-election-polls
217
I know that, same as Scotch, Dutch etc. Just find it difficult to believe that after 1500 years or so of insulting the Welsh, the English would suddenly decide in mid 19th Century that they were a nation that refused to pay up on debts. Think it came out of public school or Army in reference to a person - or possibly persons in the Welch Fusiliers? - who had that reputation.
Welch - pronounced as spelt - is a much more satisfactory sound for the deed though isn’t it.
I see that repulsive toad Vaz is in the news again. Totally without shame or in fact any redeeming features. Of course he plays the ‘race card’ to excuse the inexcusable……what a surprise
226. Do you mind leaving my mother out of it? She passed on 27 years ago…
Thanks.
227 - Disappointing, that no mention of the problems with pre 1997 polls that Mike makes sure us PB.com readers are aware of.
229 - Has it been mentioned anywhere other than in the Daily Rant yet? I haven’t heard a peep out of BBC or Sky, but not been following them closely today.
bizarrely I was told about by an American and there it was in the torygraph online
220 Raised as Lord Herbert’s Reghiment, no less http://www.rwfia.org/History%20of%20the%2023rd%20Regiment.htm
(The Coldstreams were originally Colonel George Monck’s Regiment of Foot raised in 1650. Although I think there are regiments with earlier antecedents)
223-4. Reminds me of an apocryphal story about an MP castigating a minister. “Are you going to take this lying down?” he thundered. “No,” came the reply, “the man from Hansard is”.
233 - So it is the Torygraph and the Daily Rant. I don’t think the “lovely” Mr Vaz will be sweating it too much just yet. If the other majors pick up on it for tomorrow, and then the BBC are forced to cover the whole story, he might start to have to think about packing his bags.
The quote I saw form him, he basically said we have had the inquiry last year and I was found innocent. Now bu##er off.
236. I don’t think he will break a bead of perspiration on his comely brow. He’s probably beavering over his expenses claim or filing some other legal action on behalf of another dodgy pal. No-one takes the BBC seriously here -it provides the sports results
Iain Martin has a good blog based on Cherie suing the RBS (and thus the Government) on behalf of pension funds.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2009/03/16/cherie_blair_hired_to_sue_gordon_brown_
“Cherie Blair, … has agreed to fight a legal case on behalf of an outraged group of plaintiffs (the British voters). Ms Booth, speaking from one of her homes, said last night that she had been persuaded to pursue Gordon Brown through the courts in order to right an injustice.
“There has been a clear case of miss-selling here,” she said. “The British voters were told in the run up to this man Brown becoming Prime Minister that he represented a clear improvement on the previous incumbent. It is now clear that the public was misled….
Since he succeeded various large banks have had to be nationalised, unemployment has hit two million and the country has plunged into recession. Mr Brown denies responsibility.”
238
Cherie is going to sue RBS for clients? And slate Brown in the process? Wow.
227. As I think any reasonable person will conclude, the period 1997-2005 was abnormal by any recent standards.
The only way for Labour was down from the dizzy heights of abnormally sustained popularity.
The fact they didn’t go up instead cannot negate the swingback thesis, if one wishes to apply it to [in any case, admittedly unreliable] polls.
And anyhow, the more reliable by-election analysis did show the usual dip in support, and the customary swingback from that dip, once again forecasting accurately both the 2001 and 2005 elections…
234 Grenadiers are the senior, as they were Royalist, where the Coldstreams (and Blues & Royals) were New Model Army. Don’t the Royal Scots Greys also claim seniority?
Philippe earlier today mentioned Obama’s decline in Rasmussen’s tracking poll; the Pew poll also discusses the gradual decline in Obama’s job approval ratings:
“A new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that President Barack Obama’s popular support is eroding, with his approval rating dropping below 60 percent.
“President Barack Obama’s approval rating has slipped, as a growing number of Americans see him listening more to his party’s liberals than to its moderates, and many voice opposition to some of his key economic proposals,” the Pew Center concluded.
Its new survey finds Obama’s approval rating falling to 59 percent from 64 percent in February. It also finds the ranks of Americans who disapprove of the president’s job performance rising, to 26 percent from 17 percent.
Among those who registered a jump in disapproval were Republicans, up 15 percentage points, and independents, up 13 points, Pew found.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/64060.html
It is interesting that Obama’s support is slipping essentially just as fast among independents as it is among Republicans. This seems indicative of three things: 1) the honeymoon is over, 2) people are beginning to be disappointed that they aren’t seeing positive results, and 3) people are increasingly concluding that Obama is governing from the left rather than from the center.
