Do women candidates fare better than men?
October 28th, 2009
Does Cameron’s plan make electoral sense?
It’s one of those bits of received wisdom you often hear from political campaigners - you get a small but noticeable boost if your candidate is a woman particularly if she is the only one on the ballot.
Well as part of a poll in the wake of the Tory all-women short-list row Angus Reid Strategies, who do PB’s monthly voting intention survey, have come up with a number of findings about gender and voting behaviour one of which I feature above.
The numbers suggest that the sex of the candidate does matter. While men are slightly less likely to vote for a woman this is more than counter-balanced by female voters who told the pollster that they were much more likely to do so.
What’s quite significant is that this seems to matter much more to older women than their younger counterparts and this grouping, of course, is much more likely to actually turnout.
But the poll found strong opposition to the notion of all-women short-lists which was rejected by 58% to 23%.
The overall message is that in key marginals the gender of the candidate could make a difference. Maybe that’s something that was behind Cameron’s desire to get more women selected for key seats although he seems to have stepped back from his compulsion plan.
I’ve been at local election counts in multi-member wards where you see a marked number of ballot papers where voters have made their choice by gender and not according to the party list - and the beneficiaries are the women.
Mike Smithson
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More likely overall by 2% net? I’m not convinced this iss a significant finding.
This post took me 10 minutes to write, so I’m darned if I’m gonna let it go pwoooft.
FPT.
Alternatively, let’s move beyond this picayune and tedious micro-argument, does north Englandshire want to be slightly divorced from not-quite-so-north-Englandshire, and let us consider how much a European superpower would totally ROCK the KNOX off EVERYONE ELSE.
If Europe was a country it would boast:
the best food in the world:
France, Italy, Spain, game over
the greatest city in the world:
London
the most romantic city in the world:
Paris
the most beautiful city in the world:
Venice
PLUS Rome, Florence, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Krakow, Barcelona, Siena, Edinburgh, Dubrovnik…
eat crow, Seattle.
The EU would also boast the most sublime landscapes in the world:
Provence, the English Lakes, the Italian Lakes, the Bavarian Alps, the Dordogne, the Hebrides, Connemara, Gascony, Tuscany, the Croatian Adriatic
5 of the best universities in the world’s top 20:
Cambridge, UCL, Oxford, Imperial, LSE. All English. Hah.
the greatest artistic heritage in the world (of course) and the world’s best museums: National Gallery, Louvre, Kunsthistoriche, Prado, British Museum, d’Orsay, Tates, Mauritshuis, Vatican, Uffizi, Accademia, Berlin
the world’s best cars: German
the world’s best thriller writers: London
the world’s best football clubs: England and Spain
the world’s greatest buildings: the Gothic cathedrals of France and England, the renaissance in Rome, the Greek temples of Sicily - and Greece, the Georgian of Dublin and Edinburgh, the Villas of Palladio, the castles of the Rhine
the world’s most beautiful women: Croatia, London, Milan, Malaga
the world’s finest music: Beethoven! Bach! Beatles!
the world’s best… WHATEVER you f*cking like. The world’s best cooked meats (salami Napoli), the world’s best soldiers (SAS), the world’s best theatres (London) the world’s best cheese (a fine Gruyere), the world’s best EVERYTHING.
If we were a country, we would basically kick the arse of everyone else in the world at everything ever.
It is oddly tempting. I am bored of being a citizen of a nation in perpetual decline. Let us celebrate the fact that we ROCK.
And with that, I bid you *bon nacht* as we say in Europe.
re 1. I am totally convinced the other way. This fits with election after election that I’ve been involved with. Women, particularly older ones, like voting for women.
Do women like voting for men who look they are good dads and dislike voting for men who look like they are all broody and shit at empathy?
No prizes for guessing which party leaders I have in mind!
The 80% just as likely vote for the 55+ band is the one that gives me the most hope. A large majority of the group most likely to vote know that is doesn’t matter one jot as long as they get the best candidate regardless of sex.
SeanT. You’re probably right. BUT…It is a trifle parochial non?
For example these counter claims might also have some validity:
Best Food – Much of the Far East. Tokyo has the most Michelin 3 star restaurants in the world. Beijing is far and away the best town to eat in that I know (London included). You yourself have banged on a couple of times about the food in Thailand. Go into a run of the mill restaurant in most of Europe vs a run of the mill one in most of China and you will find the Chinese one to be better, cheaper, delivered by smilier staff and probably healthier too. Go top end and the same is true. The two best Italian restaurants I have ever eaten in are here in Manila.
Women – Ooh! I like women to be slim and feminine. A big proportion of western women have the physiques of men or of potatoes. Often gobby, unyielding and excessively high maintenance too. I think your own tastes here are not unfounded. Are you referring only to facial beauty or general shaggability and niceness to be with?
Soldiers – Maybe the SAS are the best. Maybe not. For sure though the USA has by a wide margin the most capable military (and that includes a notably better record in recent years on special forces and counterinsurgency).
Universities – So Europe has 5 of the top 20. How many of the other 15 are in the USA?
Landscapes – Yes Europe does picturesque very well. But we suck at dramatic. Have you ever seen the Canadian Rockies, the Okavango, the Tibetan plateau, Boracay, etc, etc? We lack broad geographical diverstity across much of Europe. And some is just plain dull (Netherlands, Belgium, much of Spain, etc).
All of this is tempered also by the fact that in Europe we have some of the world’s most tiresome and stifling political environments. I like that in other parts of the world you can ride a motorbike without a helmet if you so wish, can chuck your trash without some nannying A-hole telling you how to split it, can eat out late with your kids and no-one cares, etc, etc.
Europe for sure has its great points – but it is so far from a slam dunk as to be risible.
Sean t you getting all strange?
Best food in world ony those three, would get boring after a while on only spaghetti and that lot. Variety is so this year!
And talking about scotland as if its england…well only if you consider Scotland and England bonded by strong Norman ties which you could have a fair point mate but hearing the scots gaelic language on Skye is mint and sounds nothing like the southern haughty english drone
:P!! :O
I am being pedantic, but why are we always making room for every friggin culture on the planet when the same long established cultures are not tolerated abroad.
Britian just wants to satisfy everyones needs but its self….give me a real man drink the ale any day. Goodnight
FPT (Post #264)
PfP - The fact that Ladbrokes and WH had no trouble getting their rights issues taken up also suggests that other major bookies could do the same if they needed to, which provides some reassurance.
Richard, I don’t quite buy into that I’m afraid. Both companies were forced to heavily discount their rights issues to such an extent that their “success” (if they can be described as such) was virtually guaranteed. A company would never do this out of choice, since the lower the price at which the shares are offered, the bigger the drag on the share price going forward and of course the more expensive the new equity is to service.
This suggests that both companies considered that, notwithstanding the unpalatable discounts they faced, there was an urgent need (for whatever reason) for them to proceed in raising very large amounts of new equity, albeit in far from perfect market conditions. Although greatly strengthening their own financial positions, IMHO this does beg a few questions about the health of the gaming industry as a whole. In this connection, it’s perhaps also worth pointing out that a number of the other large bookmakers are not public companies who therefore do not have the same access to the capital markets as do these two market-leading firms.
Leaving aside, which I do, short term phenomena such as the low number of draws in this season’s Premiership, there’s little doubt that bookmakers do live in a harsher climate these days owing to:
1. The advent and growth of both spread and exchange betting, not to mention the variations of the National lottery.
2. Increased competition from other conventional bookies by virtue of easy access internet betting and banking.
3. The identification and exploitation of value betting opportunities, by virtue of betting blogs like PB.com and odds comparison sites such as oddschecker.com and bestbetting.com.
It must be tough out there for the likes of Shadsy etc., but before we pass him the Kleenex, let’s remember that on the other side of the coin, the availability of betting facilities via the internet to a worldwide audience in English as well as other other languages has provided major bookmakers in the UK with huge new opportunities.
All female short lists are good for the Tories.
All male short lists are good for the Tories.
All gay and lesbian short lists are good for the Tories.
All black, brown, yellow short lists are good for the Tories.
All white short lists are good for the Tories.
All short lists with just Gordon Brown on are good for the Tories.
All short lists are good for the Tories.
Women love a brooding man, as long as he is a fantasy brooding man who takes time out of his brooding to shave, shower, and pose manfully atop a scenic crest looking far into the distance before descending to fall deeply in love with you and whisk you away to his castle where you will make love atop a bed strewn with rose petals and incredibly high thread count sheets.
Gordon Brown looks a bit too realistically brooding to fill that role.
Women voting for women: one reason for ditching Gordon Brown in favour of Harriet Harman. Crucially, she can also attract Conservative women with her old-fashioned feminism whose focus is on female managers, directors and professionals.
I’ve often argued on here there is no point in Labour defenestrating the Prime Minister because there will be no electoral benefit from doing so: it’s the economy, not Brown’s personality. No likely successor will attract voters back without an economic magic wand. Jobless and skint under Miliband, Johnson or Straw is just as bad as under Brown.
Harman is the exception to the rule. Vote Hattie!
USA
“According to Gallup, 40 percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36 percent as moderate and 20 percent as liberal. This is the first time conservatives have outnumbered moderates in America since 2004.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100014891/barack-obama-has-failed-to-defeat-conservatism-in-america/
‘Former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern backs Scottish independence’
http://www.scotsman.com/latestnews/Former-Irish-Taoiseach-Bertie-Ahern.5770064.jp
‘Ahern: Scotland on its own would do very well’
Mr Ahern said comments made during an interview had been sensationalised and left open to misinterpretation and he was disappointed that he had been portrayed as opposing Scottish independence.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/ahern-scotland-on-its-own-would-do-very-well-1.928838
Was it the Times or the Telegraph which first published the Ahern story? I cannot find it, but it strikes me as the same kind of false reporting as the infamous Chris Hoy interview during the Olympics, when the Scotsman tried to portray that Hoy was anti-Scottish.
I’m pretty sure it was the Times, however (for some odd reason) the Times’ Scottish edition fails to turn up in Google News searches.
Gray: Alexander has ‘big future”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8328217.stm
‘Labour announces new front-bench team’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/labour-announces-new-front-bench-team-1.928926
‘Labour’s under-fire leader Iain Gray shuffles his line-up’
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Labour39s-underfire-leader-Iain-Gray.5770836.jp
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6893126.ece
Jackie-the-Hutt to ‘Health’? No comment necessary.
The details of this reshuffle are fascinating. Cathy Jamieson, a former Justice Minister (equivalent of Home Secretary) to Housing?!? FFS.
Quite right. I have never understood this obsession with boosting credit to help businesses “ride out the recession” without any serious attempt to encourage consumers to start spending again (in an affordable way - ie. not creditcard backed) which is really the root of the problem, and a necessity for recovery.
Whats this: Mike is posting a thread without the courtesy of hat-tipping the punters who triggered it?
Candidate selection and sex: well-done Farmer Tupac, wage-slave and coldstone. Your efforts are noticed…!
‘Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to UK to be discussed by Jim Murphy’
- The Scottish Secretary is in Rome to hold talks with senior Vatican officials
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/133133-pope-benedict-xvis-visit-to-uk-to-be-discussed-by-jim-murphy/
‘MPs to adopt Holyrood expense rules’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/mps-to-adopt-holyrood-expense-rules-1.929063
SeanT
If we were a country, we would basically kick the arse of everyone else in the world at everything ever.
It’s a shame that the EU’s very reason for being is to eliminate as much of that diversity as possible.
On topic (a change is as good as a rest), I wonder if Winnie Ewing would have won the epoch-making Hamilton by-election in 1967 if she had not been the only woman on the ballot paper? Remember, she only won by 1,779 votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_by-election,_1967
15 re credit for businesses (alex)
As banks struggled to shore up their balance sheets, they withdrew loans (or declined to roll them over) from businesses. As a result, jobs are lost, the jobless don’t spend, and even more businesses close.