The independents are key; if the populist, independent mood turns sharply against profligate spending without results, Obama will have a real problem on his hands (or, more accurately, his party will have a major problem).
Off-topic F1 tip>
You can get 25-1 on Jensen Button for F1 drivers championship. He has a brand new car which has been putting in some of the fsatest pratice times so far - very good value for an each way bet IMHO.
94 - Nick
When I canvassed in the 1997 election as a Conservative, people smiled at me too, they weren’t abusive or particularly aggressive - that’s the stage their at with Labour - PITY.
“Let’s not waste our time being rude to the sad man with the e-mail database who’s the Labour MP - he’ll be toast in a year.”
Don’t mistake British reserve for support - they’re going to chew your butt and spit it out old boy!
240. I don’t think Labour were ever as popular as the polls made out. It is just the favourable way the seats worked out in 1997, 2001 & 2005. All the intervening local and euro elections showed normal political gravity applied.
In that sense the next election will be entertaining for folk like me as we watch not just Labour get crushed but the Liberal Democrats as well!
And on welching bets it supposedely relates to the Middle Ages when Welshmen running up debts in England would escape back over the border to avoid paying.
And Gaul is also a derivation of the same root word as Wales - this is one of those language shifts between Germanic and Latin - compare Warranty and Guarantee for another example
Pb.com gets a mention on coffee house and so does one of Mike’s rules:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3447931/why-the-tory-poll-lead-is-likely-to-grow-during-the-general-election-campaign.thtml
216. Tim. Better Dave than Gordo. Any sign yet of Gordo’s mortgage plan that hogged the headlines on the day of the Queen’s Speech? How long has it been?
244. I used to be On Barry Sheermans e-mail list. I even filled in surveys etc. I would never vote for him or help him though!
Indeed the other week I politely e-mailed him to call it a day as he is like the bad smell in stoke on trent! 
All the students used to say it stank there and it was not just at night when the beer was flowing and the music load! 
221. What Rod said.
For 5,000 crucially-distributed voters to change their minds in certain constituencies, you actually need to convince a million voters elsewhere to do the same (in constituencies where it doesn’t matter).
That sort of opinion shift certainly does show up in polls.
I wonder if this will have a voting intention poll with it?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1162375/More-quarters-Britons-want-jobless-immigrants-forced-leave-UK.html
I agree that Immigrants should go by the way!
240 - all that you are saying in that post is that even if your theory was correct (which I wouldn’t agree with), it is now at least 12 years out of date.
Swingback presupposes an ineluctable movement of voters, like salmon spawning. I don’t buy it. Voters change their voting intention for concrete reasons. There may yet be a swing to Labour - though I am struggling to see why - but if there is, it will be for a reason, not just because it has happened in the past.
246 but earliest references seem to be 19th Century. Doubt going to Wales got Welshmen out of paying debts anytime after Statute of Rhuddlan.
Galatea in Turkey, Wallachia, Galicia among the other places with same root as Wales.
251 - Sorry to be the one to tell you Martin but lots of us are here to stay
248 - Alcopops and £3 per year off the BBC Licence.
.
Thought he was growing up a bit.
244. I work as a civil servant in NI. Today I had a very nasty git from an MLA’s office being very rude to me on the phone. I’m going to wait until his boss comes canvassing to my door and I’m very politely going to tell him that I won’t be voting for him and will be telling everyone I know not to vote for him because of what his minion said to me today.
We’re voters too you know!!!!
254
for sure, but it is also clear that we are a small island, and unchecked immigration cannot go on forever, not even from the EU.
253 The Statute of Rhuddlan in 1282 did not introduce English laws to Wales - This did not happen until the acts of Union of 1535 & 1542 (apolgies in advance if dates not exact)- so there was a long period where it was possible to hide back in Wales from English debts
255 - second throw of the line? No one bit last time.
259 nor will they
255. “Thought he was growing up a bit.”
One day you might grow up. I wouldn’t bet on it though.
259/260 you both nibbled though
Applying the swingback algorithm to the H&K calculators for the past two elections (and it works pretty well for all going back to 1950), predicted and actuals are
2001: 148 Labour majority (167)
2005: 52 Labour majority (66)
246/253 Welsh is supposed to be derived from the tribe Volcae, and then passed through Germanic into English and other languages. It is thought Gaulish might be related, but that is therefore a G/W shift in ancient Celtic languages or possibly between Latin and Celtic. Whereas guarantee/warranty are between Norman French and Frankish so something slightly different is going on.