The government should have guaranteed banks’ commercial loan books so the shops and factories could have stayed open.
Whn politicians and commentators rail at banks for taking too many risks, they miss the point that, paradoxically, it was “safe” behaviour that landed the world in the smelly stuff. Now what we need is banks to resume the riskier loans to businesses.
Patrick @ 5
Do women like voting for men who look they are good dads and dislike voting for men who look like they are all broody and shit at empathy?
I am very much a chap, and I feel more inclined to vote for the good dad/husband.
We all know of men who are empathy free zones and get lots of female interest, but they are hunks.
Do we have any information on whether men will vote more for hotties, or (for Morris Dancer) women in school uniforms?
I suppose it’s only a matter of time before someone suggests that the real reason women candidates have an inbuilt advantage is because they’re statistically less likely to be bald than men.
Sean’s Euro-federalist phase is lasting longer than I expected. Will it be homosexuality next, or radical feminism? If it does carry on for a while longer, I’m sure the penny is bound to finally drop that the independence of ‘North Englandshire’ is not actually inconsistent with the European ideal. Quite the reverse, in fact.
2. Best cars German? have you actually owned one? The AA man will tell you that Mercedes and BMW are notoriously unreliable. The only reliable cars are Japanese.
Soldiers - The Germans said the Australians were the finest fighting troops they met throughout the war. In WW2, the Russians smashed the Germans and the Japanese.
Women - ??? Europeans are not as slim as Asians, or as elegant as Russians. The joke always was - what do you call a beautiful woman in London? The answer - a foreigner.
Landscape - British Columbia knocks most of those into a cocked hat.
Architecture - yes Europe has it, but after one thousand years at the game, it bloody well should be the best…but then St Petersburg, Sydney Harbour etc etc.
I don’t think you’ve travelled enough.
As for politics and ethnic troubles, Europe stinks. The only highlight has been the export of the British democratic and legal systems to all corners of the world.
Don’t let Croatian women talk you into destroying what you have.
22 Serf. I am very much a human being and I feel more inclined to vote for one of my own species. I think this includes Cameron. I am far from convinced that Brown is in fact a human being. His emapthy scores and general demeanor and competence suggest some sort of flesh eating weirdo cyborg attack unit with a covering of human skin is more probable. The motor unit in his jaw seems to have a minor defect as does the smiling / grinning function. The calculating engine and OODA Loop module is clearly broken beyond repair..
Best food in the world - nobody’s mentioned Indian yet.
22 Serf
“beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1.5-2 percentage point increase in vote share”.
Intriguingly, the effect turns out to be stronger when applied to male candidates rather than female ones.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article6866849.ece
26. The best food in the world is not transportable, and is fresh. The fruits of Mindanao in the Philippines where Dole and Del Monte etc grow their pineapples, for example, are so delicious you don’t want to touch any man made fare. The variety of fruits is endless, mangoes, pineapple, banana, obviously but cashew fruit (as in nut), guava, tamarind, plus about twenty others no one outside has ever seen, heard of or tasted. Imagine The Garden Of Eden. Europeans get only the minutest glimmer of what’s available where the real fruits and spices grow.
28 Tapestry. I live in Manila and would agree the fresh fruits are great. I was wondering however just what exactly a man made pineapple is?
#29, by Patrick October 28th, 2009 at 7:23 am
28 Tapestry. I live in Manila and would agree the fresh fruits are great. I was wondering however just what exactly a man made pineapple is?
Here’s one. May give you a stomach upset if ingested!
On topic, possibly women candidates do do marginally better but how much of this is due to the disproportionate number of women who (a) go into politics and (b) got through the old selection procedures?
Put simply, a lot more duff to average men got through to the ballot paper for one reason or another than below-par women candidates. As a result, voters who took the trouble to make a personal assessment of the candidates were more likely to pick the woman because she was likely to be better in the first place. I accept that there was some gender preference voting going on as well but suspect that this was broadly neutral overall (the pro- vote from women being cancelled out by the anti- vote from men); the difference came from a non-gender based personal vote pushing the discrepancy in women’s vote higher still and pulling men’s back towards balance.
All this changed with AWS, which introduced far more not very good women into the mix, as well as perhaps producing a backlash because of the discrimination within the selection itself. Even if there is a latent bias to women candidates within the electorate as the poll suggests (and there may well be, though I’m not sure how strong it is), trying to fiddle the selection process to take advantage of that will only work if the candidate selected is herself up to scratch.
29. One of the towers at St. Paul’s cathedral has a man-made pineapple at the summit.
29. Fluffy, that was not a ‘fluffy’ thought.
Patrick, my writing is affected by too many years away from Blighty, gradually deteriorating my command of the language. Man made fare is not the fruits or nature’s fare, but the stuff humans cook and prepare for each other. My explanation was not clear, I would agree.
Are you the old codger I met in the Manila Club?
England does little bits of scenery in neat, bite-sized packages. The Lakes? Pur-lease…just a weekend playground for Mancs and Scousers. The New Forest suffers likewise in the south. Ditto Dartmoor. Nothing at all in the east of Britain. The Yorkshire Moors? Leave it out…
Everywhere in Britain feels like a timeshare. Sutherland is as near an exception as I can think of. But compared to New Zealand - or the Himalayas - even Sutherland feels as wild as a window box.
The rest of Britian is gradually being concreted over. A green and pleasant land? A grey, unpleasant land morelike.
29 Cue the Dunmore Pineapple again!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pineapple.jpg
29. The fruits in Manila are as nothing compared to those in South Cotabato, and Davao. Most don’t travel (the fruits) or last once picked. They are like a secret heaven, with few foreigners ever seeing or tasting them.
34. The things you miss overseas are real ale, uncorruptible, intelligent fools like Iain Hislop and Boris Johnson, and grass court tennis.
Probably unpopular but persecution of MPs must end http://tinyurl.com/ykxtjvw
38. Daily Mash view of Kelly and persecution of MPs.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/mps-’should-be-banned-from-thieving’-200910282174/
24. Best cars German? have you actually owned one? The AA man will tell you that Mercedes and BMW are notoriously unreliable. The only reliable cars are Japanese.
German cars are very reliable and robust but the Japanese are generally even better. They’re also quite soulless (and I say this as someone who had a Nissan and has a Mazda). Every great marque in the world is European.
Soldiers - The Germans said the Australians were the finest fighting troops they met throughout the war. In WW2, the Russians smashed the Germans and the Japanese.
The Germans naturally didn’t include themselves in that study though they’re probably a bit out of practice these days. The Russians did beat the Japanese but at neither end of WWII were their battles of principal importance. While not disputing their bravery, it was numbers, conditions and endurance which won it on the Eastern front. The Aussies are first-class soldiers though.
Women - ??? Europeans are not as slim as Asians, or as elegant as Russians. The joke always was - what do you call a beautiful woman in London? The answer - a foreigner.
Must admit, I was a bit surprised by the inclusion of London, unless Sean’s having a little joke. Russians are European so I’m not giving you that and slimness isn’t everything (nothing at all wrong with a good size 12 or 14).
Landscape - British Columbia knocks most of those into a cocked hat.
True. Not the high Alps though. And Europe has accessibly sublime landscapes.
Architecture - yes Europe has it, but after one thousand years at the game, it bloody well should be the best…but then St Petersburg, Sydney Harbour etc etc.
St. Petersburg was consciously modelled to be Peter the Great’s window on Europe and is absolutely a European city.
I don’t think you’ve travelled enough.
No-one has.
Morning all
Mike
Are there any figures for women’s voting intentions if the candidate is a man, and more importantly on what they base their decision.
37 British cheese is one thing I used to get asked to take out when visiting ex-pats. Too many controls now, post F&M.
Oh, and Roses lime cordial.
40
“Soldiers - The Germans said the Australians were the finest fighting troops they met throughout the war”
Havent got my text books to hand, but wasnt it the NZ and Australian divisions on the right flank that were so crucial at El Alamein?
43 Charles Upham, the only soldier to get the VC with Bar in WW2, was a Kiwi…
re 41 The answer is no - though for an international perspective look at the Hillary campaign for the Democrat nomination last year. That was driven by a disproportionate number of women voters particularly in the older age groups.
44. Marquee Mark - sorry I know its early but as Corporal Jones would say “they don’t like it Upham”.
40. “The Russians did beat the Japanese but at neither end of WWII were their battles of principal importance. ”
Actually the thrashing the Japanese received at Nomonhan/Khalkin Gol in the summer of 1939 is believed to have played a key part in Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 rather than support the German invasion of the Soviet Union. If so, it can hardly be described as unimportant. In any case, I’m surprised the Gurkhas haven’t featured yet in any “best soldiers” discussion. Haven’t they won more VCs than any other regiment?
As for women - always thought Indian girls were prettiest myself, and agree with people who are saying Asian (esp. Chninese) food is much superior to European. As for the rest of it - SeanT is making the classic mistake (much promoted by the EU) of thinking that some idea of Europe can take the credit for anything that happened in the geographical area of Europe. Da Vinci and Michaelangelo would be very surprised to hear themselves described as Europeans for example, and would almost certainly never describe themselves as such. Likewise Bach, Shakespeare, Cervantes…
Jesus wept.
http://order-order.com/2009/10/28/downing-street-biscuitgate-never-happened/
Butler and Kavanagh found that on average, Labour incumbents who were women did 1% worse than the average swing against Labour, in 2005.
But that may be, as David Herdson says, because AWS brought a number of duff MPs into Parliament.
For anybody who does not think Tony Blair is a fit candidate to become el Presidente please consider signing this petition:
http://stopblair.eu/
re 49. And it’s likely that there was a continuing resentment by Labour activists in those constituencies - so they were not prepared to work as hard.
Just look at Blaenau Gwent 2005 where Nye Bevan’s seat went to an independent.
re 50
But what about those who’ve got money on Blair!
Having totally failed over the years to understand female logic and having learned not to try any more, the response to the question of what would make a lady vote for a certain person (apart from their politics) I leave to Plato, Chrstinad and others. Ladies, please emlighten me.
47. A nation is what it thinks it is.
Japanese Grand Strategy in WWII is extremely difficult to unpick as the question that has to be answered is ‘how did they think they could beat the US?’, and if the answer is ‘they didn’t', the supplementary is ‘why then did they start that war?’. Japan was (and is) extremely short of many raw materials and wanted to gain control over their extraction but it’s a big leap from there to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The defeat in 1939 might have pushed Japan’s plans south from Siberia to SE Asia (I can’t honestly remember) but surely the logic that brought it to attack the US would have applied in either case. The occupation of the Phillipines, Guam etc in the southern strategy doesn’t really count as they was only essential if the US was a combatent power.
50 - I signed a similar petition to get Brown to resign, it didn’t work.
55, don’t worry, you’ll have the support of tens of millions at the GE.
Down with Brown! Say No to Balls!
There are over 42000 signatories to the petition to stop Blair so far. Lay off all you Blair backers!
46 Upham was an extraordinary character - more like a figure from The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare than a regular soldier. He used to wander around the battlefield with a big bag of grenades, blowing up machine gun nests and armoured personel carriers (and from memory, even tanks). There were apparently up to six separate occassions where he could have been awarded the VC, but the powers that be thought two was enough.
He had an enduring hatred of Germans. Even when he returned to his sheep farm in NZ, he wouldn’t let a German vehicle on his property.
As you suggest, the Germans didn’t like it Upham!
2 SeanT
I assume you’re off on one again ,but:
Many people love Europe, and the things about it you highlight.