236 I don’t suppose the judge in this case is Asian? I can’t think of any other reason why Vaz would bring up the ethnicity of the defendant. Maybe he was trying to invoke an ‘old ethnics network’? Just a wild guess.
Nicky Campbell, doing the front pages this morning on five live, failed to mention Vaz by name, preferring to say a Labour MP had been accused of doing wrong by the Daily Mail, before moving on.
I’m surprised the media have made more of it. Reminds me of Blunkett and the nanny visa.
254. Fair enough but if someone recent has come over here in the last few years and finds themselves out of a job, then whilst i feel sorry for them - why stay? If i went to the states or Canada then I think I would come back if my job was lost - indeed I think you need significant saving to make sure you can support yourself before given access.
We live in very different times to those where mass imigration was tolerated just a few years ago and it will get worse. I believe this poll shows there is significant support for this position. If indigenous folk feel they cannot get work and extra competition from immigrants come into the equation i would not want to be one of those folks the hoardes ostracise. I am the type to complain on here not start threatening or becoming violent about it - believe there will be a lot of desperate people out there who don’t share my tempered response. Just look to the strikes of a few weeks ago.
211 Difference is, the TV licence is a regressive tax paid by everyone who wants to watch telly, whereas the VAT reduction only saves you £5 a week if you are well enough off to spend over £200 a week on VATable items AND the retailers have been kind enough to pass it on.
230. Still hiding behind your mother’s skirt’t then. Sowho does bring you your sandwiches?
My Dad died (no prissy euphemism necessary) 36 years go but I don’t still ask him to beat up the other kids’ dads when they’re rough.
262
Mind you, we will never get to 1,000,000 posts without Tim 
and its fun to chuck some vitriol every now and again.
read and ignored, responded to 259. I have the measure of Tim now and hope others do too. Ignore the distraction postings. When the new software comes in, if will be easy to ignore all of them, as no doubt others will ignore mine
264 - I bow to your superior linguistic knowledge - which doesnt explain why we are so good looking!!!
269 - Ah come on Mark and Maggie Thatcher Fan, without the BBC, West Sussex would be a cultural black hole.
Surely you don’t value 6p per week more than that.
penddu Welch is how I have always said it, not Welsh. I believe may come from old English and relates to a word meaning ‘which’ or ‘that’ is missing and the full phrase would be ‘the missing bet’. To “welch on the debt”. Nothing to do with Wales.
Going Dutch as a term for all paying their own way probably comes from Charles II exile in Holland where that is exactly what he found.
Limey comes from the US who were amazed at the number of limes carried on English warships ( British even in those days really) and Scot free as explained has nothing to do with Scotland. Just as right angle has nothing to do with England.
Niggardly is a word found in Chaucer. Nothing to do with a person’s colour or wit. Just meanness.
250 John R: “For 5,000 crucially-distributed voters to change their minds in certain constituencies”
Not talking about switchers but a very small number of voters from amongst the pool who DIDN’t vote when turn-out was exceptionally low by historical standards.
266 - Some people are already leaving.
You’ll see care homes and farms with shortages of labour later this year, I’d have thought.
corporeal as far as I know Borroso cannot be a member of the EPP as that is a parliamentary group of MEPs and Barroso is not an MEP but an appointed official.
His party, the PSD, is member but he is not in post as their representative. Indeed as he left them in the lurch he is not entirely popular in his old party.
269. If we all ignore each other, how can we hold a debate, or even know what the debate is about? Will anyone even notice the difference?
Mind you, the likes of the troll @268 have already gone into my automatic mental “kill-file”…
Have we had any anguished rants from St. Polly of Tuscany yet about Cameron freezing the BBC’s money?
Your taxes at work:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4995787/Euro-chiefs-ban-Miss-and-Mrs.html
272 - seems to be more common use in US than GB in any case
274. We are talking about people (immigrants) who have lost their jobs - not the ones employed. Personally I don’t think there should be any non- EU Immigration unless a £10K entry tax is paid and it is on the understanding that they pay taxes here, they are not allowed benifits and if there work ceases they go home within a reasonable legth of time.
I think the Labour government has safely averted the care homes and farms ‘Labour shortages’ you refer to in the next few years by their handling of the economy.