But this is not the same as us all being part of the same country. Why can’t we enjoy the things you mention, freely trade, work and travel between our various countries, but preserve our own laws and foreign policies? The great Europhile fallacy is that Eurosceptics (I.e. EU-sceptics) also dislike Europe and Europeans in general, and only go to Clacton on holiday, and eat egg and chips. Garbage! I love Paris, had a fantastic honeymoon in Rome and Tuscany, inter-raled around the whole of Europe and ha da brilliant time, meeting amazing people. Most of our customers at work are European, and are mainly good people, smart, efficient, professional, good guys to work with.
but join a superstate? Bad idea, for so many reasons - no thanks.
O/T Christina pointed on last thread to a couple of anti-David Miliband stories in Mail and Times. Coincidentally (I’m sure) there is on in the Telegraph as well, a masterly demolition of DM by Stelzer.
Odd that since the story about Mandy backing Milliband there have been so many negative stories about young David, and repeated talk of him taking the EU job.
Back to Stelzer. After hoping Blair doesn’t get the job of resident Irwin then supports Miliband’s candidature for Lord High Rep on the basis he is so lacking in talent that the hopes of the Europhiles for Lisbon will be permanently damaged.
I particularly like his comparison of the First Secretary of State to the Foreign Secretary:
“Lord Mandelson managed to use Brussels as a waystation on the road back to political power in the UK, but he is a skilled politician, highly intelligent, and with substantial administrative talents. Miliband has never been accused of possessing such gifts”. Ouch.”
Like George Osborne did early on (though he seems to have rebuild bridges since) I get the felling that Milliband most upset Irwin by not giving him the respect he believes he deserves:
“In a tone reserved for kindergarten teachers talking to the least bright of their charges, he explained the Lisbon Treaty to me, arguing that it was in no way related to the constitution that had failed to win the necessary backing of Europe’s citizens. He was, of course, wrong, both in tone and substance.
Shortly afterwards, Miliband had a meeting with some members of the press. Usually calm men and women emerged enraged at having been talked down to by a man who seemed to know less about foreign policy than they did.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/6450928/Opponents-of-the-Lisbon-Treaty-should-back-David-Miliband.html
47
I’m not sure, but I think the Sikhs are contenders, colonial soldiers only qualified post 1912.
http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Victoria_Cross
54
If you get hold of a copy of, ‘The Oxford Companion to the Second World War’ there is a concise description of the Japanese Strategy, if you can call it that.
59. But ‘we’ would nearly always win the World Cup
Wasn’t Zhukov the Soviet commander against the Japanese in 1939?
If so the Japanese can consider themselves unfortunate that they had to face one of the few competant Soviet generals at that time.
Now if they had instead up against one of Stalin’s creatures such as Budyenny they could well have won which might have made their decison in 1941 different.
Good Morning European Presidential Voters For Nick Palmer Worldwide
Meanwhile …. Goupillon @ 57. Only 42,000 !! …. Is that all ?!?!
Nah …. Back Blair For Europe …. Help replenish Jack W’s wine cellar - a most worthy cause !!
Ted,
it does rather look as though Labour either goes into the election with Brown, or else tears itself to bits in the search for his successor. Plenty of ammunition there for the Tories to use against Miliband. I dare say that similar demolitions will be undertaken against Johnson next.
If the Tory Party had been given a limitless budget to plan the route to the next election, and a free hand to place demolition charges wherever it wanted, it could have done no better a job than Labour is now performing for them, gratis.
Ted - Interesting stuff, but I would beware taking school of McBride as a reliable source on Miliband. I don’t think Miliband is leadership material, but I take these anecdotes with a pinch of brown salt. If he’s good for nothing else the Brown exocet machine is swift and savage - at least when it comes to destroying his own team.
60, Stelzer’s insolence in thus attacking our glorious Foreign Scretary is breathtaking. Why, from Peking to Petrograd, Byzantium to Rio De Janeiro, all praise the wisdom of Milipede!
On Topi.
I’m sure theres a motivation to “even up” representation and that would be stronger amongst older women who’ve lived through times where there has been tiny numbers in Parliament.
Whether this effect would die off if Parliament ever approached roughly equal, or perceived fair levels of representation is anyones guess.
Is there any evidence from Ireland?
I suspect that a multi member STV system would be the easiest to show an increase in votes for female candidates, which as Mike says is often exhibited in multi member council wards (low turnouts particularly would emphasise the effect as older women are I suspect much more likely to vote in Council Elections)
Off course in an EU superstate Europe would end up with:
Food - Glasgow
Scenery - Holland
Cars - Trabbant
Architecture - Romania
Women - Barnsley
University - Bulgaria
Army - Luxemburg
40 - David.
I won’t regard it as too serious a knock for the EU that German Soldiers are out of practice.
That was the whole point
69.
59
I agree entirely. I am a case in point. An ardent anti-EU activist who spends all his working time in other countries both inside and outside the EU, can speak both French and Norwegian and whose best friend (and godfather to my kids) is Dutch.
I love Europe. I would happily spend half my life wandering round it and can come up with a lot more serious good things about Europe than SeanT did in his list. But I detest the EU in all its forms, works and aspirations. The EU and Europe are not the same thing and many of us hate the EU precisely because of what it is doing not just to our country but to the rest of Europe as well.
Voting women into Parliament is not the issue - the problem is finding women of Cabinet calibre prepared to do the job. In the last 60 years - how many? Two - MT and Barbara Castle. Labour boasts that a quarter of their MPs are women and not a single one has been of any use to them.Filling the back benches with cannon fodder is pointless, far more important to find candidates, m. or f., who will be of some use. Women with MT’s strength don’t want to be involved with politics, and who can blame them?
O/T.
Here is a Pricewise on LD Seats.
. 21-5 Betfair
Book of 103.4%
Something for everyone to look at here.The effective Spread is 50-52.
Meanwhile on Women, I see that Norfolk South West Conservative Association has learnt some media handling of gender issues from the South African Athletic Association.
Morning all but look at some of the women we have suffered because of it.
Jacqui smith
Harriet Harman
Mrs Ed Balls
Mrs David Mills
Lady Winterton
among others. The best candidate should be elected regardless of gender but if the slight bias means we get some of the hopefully decent new Tory women then great, as long as they are elected on merit and not because they wear crocodile skin shoes or have a big cleavage or any of the other reasons men use to “have a go”.
Ooops ! Something went badly wrong there.
Here is a Pricewise on LD Seats.
39or less. 5-1 Bet365
40-49. 7-2 General
50-59. 11-4 Betfred
60-64. 42-5 Betfair
65-69. 115-10 Betfair
70 or more . 21-5 Betfair
Book of 103.4%
Something for everyone to look at here.The effective Spread is 50-52.
On thread, Mike is certainly correct. There are women who vote for other women, almost regardless.
And, I’m sure the data exists to prove it. A statistical analysis of large numbers of local or general elections should see a slightly better performance by female as opposed to male candidates.
It is an interesting effect that I haven’t seen much discussed by parties. And — it raises the question — are the other such effects on the margins?
For example, do better looking candidates (m or f) get a mild polling boost? Is it really true that local candidates get a mild polling boost?
#63, by another richard October 28th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Wasn’t Zhukov the Soviet commander against the Japanese in 1939?
If so the Japanese can consider themselves unfortunate that they had to face one of the few
competantstill breathing Soviet generals at that time.Edited for correction. Any observer of the “Battlefield” series would recognise the point re. the Finnish War.
In response to Sean’s point at 2 - yes, but that’s all true anyway without needing any sort of political union. If Europe were a country it would also boast the worst government in the developed world.
Just because I like things about the continent of Europe doesn’t mean I want to embark on some half-baked political unification project. Equally, just because I like Scotland doesn’t mean I’ll be any the poorer if the Scots want to govern themselves. Unless, of course, they decide to close the border. Which I’m confident even the prickliest of Nats isn’t going to do.
On thread - so electorally, the answer is to have women candidates but not AWSs. Tricky.
Watching proceedings in the HoL on bbc parliament, it strikes me that the Old Girls are in a totally different league to the Old Boys, some of the latter being well past their sell-by date.
The Young Girls are pretty good as well.
69. And EU Presidents will be a series of failed Labour Prime Ministers.
63. Yes, it was Zhukov’s first big victory. And yes, a Japanese victory that encouraged them to solve their resource problems in 1941 by attacking into Siberia would have been unfortunate. I doubt they would have got very far, but the Siberian reinforcements that won the Battle of Moscow in winter 1941-42 almost certainly would not have been available. Not to mention the fact that the USA almost certainly wouldn’t be able to join the war until well into 1942…
79 And, at the risk of incurring the wrath of OGH, do male candidates with a full head of luxuriant hair get a mild polling boost?
#73, by Svejk October 28th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Voting women into Parliament is not the issue - the problem is finding women of Cabinet calibre prepared to do the job. In the last 60 years - how many? Two - MT and Barbara Castle. Labour boasts that a quarter of their MPs are women and not a single one has been of any use to them. Filling the back benches with cannon fodder is pointless, far more important to find candidates, m. or f., who will be of some use. Women with MT’s strength don’t want to be involved with politics, and who can blame them?
Au contraire*: I am sure Tessa Jowell’s connections to Silvio was a benefit to Tony’s watch collection. A bunch of crooks the lot-of-them!
* [sp?] Bloody French!
2- what have you done with SeanT???
4- proof that sexism isn’t dead?
Off topic, I have compiled the best prices for constituencies across the various bookies (the best betting page linked to on this page being out of date). Should I post this table on pb2?
There are at present thirteen constituencies with an underround: Birmingham Hall Green, Birmingham Northfield, Birmingham Selly Oak, Dunfermline & West Fife, Eastbourne, Middlesbrough South & Cleveland, Norwich South, Oxford East, Reading West, Richmond Park, Westmorland & Lonsdale, Wiltshire North and York Outer.
84
The reason the Russians were able to reinforce from the East, were of course due to this man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sorge
87, some women rather enjoy sexism when it works to their advantage.
I have also noticed a substantial benefit at local elections for young candidates, and especially young women candidates.
Did anyone else have trouble logging on here, last night and this morning ?
I have a female friend who was persuaded to stand to ensure there was a LD presence in a local election some years back, didnt leaflet didnt canvass and still got several hundred votes.
SeanT - “Cambridge, UCL, Oxford, Imperial, LSE.”
I think you meant to say
“Oxford, UCL, Imperial, LSE, Manchester.”
For example, do better looking candidates (m or f) get a mild polling boost? Is it really true that local candidates get a mild polling boost?
The problem with “local” of course (as, I suppose with “good looking”) is it is in the eye of the beholder. At extreme levels - lives in town represented vs lives 15 miles away, it will make a difference for Council candidates, but in same town half a mile outside ward boundaries makes v little difference at all. At Parl level, a demonstration of “connection” whether living, working, having helped the area in some way, or generally being able to prove an active prior interest unconnected with the desire to get elected, will give candidates some kudos. Often it is a case of degree, and electors will try to judge between competing claims of localness.
93 MTF. You have friends of the yellow peril persuasion. Clearly you are unsound !! Change your monicker at once !!
Meanwhile …. 5Live has changed its debate topic to “President Blair ??”
88 - Antifrank.
Have you come across an online overround calculator that works on mobiles?
90 A lot of male politicians are useless because they were wrongly selected in the first place i.e trade union officials, ****masons or some other plain awful (John Prescott) so a female candidate is by default preferable.
I do think AWS will attract more women to vote (possibly against the AWS candiates!!)
It would be interesting to see what happens if BME only shortlists start, after all Labour are the main drivers of diversity.
Does anyone have any betting on when the UK has its first BME Prime Minister?
Tim, I’m afraid not. I do it manually, as it happens, which helps me see if there is a practical underround, discounting certain candidates, as well as a theoretical underround.
73 AWS (Svejk)
“Filling the back benches with cannon fodder is pointless”
I rather suspect that for Cameron as for Blair, lobby fodder is preferred to free thinkers, aka rebels.