280 - We’ll see.
Are you up for a bit of farm work?
Your time at CCHQ should’ve qualified you for harvesting a few vegetables.
276. Excellent news. Nothing pleases me more than NOT be read by RodCrosby who seems to be some sort of Labour shill who’s wandered here from eBay.
Rod Crosby GeoffH is not a troll and he has a good point. You may have interesting things to say but they are always smothered by jargonistic waffle and a mania to prove whatever happens it means that a hung parliament is ever more a certainty.
It is just boring. Or convincing. Or interesting.
And someone who wants to convince me of his expertise is on a loser when he can wipe six million people from history on a nothing more than a claim that it is all false because it is an ‘orthodoxy’.
There seems to have been a coup in Madagascar.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Madagascar-Soldiers-Take-Over-Presidential-Palace-Setting-Off-Two-Huge-Explosions-Tanks-Driven-In/Article/200903315242521?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15242521_Madagascar%3A_Soldiers_Take_Over_Presidential_Palace_Setting_Off_Two_Huge_Explosions%2C_Tanks_Driven_In
283 nor convincing, of course, nor interesting.
281. I will leave it to Labour MP’s to remove the Turnip in No.10 Downing street! Failing that the electrate will turn Labour over and cover them with manure!
278 - Oh for the love of God…
278 that was on 5 live today, the laughable bit is that the EU have been unable to find an alternative for waiter and waitress so they remain. Its complete bollox and a waste of money and another reason to loathe the EU.
278 What is mankind coming to?
penddu yes, like lots of older English usage it has moved to the US and now comes back to us. Those Elizabethan adventurers have a lot to answer for.
280 - Perhaps you could collect this guys £10k Martin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Beharry
He’s out of work and claiming benefits I hear.
281
I’ll do it, for the right price. Supply and demand.
It is,perhaps, worth recalling that the last 2 examples of unpopular Labour Govts - 1974 - 79 and 1966 - 70 - DID enjoy a significant swingback!
291. Don’t be silly Tim - he has put his life on the line for this country: Like the Gurkers, He should be allowed here!
Indeed he got his honour for fighting a war many other immigrants against it indeed - they protest against soldiers coming back and insult heroes.
Is there nothing Labour will not try using to make a crap point?
292. The funny thing is when they introduced the minimum wage Labour argued many low wage jobs weren’t worth having and it didn’t matter if they disappeared.
Now all of a sudden these jobs are absolutely essential and the economy will collapse without them. Funny how when the jobs are being done by immigrants everything changes.
278 - The Telegraph reports
“Philip Bradbourn, another Conservative MEP, vowed to ignore the booklet, which he described as a “waste of taxpayers’ money” and called on Mr Romer to reveal its cost.
He added: “I will have no part of it. I will continue to use my own language and expressions, which I have used all my life, and will not be instructed by this institution or anyone else in these matters.”
That will be the comedy idiot MEP Philip Bradbourn
wiki page
Expenses claims
In May 2008 it was reported Philip Bradbourn has used tax-payers money to fund lavish trips across the world, including a visit to Table Mountain in South Africa and a wine route tour of the Neethlingshof Wine Estate in 2007. The six-day excursion is estimated to have cost £30,000. [1]
However Bradbourne pursued a complaint against the News of the World with the Press Complaints Commission. The News of the World then issued this apology “Contrary to the claim in our article “EU blows millions on fact finding freebies for MEPs” (18.5.08), Philip Bradbourn MEP did not visit Table Mountain or a wine estate during a South Africa trip. We apologise for any embarrassment.” http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NTE2Ng
[edit]Smoking incident
On 12th September 2007, an article appeared in the Times referring to an incident which occurred in the European Parliament (a non-smoking building), where he was found smoking in a corridor. When it was pointed out to him that he was not permitted to smoke inside the Parliament, he reportedly responded “I’m a member. I make the rules.” Bradbourn, however, denied this, saying that his exact words were, “Elected members make the rules in Parliament, not staff.”[2]
[edit]Birmingham confusion
Philip Bradbourn also came under fire last year when it was discovered that the website of the West Midlands Conservative MEPs showed a photo of Birmingham, Alabama instead of Birmingham, England.
288 - That’s the funny bit.