Does anyone have the figures showing whether male or female MPs are more likely to defy the whips?
Listening to Andrew Pierce on Today made me want to give MP’s money to buy five houses and pay for chauffer driven cars.
Surely, judging by the table shown at the top, the answer here is not imposing AWS on constituencies (which does appear to be counter productive) but educating the local associations so they understand that they stand a better chance of getting their candidate elected if they are a woman. A net increase in the vote of 4% as a result has got to be something worth considering seriously.
Any markets on who is going to buy the good bits of Northern Rock?
Tesco Bank is to create 1,000 jobs in Newcastle with the opening of a new customer service centre.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/8329275.stm
88 antifrank - Yes please!
seanT’s list of european superlatives is only relevant becasue Europe is diversified and automonous within its boundaries .Something that the EU will go against and create a more ‘uniform’ continent.
So the list is more of an argument against the EU than for it.
BTW I agree with many things on the list but for scenary in general places like South Africa and Canada easily beat most of the items listed by SeanT
One advantage enjoyed by attractive female candidates is that when they speak, a lot of men will have no idea what they are saying, as their minds are elsewhere So the man comes away with a positive impression of the candidate, even if she was talking nonsense or advocating policies he disagrees with.
Just like watching the BBC news on a Sunday evening.
Having been involved in AWS before I think the effect is more likely felt with the moral of the activists who may take exception to an imposition, rather than any gender issue.
17. Who pays the costs for Cardinal Rat’s visit ? The Scottish executive ? HMG ? The cash strapped Vatican ?
Devizes Conservative Shortlist
Victoria Atkins (a London barrister, grew up in North West, shortlisted in Macclesfield)
Paul Hearn
Claire Perry (works for George Osborne as political advisor)
Jeremy Quin (stood in Meirionnydd Nant Conwy in 1997)
Nadhim Zahawi (Yougov CEO, former Wandsworth councillor, Archer’s campaign manager in the mayoral bid, stood in Erith & Thamesmead in 1997)
Zehra Zaidi (2009 SW Euro candidate, from Gloucestershire)
110 surely one of the few seats in the country that contains a ‘Z’ (and others?)the candidate has to be Zehra Zaidi!!
Yes please,antifrank.
110.
Is there room for a late arrival from Liz Truss?
There was a comment in the Lynne News the other day from a local Norfolk Tory bigwig: “Do they think we’re stupid here?”. This is a question which would seem to need no answering.
OT
Faith schools could be outlawed after Jewish test case, says Balls
http://tinyurl.com/ylkoyu3
Long overdue, taxpayer funds going in to promoting fairies at the bottom of the garden, enough already.
113 It is Lynn, not Lynne.
Not that we think you are stupid
2. Sean T. You missed the best fashion the best advertising and the best TV commercials but otherwise it’s mostly all there. Must have been ‘quiz night’ at Grouchos!
@113:
Why is everybody picking on Norfolk?
There’s nothing wrong with being toothless simpletons.
27.
“beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1.5-2 percentage point increase in vote share…. the effect turns out to be stronger when applied to male candidates rather than female ones.”
So either Norman Lamb was very very beautiful….or Iain Dale got hoisted by being the wrong end of the standard deviation?
115.
Surely, polyester poster, the last three words of you posting were redundant?
I obviously got confused by the wide variety of Lizzes.
117 indeed there is not, hence why we do not object to you toothless simpletons taing the mickey out of Norfolk. Jealousy is perfectly understandable.
105, 112 - Happy to oblige. It may take a little time formatting it, so be patient with me!
@120:
Oh my. Looks like the Nor-folk have mastered elementary wit.
119 I would not sugges tthose three words were (or are) redundant. There are those that might suggest the words in question are tautological, but I would not be so uncharitable.
28. The fruits of Mindanao in the Philippines where Dole and Del Monte etc grow their pineapples, for example, are so delicious you don’t want to touch any man made fare.
Sorry but the preciousness of this remark and many others like it in this thread are making me laugh out loud and getting me odd looks from my co-workers.
Oh God, Tarquin, the seafood! It’s just to die for, darling!
LOL.
Reminds me of when I was a holiday rep drinking with others in Austria in ‘97. Someone said OK, notwithstanding all the available top-class totty, the cheap beer, the free food, the scenery, and the negligible workload, is there anything you miss about UK?
Someone said, Yeah, I really miss the sushi.
Cue howls of derision. 12 years on he’s still known as “sushi”.
And that’s this thread that is.
122 armed and dangerous and in your house.
88 Yes please, Antifrank
I followed your advice yesterday and lumped on LDs in Oxford East and Westmoreland.
Many thanks.
Enjoyable thread, helped by SeanT’s provocation. I’d add a point based on my 35 years on the Continent: Europeans are less different from each other than most of them think they are. Without getting into the virtues and defects of the EU, the basis for common decision-making is there, since there are large overlaps in what people care/worry most about (in a way that isn’t true if you compare the UK and the US, for instance - and I’m not saying that because I don’t like the US).
Meanwhile, an interesting bit of research here appearing to show that *all* the major Tory bloggers are unconvinced of the climate change argument close to Cameron’s heart:
http://www.nextleft.org/2009/10/help-can-anyone-find-tory-blogger-who.html?utm_source=Left+Foot+Forward+List&utm_campaign=c30984d1b9-Left_Foot_Forward8_18_2009&utm_medium=email
Finally, an update on Kelly/Legg: the reported 5-year phase-in period will probably appease most MPs: those who really dislike the new rules can simply stand down next time. I do feel sorry for the MPs who took advice that renting from a relative at below market rate was OK (since it saved the taxpayer money) and are now being asked by Legg to cough up 50 grand - this seems different from the cunning wheeze arrangements and where they can show it was approved I’d be inclined to let them off.
113. Truss was actually in Esher & Walton final too. I guess they inserted a reserve after the Norfolk SW result was announced.
And yes, we think they are stupid. The info was out there. They just needed to google the names of the people they had on the shortlist (or are they too old and don’t use internet yet?).
It was hardly a skeleton hidden in her closet as the doors were widely open. They can’t pretend she was going around with a “I had sex with Mark Field MP…Mark, not old Frank, Field, mind you” bedge.
It’s not her fault if they don’t look over their village’s corners.
And it seems they had not discovered her LD days yet.
89. Only up to a point. Sorge revealed to Stalin that the Japanese had no plans to attack into Siberia, thereby allowing the Soviets to shift troops to Moscow. However the reason the Japanese had no plans to attack was in large part to do with Zhukov’s victory at Nomonhan.
Sorge’s action was nevertheless one of the key moments in the allied victory in WW2, and certainly in the Soviet Union’s part in that victory. It is therefore a small but highly symbolic measure of the squalid evil that was Stalin that, when Sorge was arrested by the Japanese, Stalin allowed him to be tortured and executed rather than request he be sent to the Soviet Union. A request which the Japanese would almost certainly have granted given how desperate they were to avoid upsetting the Soviet Union at that point. He was of no more use to Stalin, and therefore there was no reason to go even so far as picking up a phone in order to save his life. And there are people around (including regular contributors to this board) who are admirers of this man:-/
Frankly I think we are much more critical of other women, so a weakish female candidate would put me right off - where it wouldn’t register so much if it were a bloke [I'd kind of expect them to be AN Other].
Female candidates by their novelty are bound to stand out so this may also be a factor, rather like name recognition.
I’d vote for Cloe Smith, I would vote for Nadine [although I think she's has very strong views that I disagree with], I’d vote for Harperson/Hoey [ditto].
I wouldn’t vote for Jacquie Smith or any of those on-message robots at any of the conferences. There is also something about hard faced women that gives me the creeps - Flint is a prime example.
So, all in all - women candidates would have to come across as human, articulate, not too hard-looking or desperate. How’s that for being shallow
@127:
I’m very glad that the Tory blogosphere understand what the assembled left idiocracy don’t, that belief has no place in science, and that scepticism is fundamental to scientific enquiry.
128. Lets hope she didn’t wear an Ipswich strip in bed.
88. Antifrank - why do you think Westmoreland is good value? In the 2005 GE the Tories were a close second?
110 - A prospective candidate with “Archer’s campaign manager in the mayoral bid,”.
Excellent.
130. It amounts to saying they’d have to look biddable and a bit foxy. These are the kind of wimmin I like, too.
I’m 100% sure Batty Hatty is pretty sub in the bedroom. It is highly likely she likes to be bossed about by Jack who, for maximum arousal effect, must be in want of a bath.
@134:
Be fair to the man. Archer’s campaign was well-fought. It was the candidate that was dodgy.
135. Pass the mind bleach.
130 “How’s that for being shallow?”
Perfectly alligned with the electorate!
I like female candidates who are assertive, school-marmish, and have enormous bosoms.
139. Nigella Lawson?
The EDM against Blair as EU President has been signed by 5 Labour MPs so far. No surprises, all usual suspects: Peter Kilfoyle, John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn, Frank Cook and David Drew.
Some local associations - all parties - sometimes become so entrenched, so static, so passed it, that they become an oligarchy and need educating back to democratic ways with the metaphorical brick.
Anne McEvoy on more Miliband succession stuff.
And this
Having earlier declared they were “relaxed” at the prospect of President Blair, they have become near-hysterical in their opposition to a Tony revival, signalling that support for it would be seen as a “hostile act”.
That shift has been driven largely by William Hague and Liam Fox, a powerful new alliance in shadow cabinet, who have convinced David Cameron that he has a lot to lose from having an old PM as king across the water.
That Mr Cameron has taken this bait shows how scared of Mr Blair the New Tories still are and how edgy the leadership is about the prospect of him casting a long shadow from Brussels.
Mr Cameron knows his own European position is a terrible muddle. Lord Heseltine quite rightly points out that positioning the Tories as a party of protest in the EU is a short-term strategy and will have to be adjusted once they are in power.
Is a new leader with a lot on his plate at home and a war in Afghanistan to manage really going to sit around unpicking clauses in the Lisbon Treaty?
The Tory leader thus risks ending up in the odd position, as a man who used to boast of being the “heir to Blair”, of campaigning against a centre-Right (in EU terms), pro-market candidate who is more likely to take a sympathetic view of his government’s position on many key issues of the day than anyone else in the race.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23761563-the-blairites-are-back—and-they-want-to-run-europe.do
On the point of ‘good looking men’ [the last one I can think of was Piers Merchant], do they get a higher vote because women are more likely to vote?
If I had a good looking candidate - I’d be more motivated to vote.
And Norman Lamb must have a Svengali like effect on his constituents.
@142:
This is why we need *proper* open primaries. Allow the electorate to completely bypass these roadblocks to democracy.
New thread
re 144. “And Norman Lamb must have a Svengali like effect on his constituents.”
So that’s how Iain Dale converted a Lib Dem majority of a few hundred in North Norfolk into one of 10,000+?
‘Ahern: Scotland on its own would do very well’
by Stuart Dickson October 28th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Probably almost as well as that economic power house that is the Irish Republic.
An excellent example for Scotland to ponder.
Small enough to be lent on by the Eurocracy to do what they are told when they are told, and to be insignificant enough to be unable to demand delivery of the promised inadequate help offered in return.
145 Agreed - I feel *really* sorry for Truss - being humiliated by the Mail once is bad enough, but to be hanged twice for titilation purposes is so unfair.
CCHQ are in a bit of a bind - the local association big-mouths have made it plain that they don’t want her - she has no hope of ever being the ‘right’ person.
If CCHQ overrule them and she gets in - everytime she does *anything* her enemies don’t like, it’ll be all ’she’s not liked by her colleagues/she doesn’t do enough in the constituency/she doesn’t understand Norfolk etc etc.
Nasty, whispering campaign tactics