Waiter and waitress remain, but “Manageress” is outlawed
296 Comedy idiot… Looking in the mirror are we.
295. What cracks me up is like my view of the Immigrant Tax - Labour posters rage at me and then six months later the Labour government draft legislation to introduce one all be it on more modest levels. Labour are doing the next government a favour by implementing this side of an election as the tax base will have to be increased and I cannot think of a tax I would like to see go up by several thousand times than one on immigrants from non-EU countries!
297 The pc brigage really make me angry. I know a chap who comes from the NE who was hauled before the local councils’ human remains dept because he called a female colleage “pet”(she complained ) and he was threatened with dismissal.
272. Just a coincidence that Welch is an old alternative spelling of Welsh.
275. As I understand it it’s not just for MEPs.
The President of the EPP is apparently ex-Belgian PM Wilfried Martens, who isn’t an MEP.
re 293. I don’t have the 1966-70 data at hand but the polling in the 1978-79 period doesn’t really support your point.
Yes - in February 1979, at the height of the “winter of discontent, Gallup recorded CON 53 LAB 33. But was was just one poll in one month. By March Labour were on 37% and in April 1979 it touched 40%. The final Gallup poll put Callaghan’s party at 41% - which compared with the 37.8% national share that they got in the general election.
So if you record swing-back from that one month you can make a case.
In 1978 in all but one month Labour had polling shares in the 40s reaching 48% in the November.
So only one poll in the eighteen months before the election saw Labour at a lower level than the general election share.
299- From an economic point of view, Dubai is a great model for immigration reform. Over there, immigration is huge (many times greater than the native-born population), but is strictly tied to employment. Now that the jobs are disappearing, the immigrants are getting out as fast as they can before 1) they’re sent to prison for not paying their financial obligations or 2) they’re deported anyway for not having employment (upon which their visas depend). Net result: the native-born population doesn’t take a back seat to immigants when the economy goes sideways.
Thinking of getting Dubai/UAE citizenship? Good luck. When I was over there on vacation, one fellow told me it would take at least 20 years.
293. Wilson (1966-70) in particular, significantly out-performed the model, and, as far as was possible in 1970, came fairly close to a hung parliament.
[Not that close is actuality, as will be seen in the HP article]
But Heath “should” have had a majority of well over 100, not just 30…
I found this on the SNP website
‘SNP Postal Affairs spokesperson, Mike Weir MP, has expressed bemusement at news HM Revenue & Customs have awarded a £4.5 million-a-year contract to deliver its internal mail to TNT – just a week after it was revealed the company had been forced to hand over tens of millions of pounds in unpaid tax to HMRC.
The Dutch company, which was also blamed for losing the personal details of 25million child-benefit claimants in 2007, is also a front-runner to take a stake in Royal Mail if controversial plans led by Lord Mandelson are approved. Mr Weir said:
“I think people will struggle to understand why a firm, which just repaid millions in unpaid taxes, has been awarded a multi-million pound contract from the Inland Revenue.
“HMRC really need to explain what their thinking is on this one.’
Curiouser and curiouser.
The Scottish sub sample of YouGov (sample 173) shows the SNP and Labour locked together at 35 per cent (19 Tories and 7 Libs)for Westminster.
This is in line with the other polling sub samples over the last month or two. However the Scottish poll taken on the two same days shows a Labour lead of 10 per cent at Westminster!
Interestingly while the Scottish specific poll is the one you would normally go with the sub sample is more in line with what’s is happening on the ground eg by election in Dundee last Thursday.
272. Just a coincidence that Welch is an old alternative spelling of Welsh?
275. As I understand it it’s not just for MEPs.
The President of the EPP is apparently ex-Belgian PM Wilfried Martens, who isn’t an MEP.
302. I don’t know if he was referring to the poll-morass, or the by-election swingback model.
In 1979, the BE model forecast a Tory majority of about 55.
Result: 43
Not bad, eh?
303. Funny you should say that but I would not go work there as It is too hot and I don’t think I would appreciate the cultral side of things!
I did read about Immigrants getting into dire straights and just driving to the airport leaving there car and doing one!
I have thought about doing a reggie Perrin in the uk (A 70’s UK siticom where a man fakes his death on a beach - I always think the bit he removes his trousers funny!
), ‘raising someone from the Dead’ and taking their identity. Alas the UK government has now made it illigal, you get a dead childs birth certificate and build a new identity! I think John Stonehouse the Late Former Labour MP did that after he faked his death!
302.
Mike,
I was comparing late 78 with the period of deep unpopularity suffered by Callaghan Govt from Autumn 76 - Summer 77.Had Callaghan called an election in late 78 he might have won - very liely he would have got at least a Hung Parliament.So the opportunity was there - but Callaghan threw it away!
O/t for those interested in continentla politics and/or euro elections
new IPSOS poll in France (with comparison with the 2004 election)
PS 24 (5)
UMP 27 (+10.5)
UDF 10 (-2)
FN 5.5 (-4.5)
Verts 9 (+1.5)
Libertas6 (-0.5)
PCF 6 (+0.50
NPA (troskysts) 9 (+5.5)
which my model translates as:
PS 22 -9
UMP 26 +9
UDF 6 -6
FN 2 -5
green 6 =
Libertas2 -1
PCF 3 =
NPA (troskysts) 5 +5
So the UMP would make the exected swing back fron its extremely low score in 2004. It is even better as in the past the French centre-right had a tendency to be weak and divided at euro elections. The PS maintains a decent share but loses most from the overall reduction of seats (as the UK, France loses 7 seats this year).
The other expected big winner is the NPA of Olivier Besancenot. This illustrates the fact that the crisis seems to have reinforced the extreme-left but is not enough for the moment to give back the lead to the socialists.
Over the top hysteria from the right wing press again.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4998842/Mealtime-Gestapo-confiscate-junk-food-at-primary-school.html
One parent, Magdi Cullen, 34, told the Daily Mail: “When I found out about what they were doing, I thought ‘This is a primary school, not Guantanamo Bay’.
“I can’t believe that teachers go through their lunchboxes because there might be something like a small chocolate bar.
“My daughter has a sandwich and an apple as well, but now she has to hide a small box of Smarties I give her. It’s just not right.
“The school is very good apart from this and we can’t fault it in any way academically.”
Her husband, wine vendor Jerry Cullen, 51, said: “The whole situation is ridiculous and the teachers are acting like the mealtime Gestapo by going through their lunchboxes.
“The crisps have to be approved healthy ones and they can cost a small fortune.”
Parents were sent a letter informing them of the strict meal searches.
Headmistress Deborah Metcalf said: “This stance is trying to work with parents to provide a healthy meal for their children.”
Make school meals compulsary and tell these whinging idiots shut up!
311- Sorry, the partly fornmerly known as UDF is now called MODEM.
309.
“I think John Stonehouse the Late Former Labour MP did that after he faked his death!”
He did worse. He assumed the identities of two of his deceased constituents, after smooth-talking the grieving widows to get the relevant details…
310. chance of a HP had receded considerably by 1977-1979, as will be shown in the guest article.
Is there a poll tonight?
291 ‘280 - Perhaps you could collect this guys £10k Martin.’
tim, you’re not fit to lick Lance-Corporal Beharry’s boots. How dare you bring him into one of your pointless smears. Be grateful that men like him exist, and keep spinning from the safety of your armchair.
re 310. I was a member of the Labour party then and remember it well. In October 1978 Gallup had C42-L47-Lib7.
Callaghan had the opportunity and blew it.
Going back to the Sunday Times Scotland YouGov poll figures linked by Stuart Dickson upstairs at post 77, some interesting changes in the unweighted-weighted comparisons, I think:
18-24s almost doubled from 89 to 168 (presumably to make up for the lack of landlines in that age group)
Guardian/Indie readers reduced from 120 to just 28
Lib Dem identifiers increased quite dramatically from 82 to 138
Given that the weighted result gives the Lib Dems just 11%, are they even that strong? Or don’t the unweighted numbers matter that much?
148, corporeal,
On the translation of polling numbers into seats - there is no hard and fast rule or model, but additive swing applied to the last result (or nominal result) is the standard one (exemplified with the Wells swingometer). Martin Baxter’s famous one uses an algorithm of his own devising to marry proportional and additive swing to reduce artifacts (such as - what happens if the Tory share is 4% and their score drops from one parliament to the next by 7%? Additive swing predicts a -3% result for them, which is somewhat harsh). In practice, these artifacts tend to be less relevant in the battleground seats, where all you want to know is who beats who.
As the traditional method relies on toggling seats at a hair-trigger point (if Labour were ahead by 36.2 to 33.2 last time and it goes to 36.2 Lab/40.0 Con, for example, then all seats where Labour had a majority of 6.79% or less would fall; seats where they had a majority of 6.81% or higher would be held. In reality, random variance would make the seats around the toggle point pretty much up for grabs. Seats at 6.79% and 6.81% majority would each have about a 50% chance of toggling - the slightly higher majority seat could easily fall by quite a few votes and the lower majority one be held.
Curtice (et al) applied a probability function to the prediction at the last election, which worked well. This is what Rod means when he says “probabilistic seat calculators”. In my own, the proximity of the projected scores to the toggling point generates a probability for it to toggle and these are summed as fractions (so a seat that is 70% likely to fall rates as 0.7 seats to the Tories - if there are ten such seats, we’d expect them to take 7 of them). From this, you can also calculate a Margin of Error (well, a standard deviation, which can be turned into an MoE) of seat totals.
Assuming perfect prediction by the poll and a perfect knowledge of tactical voting, incumbency advantage and changes in voting patterns due to marginality (ie the effects of the “ground war”), I generally get an MoE of about 10 seats in the seat share of the two main parties (about 6 seats in the Lib Dems). So a predicted majority of 10 for the Tories would really imply a 95% probability of a majority below 30 and above 5 seats short of a majority.
Assuming that the TV adjustment, incumbency adjustment and marginality adjustment are spot on.
So yes, you’re quite right - the transition from votes to seats does, itself, retain a considerable element of unpredictability.
This is itself overwhelmed by the polling margin of error. If you add/subtract just 1.5% to many polls to see the effect of a 1 standard deviation error, you get seat changes of +/-30 or so at some points.
318. Oh the good old days of yellow Taxi’s!
This nonsense today about the EU banning the use of words like “Mr” and “Mrs” is just nonsense. I remember about 20 years ago my female office manager had a particular leftie woman on the phone one day On asking her if she was “Mrs” or “Miss”, she kept replying that she was “Ms”. Joan wouldnt accept such pinko nonsense and at the 3rd time of asking, getting the same response blurted out at her “are you a feminist or a les*ian?” That got the appropriate response.
A couple of days later said leftie woman was called to give evidence in the local Sheriff Court. [In Scotland the Sheriff court is a cross between the County Court and High Court in England] The Sheriff on asking her for the record whether she was “Mrs” or “Miss” was given the same crap about her being a “Ms”. Sheriff Fraser virtually exploded on the bench and demanded to know which she was as there was no such status in the English language as Ms”. When said leftie woman tried to pursue her Hattie HArperson type routine she was instructed to leave the witness box and go outside for 10 minutes being warned that if she returned with the same nonsense idea she would be held in contempt of court and locked up!! Now that’s they way to deal with these EU clowns.
For the record said leftie woman was divorced so she was told she should either continue to call herself Mrs [husband's surname] or revert to Miss [maiden name] but not Ms. [husband's surname].
312
Searching children’s schoolboxes Tim, thats so authoritarian, so Labour, so appalling… and its an outrage, but then again its only to be expected from a utter disgrace of a Labour Govt and why the electorate will throw your mob out lock stock and barrel come the GE.
It would be really good in this series on polling and its problems to have an article on the limitations of uniform national swing. We’ve had sidelong looks from the Lib Dem perspective, but there is a wider issue.
Uniform national swing presupposes uniform national characteristics and uniform national effort. Since those are two presuppositions that are manifestly wrong, uniform national swing is a very doubtful tool indeed. One might argue that those two presuppositions are self-cancelling, but the opposite seems more likely.
re 310 and 318. At the time I was a Duty Editor with BBC news and Callaghan was scheduled to make a TV broadcast in which everybody was certain he would announce the election. We were all set up to go into election mode and we simply did not have plan B for that night’s coverage when he said there would be no election. We were furious.
It was one of those occasions when the media had been so led along that the “no election” announcement caused him and Labour great damage.
318. to be fair to Callaghan, the Gallup poll was all over the place:
Jul: C 45, L 43
Aug: C 43, L 47
Sep: C 49, L 42
Oct: C 42, L 47
hmmm, what would you do?
Nov: C 43, L 48 [shit - that last one has been confirmed, but it's too late now for a 1978 election]
Dec: C 48, L 42 [oh dear...]
326 1970’s polls are an irrelevance
I have no time for PC (that is political correctness not Plaid Cymru…) but what I dont understand is if chairman has to become chairperson etc, then why arent woman renamed woperson???
Corporeal the EPP-ED website confirms it is a grouping of the parliament and for MEPs.
I can’t give a URL as I am on my phone but a google should do it.
328 - You obviously don’t move in the right feminist circles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn
323 - Make school dinners compulsory.
No need for packed lunches, and it brings down the cost for everyone while increasing the quality.
“Make school meals compulsary and tell these whinging idiots shut up!”
Caring, sharing Labour, friend of the masses eh, tim?
328 We should ask Millie Tant from ‘Viz’
I am officially a dinosaur and would be unemployable in a local council - god help me if I ever got elected
322.
Sounds to me as the Sheriff had his head screwed on there! HH views are truely repugnant to me but she doesn’t do a MT and cook Shepards pie for the cabinet collueagues! 
Would they want to eat it! Might be poisoned or just horrible.
I got 257 on the Iain Dale quiz!
I was very pro free market, but not being a religious nutjob or militarist got me a few marks I guess! High marks for not thinking gays should be shot as well I daresay.
Quiet scary how reactionary your average US of A citizen is.
332 - School Uniform is compulsory for good reason.
So should school dinners be.
334 - I have known paper candidates get elected over the decades - so beware
Worse thing about all that local council PC stuff is the exact same people who go around bullying people over things like saying “pet” or “luv” will completely ignore honour killings, forced marriages and more recently female circumcision.
337. I got 117 - I must be more right wing than I thought!
Just remembered-in the late 1980s,through apathy,the winner of a student union president at a faculty of HE was..wait for it..
A pound of pork sausages.I kid you not
340 - Correct, although much of the PC stuff is Urban myth.
FGM is not new, by the way, its been ignored until recently in this country.
As have girls disappearing from school roles.
school rolls.
342. If it had been potted meat sandwiches- it would have come last. That is one of my most vivid memories of early school the Potted meat sandwiches that nobody ever ate!
331:
What a strange idea. And how is it cheaper? £1.75 a day or the same per week for packed lunches.
Forcing kids to eat food they don’t like is also just bizarre, typical controlling socialist drivel. Equality is the goal, no matter if everyone has an equally awful outcome. Christ we need an election.
338 ‘ School Uniform is compulsory for good reason. So should school dinners be’
tim, why stop there? Maybe all good ‘citizens’ should wear uniforms and eat state provided food in government run cafeterias? We could have the pleasure of working in collective factories and farms, and then after our days work is done, enjoy our meagre 1 unit of alcohol, before retiring to the dormitories. Your world sound great.
312…always remember that the state knows better than you what is best for your children…….
Re 332 I find myself disagreeing with Tim more strongly than at any other point
folks - a new thread has started
@326:
What a coincidence. So is RodCrosby.
tim, compulsary school dinners.
How do you cater for
allergies
cultural sensitivities
vegan/vegetarian
you really do not think before you type do you. There is no way to make school meals compulsary in a modern society for a reasonable cost.
I scored 258 on quiz - I consider myself pro market with social safety net = centre right/christian democrat - so Americans must be lunatics!!
352 - Not difficult.
324. UNS has never been treated as being a literal truth. But under reasonable assumptions, it is a good approximation, even, as expected, the actual swings are distributed normally around the mean.
A complicating assumption is that the distribution of the marginals will be uniform - i.e. an equal number within each percentile of swing. 2005 showed that assumption may be moderately undermined.
Probabilistic UNS now takes this factor into account.
Of course, if swing became highly-correlated with some other variable, like marginality or size of the third-party vote, the uniform predictions would soon lose their utility.
However, while such correlations have arisen from time to time to skew UNS away from perfection - seen most sharply in 1997, it is unlikely ever to be so strong as to render UNS forecasting meaningless…
Therefore the best strategy would seem to be to stick with UNS, and attempt to model the likely deviations separately, which is exactly my approach.
329. I’ve generally seen just Chair used on its own now.
As a side note I think Stewart Lee makes a lot of good points here, don’t agree with all of it, but much of it is good I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IYx4Bc6_eE
330. From the site http://www.epp.eu/hoofdpagina.php?hoofdmenuID=1
“With 74 member-parties from 38 countries, 20 Heads of Government (13 EU and seven non-EU), nine European Commissioners (including the President), and the largest Group in the European Parliament with 288 members, the EPP is the leading political force on the continent.”
294 - “Is there nothing Labour will not try using to make a crap point?”
I think we know the answer to that one
301 - My father (working for BT) was hauled in front of his union and management for daring to say…….
“I call a spade a spade”
This was in the late 80’s I think and he was told to apologise and refused, he kept his job until he retired.